Men have found another way to place the burden of their problems on everyone else, particularly women. How the “male loneliness epidemic” and “mankeeping” have pinned women as the fault of men’s suffering and forced them to become the solution.
We are currently living through a loneliness epidemic and a mental health crisis in our country, as our culture encourages antisocial behavior. AI Friend ads are plastered in subway stations and trains, while the rise of social media apps provides instant gratification, and with the severe lack of accessible third spaces, people are going out less and working from home more.
Gen Z has been named the “loneliest generation,” with the Covid-19 pandemic contributing to stunted social development. In the spring of 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared loneliness an epidemic. However, what is striking is how mainstream media has framed this epidemic as a uniquely male issue, revealing our culture’s constant need to center men and infantilize them in a crisis that ultimately affects everyone.
The constructed narratives of the “male loneliness epidemic” and men in crisis have quickly been adopted by right-leaning pundits, podcasters, and politicians, and it’s now seeping into every corner of mainstream media. Scott Galloway, an American academic, author, and podcaster, has been making the rounds on a press tour for his new book, Notes on Being a Man, in which he argues that “boys and men are struggling” in the West today.
What should be noted, however, is Galloway’s complete inability to address nuances or to create a meaningful analysis from the statistics he provides. Galloway writes about young men who attend college less, the higher rates of men dying by suicide than women, the unemployment rates of men, and men who still live with their parents. Journalist Jessica Winter writes in her article for The New Yorker, “What Did Men Do to Deserve This?,” a dismantling of these claims by providing a perspective outside the domineering white male bias of Galloway.
In regard to the gender gap of college enrollment, Winter cites a paper published by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce that examines “the labor landscape of rural America, noting that women need more education to earn the same amount of money as men, and that the less education a worker has, the more this gender gap widens.”
Furthermore Winter addresses that suicide rates have been narrowing between men and women in recent years, and “women’s wages over all are still seventeen per cent lower than men’s” These narratives surrounding the “male loneliness epidemic” is never fully about men’s suffering, but rather positioning men at the center of societal concerns and creating a narrative that male loneliness is uniquely dire. When statistics and data are taken from their original context by someone like Galloway, the rhetoric then becomes an infantilization of these men and places the responsibility of fixing it onto women.
Men have long put the burden of their issues onto the shoulders of women, with incel rhetoric accusing women of being the cause of their isolation, failures, and dissatisfaction with themselves, which extends to larger cultural narratives that place women in the position responsible for men’s well-being.
In a peer-reviewed paper in Psychology of Men & Masculinity, Clayman Institute Postdoctoral Fellow Angelica Ferrara and Research Assistant Dylan P. Vergara developed the sociological concept of “mankeeping” that refers to the emotional unpaid labor that women do in order to address and solve the needs of the men in their lives, with no reciprocal effort made in return.
Within heterosexual relationships, women are providing emotional support for their male partners, organizing their social calendars, teaching them social skills, and making sure they are neither lonely nor depressed. Yet, women are drowning just as much as men. Women are not only dealing with all of the economic and social issues that men are currently facing, but they are also adopting the emotional labor of their male partners with no reciprocal support.
When men get lonely, it turns into a book tour and makes national news. The risk is that lonely men tend to fall into alt-right groups, incel pipelines, become bigots, support fascists, and shoot up schools. When women get lonely, it becomes a silent epidemic, which is another facet of the healthcare system designed to ignore women’s needs. The recent talking points of the “male loneliness epidemic” in the mainstream have come to function as an avoidance tactic and dog whistle. These podcasters, authors, and politicians seem to be unwilling to outwardly say what they are trying to articulate: the fear of losing male domination over women.
Since the beginning of civilization, our culture has functioned through male domination and the subordination of women. Now we are finally seeing women in the workforce, serving as breadwinners while simultaneously being the primary caregivers in the home. Women have always been capable of being sufficient without men. However, what is different now is that women have worked hard and carved out the space to do so.
I do not want to be hyperbolic in simply making the argument that men are in crisis because women are becoming more independent. Yet, it is impossible to ignore the correlation. The “male loneliness epidemic” has become a way for men to place the burden of their issues onto the shoulders of women, both as the cause and the solution. But what happens if women start to say no? Who will be responsible for caring for men if not the women who have always done so? Maybe it’s time men follow their own advice; it’s time to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, boys.
As we lean into our next exhibition that will examine identity, let us know your thoughts. And, with the upcoming holiday season, which can sometimes feel isolating, please know that you are not alone. We wish you a peaceful and plentiful Thanksgiving.
-trw