When Sisterhood Doesn't Feel Like Sisterhood
Updated: Oct 6
What we expect, what organizations provide, and why women experience belonging differently.
I recently came across a post on my social media feed where the poster was naming the fellowship of sisterhood as the unmet promise: I joined expecting reciprocal sisterliness and haven’t experienced enough of it. It made me think of the deeper issue: women can enter the same organization seeking entirely different social rewards, and then quietly assume everybody else came for the same reason they did.
Sisterhood Does Not Mean the Same Thing to Everyone
We use the word sisterhood as though everyone means the same thing by it. We do not.
For some women, sisterhood means friendship. For others, it means loyalty. For others, it means service, shared identity, cultural pride, professional connection, leadership, mutual aid, legacy, belonging, social access, or simply knowing there is a community they can return to when needed.
That is why women can belong to the same organization, attend the same meetings, participate in the same events, wear the same symbols, and still walk away with completely different conclusions about whether they have experienced “real sisterhood.” The problem is not always that sisterhood is absent. Sometimes the problem is that we have never stopped to define what we expected sisterhood to be.
Why Women Join Sisterhood Organizations
Here is some helpful language and some news you can use because different women join for different reasons. That's just human nature and basic sociology; nothing to take personally.
Fellowship / Belonging: “I want sisters.” Friendship, intimacy, mutual support, shared experiences, somebody to call. This is the closest to what the post I saw was explicitly describing.
Legacy / Kinship: “This is what the women in my family do.” Mother, grandmother, auntie, sister, family expectation, continuation of a lineage. Membership itself may carry more meaning than chapter involvement.
Identity / Prestige: “Being a member of XYZ means something socially.” This is recognition, symbolism, status, aesthetics, history, exclusivity, affiliation with accomplished Black women. That doesn’t automatically mean superficiality; social identity is a legitimate sociological function of organizations.
Service / Social Mission: “I want to serve my community.” Programs, scholarships, advocacy, volunteering, mentoring, civic impact. These women can be very committed without necessarily looking for best friends.
Leadership / Governance: “I like making organizations work.” Officer roles, committees, strategy, parliamentary procedure, budgets, operations, project management, administration. These are the women who may genuinely enjoy the business of sorority.
Professional / Social Capital: Relationships, access, networking, visibility, mentorship, career opportunity, community influence. The organization becomes part of someone’s broader relational ecosystem.
Ritual / Tradition: Some women deeply value ceremony, protocol, history, songs, customs, anniversaries, Founders’ Day, conferences... the continuity of belonging to something larger and older than themselves.
Achievement / Aspiration: For some, membership represents accomplishing something they long wanted: "I made it". The emotional payoff may have been concentrated around becoming a member rather than remaining heavily involved afterward.
Seasonal Participation: And then there are women who still value membership but whose money, caregiving, career, health, relocation, or available time make active chapter life difficult. Their inactivity doesn’t necessarily tell us their motivation for joining.
We Do Not All Have the Same Social Appetite
Here's another point I'll share: women do not all have the same social appetite.
Some people naturally build belonging through frequent contact. For example, women with a more tribal social orientation enjoy checking in, talking regularly, attending gatherings, sharing everyday life, and maintaining an ongoing relational rhythm.
Other women, whom I think of as more collective; they connect through depth rather than frequency. They may care deeply about people while needing far less interaction. They may prefer purposeful conversations over constant communication. They may enjoy contributing ideas, solving problems, mentoring, teaching, leading, or serving without needing the organization to become the center of their personal social world.
And women who carry a stronger sense of independence can still experience belonging and contribute meaningfully without needing frequent touchpoints or feeling an urge to merge with others. Neither social appetite is inherently more committed. But without understanding those inherent differences, we often misinterpret one another.
The highly relational member may see the independent member as distant.
The independent member may experience the highly relational culture as demanding.
The service-oriented member may wonder why everyone is so concerned with socializing.
The fellowship-oriented member may wonder why everyone seems focused on work.
The governance-minded member may think, We have an organization to run.
The woman seeking emotional connection may think, Yes, but when are we actually going to get to know one another?
And suddenly everyone is talking about “sisterhood,” while describing completely different needs.
This is where expectations become powerful. A woman who joins primarily because she longs for close friendship may expect frequent communication, personal invitations, emotional intimacy, check-ins, birthdays remembered, dinners together, and a sense that other women are actively choosing her outside of formal gatherings. If those things do not happen, she may feel disappointed, disconnected, or even rejected.
Another woman may experience sisterhood very differently. She may feel connected through shared work, service, tradition, leadership, history, or mission. She may not need to talk to other members every week to feel bonded to them. She may be perfectly comfortable seeing someone periodically, doing meaningful work together, exchanging respect, and then returning to her own life. Both women can value sisterhood. They are simply using different definitions. And some women join for one reason and stay for an entirely different one.
That last point matters because the reason a woman enters a sisterhood is not necessarily the reason she remains active five, fifteen, or twenty-five years later. A young woman may initially join because her mother, aunt, or mentor encouraged her. Years later, she may remain because she discovered a passion for community service. Someone else may come for friendship and eventually become deeply invested in leadership. Another woman may have joined because membership carried cultural significance but later find that what keeps her connected is the opportunity to mentor younger women.
And here is where it gets especially interesting sociologically:
Conflict can happen when one member interprets another's reason for joining or participating through her own expectations.
Different Expectations Create Different Experiences
The fellowship-oriented sister thinks, Why aren't these women reaching out? Where is the sisterhood? The service-oriented sister thinks, We just spent six hours feeding 300 families together. What do you mean there’s no sisterhood? The governance-oriented sister thinks, I see you every month at chapter meeting. We are doing the work. The legacy-oriented sister may think, I never expected these women to become my closest friends. My connection to XYZ began before I was born.
The prestige-oriented member may be perfectly satisfied wearing the letters, attending major events, maintaining membership when she wants to, and participating socially.
The Psychological Contract of Sisterhood
Same organization, different psychological contract. Every member enters an organization with what organizational psychologists sometimes call a psychological contract: the unwritten expectations we carry about what we believe the relationship should provide. The official organization may promise membership, programming, leadership opportunities, service, education, networking, or community. But the member may privately expect something more specific:
I thought I would finally have close girlfriends.
I thought these women would support my career.
I thought I would feel welcomed everywhere.
I thought people would show up for me personally.
I thought I would have opportunities to lead.
I thought everyone would care about the mission as much as I do.
I thought being part of this group would feel like family.
Those expectations are rarely written down, but they strongly shape whether someone eventually says, “This sisterhood has been everything I hoped for,” or “I never found the sisterhood I expected.”
And sometimes the organization did not technically break a promise. The member and the organization or chapter were simply operating from two different definitions of what membership was supposed to provide.
When the Problem Is More Than Expectations
But not every disappointing sisterhood experience is simply a difference in expectations. Sometimes the culture itself has become unhealthy. Cliques, favoritism, selective communication, gatekeeping, protecting certain members while scrutinizing others, social exclusion, and unequal access to information or opportunity can turn ordinary relationship preferences into organizational power. There is a difference between women naturally forming closer friendships and a culture in which belonging determines whose voice is heard, whose behavior is excused, who receives opportunities, or who becomes a target. Self-awareness should help us examine our expectations, but it should not be used to explain away genuine dysfunction.
Ask Yourself Better Questions
That is why one of the most useful questions any woman can ask herself is not simply:
Why did I join? Instead, ask yourself: What brought me here? What keeps me here? What do I expect sisterhood to feel like? Those questions reveal much more.
You may discover that you did not join because you needed more friends. You joined because you were invited into a meaningful community.
You may realize that what keeps you engaged is service, visibility, intellectual stimulation, cultural connection, leadership, or legacy.
You may discover that you enjoy being part of something larger than yourself without needing to be socially immersed in it every day.
Or you may discover the opposite: that what you genuinely crave is intimacy, reciprocal friendship, and stronger personal relationships.
Neither answer is wrong. But self-awareness and clarity helps us to stop demanding that one organization satisfy every social, emotional, professional, cultural, and relational need we have.
No sisterhood can realistically function as best friend, professional network, family substitute, leadership academy, service organization, emotional support system, social calendar, and spiritual home for every woman in exactly the same way.
That does not make sisterhood less meaningful; it actually makes it more complex. And perhaps healthier sisterhood begins when we stop assuming that closeness has only one appearance.
Sometimes sisterhood is a phone call. Sometimes it is advocacy. Sometimes it is mentorship.
Sometimes it is sitting beside someone during a difficult season. Sometimes it is serving together.
Sometimes it is an introduction, an invitation, or an opportunity. Sometimes it is simply knowing that another woman recognizes what you bring to the room and respects your contribution without requiring constant access to you.
Sisterhood Is an Ecosystem
So when sisterhood doesn’t feel like sisterhood, the first question may not be, What is wrong with these women? It may be, What was I expecting this relationship to provide? That answer can help us distinguish between genuine exclusion, unhealthy culture, unmet relational needs, and simple differences in how women experience connection. Sometimes the answer is to ask for more. Sometimes it is to build deeper relationships with the women who reciprocate. Sometimes it is to expand your community beyond one organization. And sometimes it is to recognize that the sisterhood was present all along, it just did not arrive in the form you expected.
Erica Satori, MBA-HR, is a Speaker, Business Sociologist, Certified BG5™ Career & Business Consultant, a member of a NPHC sorority, and founder of Satori Synergy, where she integrates leadership development, Human Design, and career astrology to help professionals better understand how they are designed to work, lead, contribute, and navigate changing workplace systems.
With more than 25 years of professional experience spanning human resources, organizational leadership, diversity and inclusion, social services, higher education, healthcare, government/military, and corporate environments, Erica brings a systems-level perspective to individual career development and team alignment. A former Chief Diversity Officer and C-suite executive, she holds a B.A. in Sociology and an MBA in Human Resources Management and is also Prosci® Change Management certified.
Through Satori Synergy, Erica helps accomplished professionals move beyond conventional career advice by identifying the natural patterns, strengths, decision-making processes, and environmental dynamics that shape how they experience work. Her approach is grounded in a simple belief: people do not need to become someone else to succeed—they need better orientation to who they already are and how their contribution is best recognized and received.
