“Mankeeping” and the Missing Conversation About Male Value
I recently came across an article in the New York Times titled “Why Women Are Weary of the Emotional Labor of ‘Mankeeping’.” It’s an interesting read — and in many ways a timely one. But it also left me deeply unsettled. Not because the phenomenon it describes isn’t real. It clearly is. Rather, because it repeats a familiar pattern: we talk about the emotional burdens women carry in relationships, but we never ask the more uncomfortable follow-up question.
Why are men so emotionally isolated in the first place?
And what does this say about us as a society?
A Reminder: Men Need Other Men
Some time ago, I wrote a post about how men need other men. Not just for drinking beer or watching football, but for the deeper kind of support that only another man can offer: a sense of brotherhood, accountability, shared mission. Our fathers and grandfathers had this—through church groups, unions, workplaces, hunting clubs, military service, even pub culture. Today? It’s mostly gone.
And when that emotional scaffolding collapses, what happens? A man turns to the one person he feels safe enough to be vulnerable with: his partner. She becomes his confidante, his social director, his life coach.
So yes, I understand the frustration many women feel. But I also want to pause here and say: can we blame men for doing the only thing they know to do? For turning to the one person in their life who’s shown them compassion?
The NYT Piece: Real Observations, Misguided Framing
Let’s take a closer look at the New York Times article itself, titled “Why Women Are Weary of the Emotional Labor of ‘Mankeeping’.” The writer, Catherine Pearson, explores the idea that many modern men are relying too heavily on their romantic partners to meet their emotional and social needs — often because they lack meaningful male friendships.
She introduces the term “mankeeping,” coined by Angelica Puzio Ferrara at Stanford, to describe this dynamic. As Ferrara puts it:
“Women have been asked or expected to take on more work to be a central — if not the central — piece of a man’s social support system.”
A 2021 survey cited in the article found that 15% of men said they had no close friends at all, compared to just 3% in 1990. Two decades ago, half of young men said they’d talk to friends when facing a personal issue; by 2021, that number had dropped to just over 20%.
We then meet Eve Tilley-Colson, a Los Angeles attorney who describes herself as being happy in her relationship — but still feels like she’s become the “social director” and emotional engine of their partnership. She arranges their plans, initiates deeper conversations, and nudges her boyfriend toward more emotional openness. As she put it:
“I feel responsible for bringing the light to the relationship.”
Her boyfriend Glenn admits the dynamic exists, and initially wondered, “OK, but is that bad?” Eventually, after some discussion, he began to see how it might feel “lopsided.”
To be fair, the article doesn’t entirely shame men. Therapists and psychologists quoted in the piece acknowledge the bigger picture: male disconnection is real, male suicide is rising, and many of the social structures that used to support male bonding — churches, sports clubs, even the office — have crumbled.
Richard Reeves, author of Of Boys and Men, sums it up well:
“Men used to be able to put themselves in these institutional settings and it kind of happened around them... That’s just not happening so much anymore. Men do have to do more, be more assertive.”
But despite these insights, the framing of the article still subtly implies that it’s a problem when women become the emotional center of the relationship. As if a man’s vulnerability is something women should be protected from — not something they might, in fact, honor, if they understood where it came from.
“Mankeeping” or Misunderstanding?
The NYT calls this dynamic “mankeeping” — emotional labor performed by women to meet the social and psychological needs of their male partners. And then comes the collective sigh: "Ugh. Another job we didn’t sign up for.”
But here’s where I start to take issue. There’s a condescending undercurrent to some of this discourse. It assumes that emotional labor is always a burden, never a choice. That it's inherently bad if a woman takes on that role. But why?
Let me ask a provocative question: What if mankeeping isn’t a problem — unless the man has nothing of equal value to offer in return?
Equality ≠ Identical Responsibilities
We’ve come to confuse equality with symmetry. If a woman takes care of emotional support, the man must do the same. If she earns €60K, he must too. If she’s great with kids, he’d better be the same. But relationships don’t thrive on sameness — they thrive on complementarity.
Let’s be honest: some men bring other kinds of value to the table. Financial security. Vision. Freedom. Stability. Drive. A sense of mission. If those strengths are real — and if they are offered generously — then maybe it’s okay if emotional support isn’t the thing he excels at.
You don’t hire a CFO and then complain that he’s not great at office birthday parties.
So when women say, “I feel like I’m carrying the emotional weight,” I want to respond: What is your partner carrying? And if the answer is “nothing,” then sure — it’s a problem. But if he’s carrying the financial load, the long-term planning, the sacrifices for your future… is it really such a scandal that you’re carrying the emotional weight?
The Real Crisis: Men Die Alone
Let’s not forget the brutal statistic behind all of this. The leading cause of death for men under 50 is suicide. And for men over 50? It’s not far behind.
In his song To Be a Man, the artist Dax captures this inner struggle with haunting clarity:
“You might be the man of the house, but you still feel alone inside.”
And when the obituary comes, everyone asks the same question: Why didn’t he talk to anyone? Why didn’t he open up?
Well — read the NYT article again. Would you open up if the reaction you expected was rolled eyes and TikToks about emotional labor?
Although the article never says it outright, it hints at an experience many men know too well: their partners don’t really want to hear about their pain. They want strength. One female YouTuber I saw put it bluntly:
“What women find sexy — and irresistible — is emotional resilience.”
And she’s right. You’re allowed to be vulnerable as a man — but only if you’ve already overcome it. Only if you’ve processed it, packaged it, and emerged stronger. Raw struggle? That’s not sexy. That’s threatening.
But again, there’s truth to this. This is how women are wired — and there’s no shame in that. Men should not use their partners as emotional landfills. We were never meant to. Men should have other men in their lives to vent, to unburden, to be real. That, too, is the natural state of affairs — as even the NYT admits when it mentions the lost institutions of male community life: churches, lodges, sports, workplaces.
Femininity Isn’t a Flaw
But at the same time — and this is important — let’s not pretend that emotional labor is some horrible curse that women are forced to bear. Women, on average, are warmer. More nurturing. More agreeable. More empathetic. In short: more feminine.
And if that makes them better suited to emotional support — is that really a bad thing? Shouldn’t a woman be proud to offer something so vital, so deeply human? So long as her man doesn’t abuse that gift — so long as he has something equal in value to give — why should we treat that dynamic as unjust?
That’s not oppression. That’s a partnership.
Final Thought: Let's Stop Competing in Misery
If your relationship has become lopsided, that’s a problem. But let’s stop measuring imbalance only in emotions. Measure it in contributions. What are each of you bringing? What do you offer the other that no one else can?
Let’s redefine equality not as “doing the same things,” but as giving what you have to give — and respecting what the other brings in return.
