Good Talk, Good Times: It Must Be Girls’ Night Out

A group of attractive, well-dressed women commands a table at a hip, hot Los Angeles restaurant, the kind of place where waiters sport ponytails and assume you want imported mineral water.

The women’s conversation turns from politics to the men in their lives to the environment to the horrors of control-top panty hose to sexual harassment in the workplace. It’s Girls’ Night Out, 1991.

The long-standing tradition of women getting together has lately taken a new spin. It’s common these days to see groups of women out at restaurants, bars, art galleries, spas, nightclubs and even campgrounds. They congregate not because their mates are having Boys’ Night Out, or because they’re dateless or on a manhunt, but because they enjoy each other’s company.

These all-female outings have become chic, thanks to the much-chronicled escapades of Madonna and Sandra Bernhard and the Beauty Pack of top cover models Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington , often photographed out together at glamorous parties and nightclubs.

“I think it’s an amazing thing when women get together,” says author and playwright Cynthia Heimel, whose newest book, “If You Can’t Live Without Me, Why Aren’t You Dead Yet?,” comes out this month.

“The other day I was out with a bunch of female friends and we went careening around L. A. egging each other on, being funnier and funnier,” says Heimel. “Then one had to go on a blind date and she became completely suicidal. She said she would really rather stay with us.

“We share experiences not in any formal way, like group therapy,” she adds, “but we really do heal each other. You don’t feel like such a big dork when you find out you’re not the only one who curls up into a fetal ball when a guy you don’t even like doesn’t call you. . . . Even at the end of one dinner, I can start feeling the strength bubbling up in me. I feel somewhat powerful and sane and even slightly attractive.”

Unconditional support and understanding are byproducts of Girls’ Night Out, which are usually free of any agendas. Some women describe GNO as a chance to be more adventurous; others say it’s an oasis from life’s stresses and one of the few times they can be completely honest and open. Some say they’re closer to their girlfriends than their sisters, or that their GNO groups have become a surrogate family.

Author and cartoonist Mimi Pond, who moved here with her husband, Wayne White, a production designer, about a year ago, has written a script for “The Simpsons” and is looking for other projects.

She says the frustrations of work in the entertainment industry was one topic at a recent Girls’ Night Out session.

“It was nice finding out that my feelings were valid,” she says, “that it’s not just me. It’s reassuring. My husband can sort of sympathize, but he’ll say, ‘Well, what did you expect? This is the way it is.’ With other women, we’re more prone to really sympathize.”

Prudence Baird, Carine Fabius, Madelyn Fenton and Karine Joret have been holding GNOs at various L. A. restaurants for about a year, occasionally adding and subtracting members. The four, all in their 30s, met through business, but soon discovered they got along as friends, too.

“Once we realized we had this energy between us,” says Baird, a senior vice president for Edelman Worldwide, a public relations firm, “we said we will always be completely honest with each other, we will never cancel this for a man and that we’d meet at least once every six weeks.”

Honesty is a priority among the four. Says Baird, “It’s not group therapy, but it’s also not just for fun. We all realize on some level that a healthy dose of honesty is better than a chorus of sympathetic mumblings. That doesn’t help anyone. What helps us is to have a mirror held up to us. And the mirror has no judgment and no negativity.”

“There is implicit support that comes collectively from the group, which is stronger than if you were to call four girlfriends separately,” says Fenton, director of marketing for AMC Theatres. “In a group, it’s exponentially magnified.”

Adds Fabius, the owner of Galerie Lakaye, a Haitian art gallery, “We ask each other really hard questions. We just nail each other.”

On a recent night at Asylum, the trendy L. A. restaurant/nightspot du jour, three women meet for their version of Girls’ Night Out: Djenat James is the restaurant’s 27-year-old day manager; Gail Stanley, 30, an account executive for the public relations firm The Ford Group, and 27-year-old Diana Kunce, a producer and free-lance film production manager.

They and other friends have camped, fished, nightclubbed, attended lectures and gallery and restaurant openings and seen films together.

“Sometimes,” says Kunce, “when we’re camping together, some guy will say, ‘Is it just you girls? Where are your boyfriends and husbands?’ Sometimes I think the things we do surprise certain people. But it’s what we’ve chosen to do that makes our friendship less flighty and less on the surface.”

Adds James: “The times we’re in right now, with what’s going on in world affairs and in our personal lives--work is so high-pressured, and this is the time when you really start to make a move in your career--it’s really important to have someone behind you holding you up.”

James also says her boyfriend is “really supportive” of her time spent with her girlfriends. She in turn encourages his Boys’ Night Out.

But not all men feel that comfortable with the GNO phenomenon.

The sight of women huddled in intense conversation can overcome even the most secure men with paranoia. Although some men wish they could be the proverbial fly on the wall when their wives and girlfriends talk, others live in denial, believing that women discuss nothing more significant than the latest shades of lipstick. But woe to the man who dares asks his significant other: “Honey? You don’t discuss our sex life . . . do you ?”

The fact is, relationship discussions are essential components of GNO. Depending on how closely knit the group, conversations can delve into extremely intimate details, and relationships are dissected and analyzed to death.

“I don’t think enlightened or evolved men would be shocked at what we talk about,” says Carine Fabius, “but I think some men would be afraid just thinking about it. One time we were at the Hotel Bel-Air, and there was this guy at the next table who was leaning over, listening to our conversation, and I happened to be telling this really nasty story about a guy I was with and how it turned out to be a . . . disappointment in many ways,” she says. “And this guy was so flipped out at the thought that somebody might have been talking about him that way.”

Yet relationship talks take many forms.

“There was a time when I didn’t have anyone in my life,” recalls Madelyn Fenton, “but rather than my friends just commiserating with me, they helped me identify why maybe I didn’t have someone. Through their honesty and support they helped me to overcome certain things I was going through, rather than just saying, ‘Poor you.’ ”

It’s that trust, she says, that keeps the group going.

Says Eloise Klein Healy, coordinator of the women’s studies program at Cal State Northridge, “Once women understand that they are worthwhile people on their own, they also discover that it’s worthwhile to be with one another.”