mankeeping

As for the various ways that women help men compensate for stunted social networks, Ferrara labels such forms of labor as “mankeeping,” by analogy to sociologist Carolyn Rosenthal’s theory of “kinkeeping,” or the labor that women do to maintain bonds within their families.

The structural burden of men’s declining social networks | The Clayman Institute for Gender Research Marianna Y. Zhang, Graduate Dissertation Fellow 2025

I don’t identify with the recent spate of commentary on mankeeping — the idea that a straight woman takes on all her mate’s social and emotional needs.

Opinion | The Ingredients of a Lasting Marriage 2025

Building on the existing sociological term “kinkeeping,” mankeeping describes the unreciprocated work that women do to manage the emotional and social needs of men in their lives, which Ferrara and Vergara see as a contemporary and under-recognized form of labor resulting from men’s declining social networks.

The viral uptake and future of “mankeeping” | The Clayman Institute for Gender Research Eagan Dean, Postdoctoral Fellow 2026