Men are struggling—at least, that’s what many headlines suggest. Compared with women, they report having fewer and less supportive friendships. Men lag behind dramatically in achievements such as higher education attainment. Suicide rates, too, reveal a grim gender disparity: women attempt suicide more often, but men are far more likely to die by it.
Concerns about these and other issues have become a priority for some of the biggest philanthropic lenders on the planet. Though these challenges rightfully demand resources and attention, public discourse often stops short of discussing men’s issues as interconnected with women’s lives. If men are in trouble, what does that mean for women?
In our research, we explore a crucial puzzle piece in understanding men’s broader struggles: the state of their close relationships. We formed a theory about how the thinning fabric of many men’s social worlds may place added strain on the women in their life. Our work ties together several threads of evidence from psychology and sociology: men’s struggles to build socially supportive networks, women’s outsized role in sustaining men’s social support systems and inequality in the work that men and women perform in their private lives.
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Life in many Western nations has become more socially isolating for everyone in the past century. Men, however, are at the highest risk of social isolation, especially when they live in a country where people value individualism highly. Although this risk is greatest for older men, nearly two thirds of young American men report that “no one really knows me well.” Nearly half of men in the U.K. say they cannot confide in their friends about problems. Large, Census-representative surveys indicate that the number of American men who say they have no close friends at all has increased over the past 30 years in comparison with women.
In other words, men may lack friends on whom they can rely. But that’s not the only dynamic at play. Sociologists have shown that men’s social networks are more romantically dependent than those of women. More specifically, among couples in a heterosexual relationship, men lean on their romantic partner more than women do, whereas women are more likely to name friends or family members as their go-to sources of close emotional support.
Researchers have documented this pattern over decades, primarily in older white adults. But more recent evidence suggests the trend holds steady across diverse groups of straight men and women at varied ages. The stakes become even clearer when romantic partnerships end: men’s social networks often shrink, while women’s remain intact. It’s a striking imbalance, one that suggests men’s emotional infrastructure is often built on foundations that women maintain.
Not all men rely disproportionately on women for social support; some are at greater risk than others. Cultural beliefs about gender may be an important predictor of this difference. In the contemporary West, norms around manhood and masculinity have emphasized qualities such as emotional stoicism—the idea that “weaker” or “softer” emotions should be withheld at all costs—and hyperindependence—the notion that men don’t need help from anyone, especially other men. In fact, psychologists have shown that men and boys who strongly endorse these ideas have worse mental and physical health—and that they are less likely to have close friendships.
But entrenched norms around masculinity may shape more than just how men relate to other men. Social scientists have documented how women take on the brunt of emotional and logistical work to maintain harmony within their families. This can look like women, more so than men, remembering birthdays, planning outings and checking on family members’ emotional well-being. Sociologist Carolyn Rosenthal coined the term “kinkeeping” for this kind of labor. In a nod to that language, we call the labor that women specifically put into helping men with frayed social ties “mankeeping.”
Our theory has several parts. In line with past research, we suspect that men who adhere to rigid masculine norms are most prone to this dynamic and that women frequently perform invisible labor by arranging and encouraging men’s social interactions. But we also anticipate that mankeeping places a measurable burden on women’s time and well-being. There are some clues to that effect in past research. In a study of Canadian couples, the late American-Canadian sociologist Barry Wellman found that women actively facilitated men’s social interactions with other men and had less time for their own friendships as a result. And more recently, psychologists have found that women suffer psychological distress, relationship dissatisfaction and reduced personal autonomy when they overemphasize their partner’s needs. We believe the wager many women take in mankeeping is a calculated one. Even at women’s own personal cost, these behaviors may reduce the burden of men’s isolation on families, relationships between women and men and on men themselves.
Future studies by ourselves and others will put our theory of mankeeping to the test. Measuring this dynamic means answering questions such as: Where is mankeeping most prevalent—and what can that tell us about those communities? Are women who have unequal support in their relationships with men truly more burdened? And are women who have mutually supportive relationships with their male partners more satisfied?
Ultimately, we think mankeeping deserves attention for two reasons. By naming the hard work that women take on as men’s social networks thin, other researchers around the world can join us in assessing this phenomenon and its effects. And women, especially those who experience mankeeping, can be empowered with language that makes their emotional labor visible. Scholars and advocates are already spreading the work, proposing terms such as cargamigas and marigarderie for Spanish- and French-language contexts respectively.
Naming forms of inequality is also a first step toward naming solutions. Initiatives such as Men’s Circle and Beyond Equality are creating spaces where men can open up to one another rather than just to female friends or romantic partners and practice emotional vulnerability and mutual support. The goal is not to re-create exclusionary “boys’ clubs” but to build networks that disrupt the patterns of male behavior that ultimately don’t serve women or men. No matter the remedy, addressing the inequality that women face as a result of mankeeping requires challenging rigid masculine norms that leave so many men with impoverished social ties to begin with.
IF YOU NEED HELP
If you or someone you know is struggling or having thoughts of suicide, help is available. Call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or use the online Lifeline Chat.
Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about for Mind Matters? Please send suggestions to Scientific American’s Mind Matters editor Daisy Yuhas at dyuhas@sciam.com.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
