Are female-to-female friendships more fragile?

This was a somewhat interesting / surprising study that popped up in the news in February. (Can I use this study to justify being cantankerous?)

Contrary to the nurturing images of sisterhood put forth by chick flicks, female friendships can be a ticking time bomb of fickleness and judgment, according to results of a study in the journal Psychological Science.

Traditional views hold that women are more socially co-operative than men, but researchers from the Universite du Quebec at Montreal, Harvard University and Emmanuel College in Boston found female same-sex friendships are significantly less tolerant, more volatile, and likelier to degrade based on a single negative incident than male same-sex friendships.

The study's authors conclude that the deep emotional investment often thought to make women's bonds stronger is often their undoing.

"It's lovely (for women) to think, ‘We care more about relationships, so we hold friends to higher standards,' " says lead author Joyce Benenson, who works in Harvard's department of biological anthropology.

"But the practical ramifications are that we can't do the slightest thing wrong . . . And if we can't care for somebody who screws up, that makes our position on friendship very precarious."

Source: Canwest News