'Mankeeping': Why women are fed up

A couple sitting on a sofa — Mankeeping is "downstream of a decades-long cultural consensus that men, and masculinity, are fundamentally defective."

(Image credit: Kinga Krzeminska / Getty Images)

Hey, ladies: Have you been trapped into "man-keeping" your boyfriend or husband? asked Emma Specter in Vogue. That's the new term for the widespread phenomenon of women assuming full responsibility for a couple's social life—and serving as the only person their emotionally isolated male partner can confide in. Coined by Stanford University fellow Angelica Puzio Ferrara, mankeeping describes the hard work a woman "does to keep her less-than-motivated male partner" from "succumbing to the male loneliness epidemic." In 2021, 15% of men reported having zero close friends, up from 3% in 1990. Today, just 20% of men say they reach out to friends to discuss personal issues. That leaves women with the "unreciprocated" burden of meeting all of their partner's social and emotional needs, and planning get-togethers with friends like parents scheduling playdates for children.

Providing emotional support is part of "the deep and abiding joy of a loving relationship," said Kat Rosenfield in The Free Press. For decades, women complained that men were uncommunicative and "deep in the grips of toxic masculinity." Mankeeping is "downstream of a decades-long cultural consensus that men, and masculinity, are fundamentally defective." We mocked male social life, demonizing activities like fraternities and all-male clubs as "bro culture." So now men are more dependent on women for emotional connection and social life. Apparently, when women said we wanted men to share their feelings, "we didn't mean with us."

Women, though, say it can be "draining" to meet all of a man's emotional needs, said Catherine Pearson in The New York Times. Some young women even say it's driven them to celibacy. Among single men, 61% are looking for a relationship—but just 38% of single women want one. These women are opting out because they are "weary of the emotional labor" of "supporting their partners through daily challenges" and "encouraging them to meet up with their friends." Mankeeping may be "an actual phenomenon," said Jesse Singal in his Substack newsletter, caused in part by "the collapse of traditionally male civic institutions," like churches, bowling leagues, and veterans' organizations. Still, the term is condescending. Most terms that end with "-keeping" involve "inanimate objects or animals," like housekeeping or beekeeping. Men are suffering from "a genuine problem" with social isolation. It doesn't help anyone to give their struggles a derisive name "that makes them sound burdensome and not quite human."