What’s In a Name? The Importance of Sisters

“My Sisters’ House” – it’s the Women’s Centre we all know and love. But the name can be the cause of a certain amount of misunderstanding and sometimes hilarity. I’ve lost count of the number of people who said to me, “I didn’t know you had a sister” when I first started volunteering here. Since then, I’ve learned to get around the problem by making sure to say, “My Sisters’ House Women’s Centre”. But it hasn’t stopped me wondering just why it is called that anyway?

To answer that question we begin with Julie Budge, the woman at the start (and the heart) of it all. Julie has said that her vision for the Women’s Centre was of “a group of women, like mothers or sisters, supporting each other in an inclusive, non-threatening environment.” (She has also spoken about her desire to ultimately have an actual, physical house – but that’s a tale for another time.)

For now, I want to look at the other part of that name and ask another question. I read somewhere that a sister is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be. But what does it mean to be a sister, or to have a sister?

Full disclosure: I don’t have any sisters myself (just a pesky younger brother) so I can’t speak from personal experience. But I asked some friends of mine who do have female siblings, and their responses raised quite a few common themes – some of them definitely familiar to me from having a brother, but others that seem to be more gender-specific.

To begin with, there’s one that I do recognise: the rivalry. Because whatever you do, your sister (or brother, for that matter) has to try to do it better. This one is especially annoying if said sibling is younger than you but also more successful – although one friend found the upside was that her cleverer younger sister would volunteer to do her maths homework for her!

Then there are the arguments…there are always arguments. Boys, girls, older, younger, children who live together fight together. According to Lemony Snicket, who wrote about the adventures of a very close family, “Siblings that say they never fight are most definitely hiding something.”

But as you get older and don’t live with each other any more, things almost always get better: “Then we saw each other because we wanted to,” said another friend. And that’s not the end of the story as far as positives are concerned.

Because sisters understand you like no one else can. They know how you might be feeling about a situation, and they know exactly what to do to make it better. They are great at offering those thoughtful touches – a nice text, card or bunch of flowers just when you need it.

The same can be true of a really good friend. Indeed, sometimes when we use the term sisters, we are referring to women who we are not related to, but have strong feelings of loyalty and friendship towards.

Which leads me to the main thing I have learnt about sisters, the thing that everyone agrees on: whatever the relationship you have with your sister as a child, or even as an adult, what is true above all is that a sister always has your back.

She might feel free to criticise you and question your choices, but woe betide anyone else who tries to do the same! If that happens, your sister will be there, supporting you in whatever way you need. Carol Saline, co-author of the book Sisters, said, “Sisters function as safety nets in a chaotic world simply by being there for each other.”

And that brings us back to where we started – in My Sisters’ House. You know now that when I say that, I don’t mean my own sister, I’m talking about the Women’s Centre. And since I’m known as a bit of a grammar nerd, I have to point out that the position of the apostrophe in Sisters’ indicates that it’s for all sisters; all the women out there who need a safety net in this chaotic world.

So, whether or not you have an actual sister, at My Sisters’ House you can skip the sibling rivalry and the childhood fights, and move straight to the part where you feel understood and supported – because we are all sisters and we have each other’s backs.