Are you a mankeeper? Men are lonely (there’s a male loneliness epidemic, in case you hadn’t heard) and women are filling the gaps left by the male friendship recession. But men and women are actually lonely at roughly the same rate, women are just better at making and keeping friends, so we end up lending those skills to our boyfriends by planning their social calendars and reminding them to text their friends. In this episode, I talk to the psychologist who coined the term mankeeping in a paper that blew up (and that I turned into a cartoon) and I meet the founders and members of Shoulder to Shoulder, a men’s community trying to make it normal for men to be friends with other men. GUESTS: Angelica Ferrara - find her work here Tom Stroud and Dan Shrigley - find Shoulder to Shoulder here Owain and Eamon from Shoulder to Shoulder - find Owain’s 0% beer Instagram account here Men, Women and Social Connections, Pew Research Center (2025) The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss, Survey Center on American Life (2021) Theorizing mankeeping: The male friendship recession and women's associated labor as a structural component of gender inequality, Psychology of Men & Masculinities (2024) Why Women Are Weary of the Emotional Labor of 'Mankeeping', The New York Times (2025) mankeeping Suicides in England and Wales: 2024 registrations, Office for National Statistics (2025) Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2023/4, Chapter 4: Suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and non-suicidal self-harm, NHS England (2025) Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review, PLOS Medicine (2010) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert D. Putnam (2000) Kinkeeping in the Familial Division of Labor, Journal of Marriage and Family (1985) The Constant Work to Keep a Family Connected Has a Name, The New York Times (2024) The Rise and Fall of Western Homohysteria, Journal of Feminist Scholarship (2011) The Sexual Offences Act 1967: 50 years of progress, Counsel (2017) Inti•men•tly, Angelica Ferrara (2026) One pub a day lost in 2025 as biz rates pressures mount, The Morning Advertiser (2026) Beyond the Brink? The State of Funding for Youth Services in England and Wales, YMCA England & Wales (2025) Our Story, Shoulder to Shoulder (2026) London's anti-manosphere community, The Independent (2026) Bosh! New Reform recruit Thomas Skinner sets out his stall, The New World (2026) Thomas Skinner's mental health revolution, The Critic (2026) If anything in this episode has affected you, or you’re struggling and want to talk to someone, you can call Samaritans for free, day or night on 116123 or email jo@samaritans.org. Find out more at samaritans.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
