Kate on why a strong network of women matters for individual and collective health

We met in the middle. Kate rushed over from her busy and tough job and her wild and free existence in Point Douglas; I snuck away from my baby, my toy-filled, dog and cat-filled family house in the west end. We drank wine overlooking Portage Avenue while Kate ripped confidently through my interview. I love her, Kate. She's intense, she's so bright, she's figuring-it-out.

1.     Tell me three things about you.

I live in Point Douglas.

I strongly love the land between Minnedosa and Riding Mountain National Park.

I have two brothers that I love a lot.

2.     Give me three words to describe you.

Intense. Bright. Figuring-it-out.

3.     Growing up, who were important women in your life and why?

My auntie Donna, because she really had a different life than a lot of the adult women that I knew growing up and I was really interested in her.

My mom, obviously, because she really loved her kids a lot. She really made us a priority, like moms do, overtop of whatever she wanted.

I’ve known a lot of elderly, middle-aged women who took an interest in me and took me seriously as a human being.

4.     Describe your relationship with other females in junior high and high school.

I was lucky to have a lot of friends, but I don’t know that I felt that way at that time. That’s a really hard time, when you don’t know what the social rules are, and relationships are so fraught with whether you do things the right way or the wrong way. I don’t remember high school being amazing, but I did have some very rich times.

5.     What is one of your first memories of noticing friendships between women?

The friendships I had in elementary school, and with kids down the street. I remember feeling much more at home hanging out with boys than girls and feeling rather suspicious about girls. It was simpler. There were more rules that could be broken with girls. But I do remember a few girls that I really wanted to spend time with and felt totally at ease with, which I think is lucky.

6.     How did you come to be part of a strong network of women?

Looking for it. And actively building it on purpose, because I needed it. It came out of my needs with work. I needed help, and the people I got help from happened to be in the same job I was in. It’s that network of people that has spread out more, and is very solid.

7.     Tell me about these women.

We’re all so fucking weird and great and just willing to do great things for one another and willing to be goofy and willing to put up with each others’ shit and willing to let each person be the way they are which is really different from one another. There’s a strong value of health, but health in moderation. A very liberal view of whatever health means.

8.     How different would life be without them?

Boring. Lonely. Suburban. Limited. And maybe not so real.

9.     What supports your connection with other women friends?

Love. Because I want to see them all the time. Maybe that’s true for them, maybe not, but that’s why I spend so much time in the west end. We are a mutually supportive group of people who are there, in part, to help each other out. These relationships are as practical as they are romantic and goofy and kitchy. I would spend a lot of money on a psychologist or more astronomy if I didn’t have this group of people. There’s an active purpose for why we see each other.

10. How do some women find themselves without this kind of network?

Yeah, that happens a lot. That’s so fucking depressing. People being lonely and alone is a product of how we are more properly organized. We’re organized to have a relationship with TLC television shows, IKEA, and Club Monaco, and our lawns and the foundations of our houses. We’re not really set up to encourage loving networks of support, unless we really make it a priority. And even then it’s really hard. I don’t have kids or a house, it’s really easy for me to go and spend time with people.

11. What’s unique about female friendship?

I don’t know because I don’t have a penis.

12. What is difficult about female friendship?

Nothing?

13. What could we learn from other cultures or groups who do female friendship well?

There’s a group of women in France who saw themselves in the future being old and not necessarily able to be taken care of by young people or the state and organized a co-op of intergenerational women who collectivized taking care of each other, and to reduce isolation. The purposeful thinking ahead is smart and maybe is happening here. There are those of us who aren’t married and without kids who that could be really useful for.

14. What’s got in the way of you connecting with other women at times? What was the impact on your health?

My own lack of self-confidence and inability to be myself regardless of what I thought the other person was thinking of me. The impact of that was a nervous breakdown and longterm depression.

15. What would you guess has been the impact of being part of a community of women on your own health?

Oh my god. 80% more wellness than otherwise.

16. What are some fun times you’ve had with female friends recently?

My friend Sue held a stuff swap which is a bunch of women stripping and exchanging and fighting over clothes with games that Sue made up. It was all about people not taking themselves seriously.

17. What’s the wildest time you’ve ever had with female friends?

I have had depression. I have had depression in a very public way in that it incurred life choices that are way off the map. Some of this group visited me very far away during this time, and have been open to the whole process of figuring it out. Folks were in the shit with me. And folks who were newer were open to being in the shit and had their own stories. I live a life that is kind of weird according to what is normal. Lots of us in this group do. Lots of those iterations are actually celebrated and unhidden and new iterations in individual humans are also celebrated. Which is spectacular, because groups can be static. And when I say group, it’s fluid, there’s not just 8 people.

18. Can you summarize your thoughts on how a strong network of women does impact individual and collective health?

We are meant to be connected. We are organisms on this planet. We would love to be separated but that’s impossible. It’s okay for people to be introverts, and I am that a lot of the time, but we need faces and we need touch and we need laughter and we need to be able to notice things with other people, whether it’s what’s happening in nature, with our families, or with ourselves. It’s nice when you can get to know people over a long period of time. There’s something about people seeing your shit that is good.

19. Talk to me about pranks.

I love pranks I’m way better at planning them than receiving them, I get a bit snobby. Why aren’t there more pranks? We should be having way more fun at each other’s expense and so I think there should be more pranks.

20. At the end of your life, where/who/how will you be, thanks to being connected with a strong network of women?

I’ll be very happy. Very fulfilled. I’ll feel really lucky. If that’s all that happens, it’s great.