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Happy Galentine's Day: Having Close Female Friends Could Get You A Better Job

Jennifer Weingart
/
WVPE Public Radio

 

Wednesday is a little known, and incredibly unofficial holiday--Galentine’s Day. It’s a day to celebrate female friendships. Research out of Notre Dame shows having these female friendships could give you a leg up at work.

Galentine’s Day is not really a real holiday. It was popularized by Amy Poehler’s character, Leslie Knope, on the NBC TV comedy "Parks and Recreation". But the day is meant to be a celebration of female friendship.

At the University of Notre Dame researcher and professor Nitesh Chawla has never heard of Galentine’s Day, but his research shows having strong female friendships can help women get ahead at work.

“The women who had a higher placed job on graduation had a distinct inner circle. And that distinct inner circle, they were connected to included at least two other women and then through that inner circle they had a broader wider network of non-overlapping contacts.”

Chawla studied graduates of competitive MBA programs and found that men did best with just a broad network of contacts, but women did better with the broad network and a trusted female-dominated inner circle.

Chawla says industries should use the research to help women connect with other women as friends and mentors to help diversify the executive ranks within companies.

Happy Galentine’s Day.