And, surprisingly, girls are allowed, even welcomed. Both my daughters have been guests at hunting clubs where they sat in a deer blind at 4 a.m. covered in camouflage. They can shoot rattlesnakes and ride four-wheelers as well as the boys. They can tie a fly and hook a fish. They can field a grounder and slide into the dusty red clay of Southern softball fields.
Southern men encourage their wives to get together with the girls.
There are more book clubs, study groups and lunch bunches in the South than anywhere else. And it's not because life is slower or less hectic. It s because these same women were in your wedding and held your hand when you had your babies. There is something circular about their lives. Something grounded in the kind of friendships that develop over generations.