Yeah this is a joke and yeah, I smirked a little at first. But I donāt think poking fun at a very serious issue is helpful at all. Really, itās kinda terrible.
The male loneliness epidemic actually identifies a very complex social development. We had this discussion in sociology 110 last semester (studying the causes behind the mle involves fairly rudimentary sociological theory). Iāll try to keep this part short:
The most pressing job of women under the patriarchy is providing emotional support. Men canāt be emotionally in touch because that involves engaging in āfeminine,ā and therefore weak, activity. Women essentially fulfill the basic human need of emotional work and they do this through their roles as wives, mothers, and romantic or sexual partners. What happens when women want to be something other than servants? They stop fulfilling the emotional needs of men. Men arenāt allowed to fill that role even platonically, so it remains empty
THIS IS NOT THE FAULT OF WOMEN OR FEMINISM. IT IS THE FAULT OF THE PATRIARCHY.
So now we have a large swath of men who are not guaranteed the emotional energy of the women around them especially if they canāt get that from their mothers. But, they havenāt been taught how to seek out emotional connection without romantic or sexual ties. Boom. Male loneliness epidemic.
Now that Iāve finished todayās lecture, Iām gonna hop up onto this nice little soapbox here.
I think the fact that the male loneliness epidemic has been identified and is being discussed by men indicates some desire to evolve away from the oppression of the patriarchy. Itās important to note that everyone is harmed by the patriarchy regardless of what benefit they may receive from it and it seems that many men are beginning to reject patriarchal ideas because of this (this doesnāt apply to MGTOW or incel rhetoric. That may become a different post). While minority genders donāt owe men in any way, I think we should be encouraging productive discussion of menās mental health or at the very least not shaming men for being open about it. That kind of shit is very blatantly patriarchal regardless of whatever āfeministā or āprogressiveā mask is put on it.
I would also like to point out that any rhetoric that says harm canāt possibly be done to this one specific demographic of people because insert convoluted argument here is inherently really fucking flawed especially if the demographic in question is based on immutable characteristics like sex and gender.
Nevermind. I guess I donāt find the male loneliness epidemic funny at all.
