The benefits of friendship are well-researched. Folks with close connections live longer, are happier, and get sick less often.

However, there’s another less talked about benefit specifically for females: women with an inner circle of close female contacts end up 2.5x times higher in pay and authority than women who do not have close female friends. In other words, your Galentines are also helping you get promoted and paid.

This insight comes from Brian Uzzi, Yang Yang and Nitesh V. Chawla, who analyzed 4.5 million emails to reach their conclusion.

Why does having a close inner network of other women matter to your success?  The authors hypothesize it’s because of information exchange: “This inner circle likely provides critical private information on job opportunities and challenges. This private information might be about whether a firm has equal advancement opportunities for men and women, or whether an interviewer might ask about plans to start a family and the best way to respond.”

From my own experience, I’m guessing this is a yes and.

Yes, other women provide information AND ALSO provide plain old-fashioned support.

“Behind every successful woman is a text chain holding her up.”

We need other women to help us pick ourselves back up when sh*t hits the fan. The workforce continues to ignore the additional 21 hours of unpaid labor we do weekly; we were up from 1-3am with a sick kid AND your arsehole colleague thinks now is a good time to comment on the fact that you look tired and maybe he should present this afternoon’s update to the Executive Board instead?

No matter how incredible you are, the workplace wasn’t built for us, and there are moments of gaslighting where we need our gals* to help us ignore the noise.

We also need a place to celebrate our wins. One of my gals recently earned a huge promotion. She texted us and then noted, “It’s weird how careful I have to be about who I celebrate this with.” The world can have mixed feelings about successful women (research shows we are 3x more likely to be trolled than our male counterparts) and it’s nice to have gals you know are genuinely happy for you. 🍾🍾

*The research points to women needing an inner circle of other women, but in my personal experience, ‘gals’ is a gender-neutral role – it’s someone whom you trust, and who you can be honest with, regardless of gender.