It really irks me when Donald Trump accuses Hillary Clinton of playing the woman’s card. What is the woman’s card anyway? Being a woman and being supportive of other women? And it’s not as if being a woman has been much of a help in the business or political world. How many women CEOs head up Fortune 500 companies? 22 as of October, 16, 2015 or a little over 4%. How many women are in Congress? A little over 100, just under 20%. So when The Donald makes the woman’s card sound like an unbridled asset he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Nicholas Kristof, op-ed writer for The New York Times, wrote about how worthless the woman’s card tactic really is in his May 1 column. Kristof cited research showing the obstacles that women face in the workplace and the unconscious bias against women that exists among both men and women. He noted that a patriarchal attitude is absorbed and transmitted by men and women, which is “one reason women often aren’t much help to other women.” Esther Duflo, an economist at M.I.T. who has studied gender issues told Kristof, “Women aren’t particularly nice to women.”

The key obstacle, as Kristof points out, “is that it’s difficult for women to be perceived as both competent and likeable: If they’re seen as competent, they’re grating nags, while if they’re perceived as nice, they’re airheads. There’s no such trade-off for men.”

So what does all this talk about how women are perceived have to do with friendship? Well it’s my contention that some women and girls gravitate towards the men and the boys with power, hoping it will rub off on them. They perceive themselves and other women as weaker and look to male friends and mentors to give them a boost. As a result they may unconsciously avoid deep and lasting friendships with women. They may deny that sexism exists in the workplace or the Washington power corridors. But they are wrong. And they are also missing out on the extraordinary benefits that having a close female friend brings to women. A female best friend has your back and is there to help you when your life is in shambles or cheer you on when you are victorious. She’s there in the middle of the night if you need a shoulder to cry on. She understands your need to talk. She doesn’t judge. She listens. She’s just there for you. If that’s playing the woman’s card count me in as a card-carrying member.

The pain from losing your best friend is very real to me. Not only did I lose my best friend Madeleine thirteen years ago, but five months later Lynn, another close friend, died from cancer. I’ve spent years absorbing the reality of life without a treasured sister of the heart at my side.

Since launching Friendship Dialogues I’ve had some revealing conversations with women who don’t have a female best friend. Some lament that absence in their life, some seem content to have many girlfriends but not one special female confidante, and others bond with male friends more readily than with women. One friend captured the mixture of emotions about friendship well when she wrote to congratulate me on launching the website:

“I don’t have a life-long best friend in the same way you and Madeline had for each other, so when you speak and write about your wonderful friendship, on one hand I feel a sense of relief because it is one less deep loss I won’t have to bear, but much more deeply I feel jealous that you have had something in your life that I have not had, not in the same way anyway.”

As hard as the grief is from losing my lifelong friend, the pain of her loss is offset by the joy I had over the 40 years we were friends. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. It’s hard for me to imagine going through life without a best friend. I’ve always gravitated to that one special female friend. At age 6 it was Carol. At 12 it was Elyse. At 18 it was Madeleine. She, of course, has turned out to be my last best friend since I know there will never be a replacement for her.

I don’t know why some women seek a close connection with another female and others don’t. Is there something in our makeup that leads us to bond tightly with a female friend? Or perhaps we’re just lucky that another woman turns up in our life with which we can be ourselves, share our innermost thoughts and receive wise counsel and unconditional love in return.

What’s been your experience? Have you been a one-best-friend kind of woman? If so, why do you think that’s the case? And, if not, why not?

When I started this friendship storytelling project a year ago I had no idea where it would lead. I just knew that I wanted to talk to other women who had enjoyed a close, loving relationship with a woman friend and find out how their lives had changed as a result of losing her. I knew that after 13 years, I still missed my best friend Madeleine, especially at intense moments of happiness or sorrow in my life when I yearned to share my feelings with her.

I wasn’t surprised to discover the joy other women felt from their female friendships. Often the relationship was described in similar ways—their friend was beautiful, they had fun together, they spent hours talking about everything, and no one really got them the way their best friend did. Likewise, the grief they felt after their best friend died was deep. Many went into a slump and were depressed. Some described being in a cloud for a year or more afterwards. And regardless of whether their friend died recently or decades earlier, they still missed her.

The other common element was a feeling that our society does not recognize friend grief. While mourning rituals are clear when a parent, spouse or child dies, people may not even know how close two women are. Moreover, your boss probably understands if you take a week off from work to mourn a close family member, but just try taking that time if your best friend died. That type of grief is not recognized by society; it is called disenfranchised grief. This could also refer to the loss of a pet, the loss of a home or a miscarriage, among other types of losses.

I spoke to Harriet Vogel, author of “Sad Is Not Bad,” and she said that the grief you feel when you lose a friend is not different from other close losses, except it is not acknowledged by society. People may think, she said, it was “just a friend,” when in reality that friend could be closer to you than a biological connection.

Harriet’s memoir is based on “Dear Jerry” letters written to her husband after his death. As a professional grief counselor Harriet knows there are many ways to process grief and had often recommended writing as a therapeutic tool. By writing, Harriet said, you connect and “keep your memories alive.” That’s why, she said to me, you got comfort from writing a letter to Madeleine years after she died. The act of writing to a departed loved one “keeps the relationship going,” she said.

In the year since I started on this friendship storytelling journey I have a better understanding of the grief process and why the loss of a best female friend stays with you forever. Harriet shared a quote with me that sums it all up. In “Tuesdays With Morrie,” Mitch Albom’s book of interviews with the dying former Brandeis sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, Morrie said, “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

I admit that when I started interviewing women for this project I did not anticipate the healing power of storytelling, but after doing 25 interviews I started to hear from several women about how comforting it was for them to share their story. Kathy Spirtes said that talking to me had helped her release her love and grief about Rosemary “to the universe.” It was also comforting for her to know that she wasn’t alone. Robin Lippman-Scharf told me that when she misses her best friend Ronee she comes to the Friendship Dialogues website and rereads their story. Renee Bundi told me that reading the stories from other women at our website gave her the strength to tell her story about Aggie.

If you are ready to share your friendship story, we are ready to hear it.