Women’s friendships get the spotlight on Sunday, August 1, 2027, National Girlfriends Day. The name can confuse people, so it helps to start with the word itself.
When Is National Girlfriends Day?
Every August 1. No person or group has a documented claim to starting it.
The Word and the Research Behind the Day
Merriam-Webster’s first meaning for “girlfriend” is simply “a female friend.” The dictionary dates that sense to 1859 and lists the romantic meaning second.
Tend and befriend
Research on women’s friendships got a jolt in 2000. UCLA psychologist Shelley Taylor and five colleagues pointed out in Psychological Review that most stress studies had used male subjects.
The UCLA team argued that fight-or-flight doesn’t fully describe how females respond to stress. Instead, it proposed “tend-and-befriend,” which means protecting offspring and building social networks that offer support.
Evolution shaped that pattern, the 2000 paper argued. Females have carried more of the burden of pregnancy and nursing, so fighting or fleeing could put their young at risk.
Under stress, the Psychological Review authors wrote, women are more likely than men to seek and give social support, especially with other women. Friend groups aren’t always calm, though, since they can also breed conflict.
Taylor’s group was careful about the biology. The hormone oxytocin may sit at the core of the response, but its role was a credible hypothesis, “not definitively established.”
They also admitted the case rested on rodent and primate work as well as human studies, which required big inferential leaps.
How women keep in touch now
Pew Research Center surveyed 6,204 U.S. adults in September 2024. About 81% had at least one close friend, and men and women were about equally likely to have one.
Differences showed up in contact. Among people with a close friend, 66% of women texted that friend at least a few times a week, compared with 56% of men.
On social media, women led 45% to 33%. They also led on phone or video calls, 38% to 32%, while men were slightly ahead on in-person visits.
Overall, 77% of women kept in touch in at least one of these ways a few times a week. For men, the figure was 70%.
Why Women’s Friendships Get Their Own Day
Friends carry real weight for women. In the same Pew survey, 54% of women said they’d be extremely or very likely to turn to a friend for emotional support.
Only 38% of men said the same. That puts friends level with mothers for women, who were just as likely, at 54%, to turn to their mom.
Loneliness is common, too. Some 16% of all adults said they feel lonely all or most of the time.
Ways to Thank Your Girlfriends
- Send a text today, the most common way women in Pew’s survey keep up with close friends.
- Pick up the phone instead, since fewer women call or video chat a close friend each week than text one.
- Plan an in-person visit, the one kind of contact where women trailed men.
- Tell the friend you’d lean on in a hard week that she’s that person.
- Read Taylor’s 2000 paper, posted free on her UCLA lab’s website, and share the tend-and-befriend idea.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is National Girlfriends Day about dating?
It can be read either way. This page follows the dictionary’s first meaning, a female friend.
Where else do women turn for emotional support?
Other relatives and professionals. Pew found 44% of women would turn to a family member other than a parent or partner, and 22% to a mental health professional.
What share of adults have no close friends?
About 18%, Pew found. Some 64% have more than one.
Did the tend-and-befriend paper look at brain chemistry?
Citing earlier work, it noted that blocking opioids with the drug naltrexone cut the time women spent with friends.