“Mankeeping” and the Call for Balance in Relationships

Artist Credit: Andrew Ling

Putting Emotional Labor into Perspective

The word mankeeping has recently emerged in my therapy sessions and in the media to describe the invisible, often unacknowledged labor women provide in heterosexual relationships: managing household tasks, tending to emotions, planning social calendars, and carrying the relational “glue.” For many women, this experience feels less like partnership and more like becoming the default caregiver, life manager, nurse, and even “therapist” to their partner.

This conversation isn’t about bashing men. Many men are deeply caring, emotionally present, and embrace and support equality. Rather, it’s about recognizing old patterns that still ripple through modern relationships and giving couples tools to create balance.

How Generations of Women Were Taught to Center Men

For much of the last century, women were raised with the unspoken lesson that their worth lay in how well they supported, soothed, and elevated men. Consider:

• Educational messaging: Girls were often encouraged to pursue “feminine” careers or homemaking, with the assumption that men’s ambitions came first.

• Marriage as identity: Until fairly recently, a woman’s financial survival often depended on marriage, making “centering” her husband’s needs less of a choice and more of a survival strategy.

• Emotional caretaking: Women were taught to anticipate their husband’s moods, keep their opinions to themselves, make the home a sanctuary, bury their emotions, and put their own needs second.

It is important to underscore that traditional roles themselves aren’t inherently harmful. If a couple chooses a more traditional arrangement with mutual respect and genuine preference, that can be deeply fulfilling for these couples. The problem arises when expectation replaces choice, and when emotional, financial, and domestic burdens pile disproportionately on women’s shoulders—especially in today’s world where most women also work outside the home.

Artist credit: kinga howard

The Toll of Emotional Imbalance

When one partner becomes the primary emotional container—the one to soothe, reassure, remind, organize, anticipate, and absorb—while also carrying the majority of household and financial responsibilities, the consequences can be profound.

Another layer of imbalance shows up in the social sphere. Many women describe feeling like they must “entertain” their partner, lest he be bored for one moment. They do this by keeping the calendar full with activities he most enjoys,  or they are the one who encourages him to connect with friends. They may take on the role of smoothing over his awkwardness or silence at gatherings hosted by her friends or family and even absorbing his complaints about her social group.

These same men may drag their heels when asked to step into her social world, and if they agree to accompany her, they complain, silently fume, are detached, or make excuses to leave early when the event centers on her world. Yet when the activity is something that they’re interested in—an amusement park, hiking trip, concert, sporting event, or their own family’s gathering—they’re suddenly enthusiastic, invested, and fully engaged.

This dynamic leaves women not only managing their own social needs but also carrying the responsibility of being their partner’s sole social director and emotional cruise ship staff. Over time, this imbalance can feel infantilizing and deeply draining.

Impacts on Women’s Health

• Burnout and depletion: Carrying the role of partner, parent, planner, nursemaid, accountant, secretary, and “therapist” leads to exhaustion.

• Depression and anxiety: Constant emotional vigilance (watching moods, preventing conflict, soothing insecurities) can create chronic stress and resentment.

• Loss of identity: When a woman’s life revolves around anticipating or meeting her partner’s needs and his needs are consistently place above her own, her own passions, friendships, and self-care may fade.

• Chronic stress response: Living in “caretaker mode” elevates cortisol, which over time can weaken immunity and disrupt sleep.

• Somatic symptoms: Headaches, digestive issues, fatigue, and even autoimmune flare-ups are linked to prolonged emotional overload.

• Reduced longevity: Research shows women in unequal marriages often experience poorer long-term health outcomes compared to those in more balanced partnerships.

Impacts on the Relationship

• Resentment and distance: Instead of intimacy, imbalance often breeds frustration.

• Parent–child dynamic: When one partner is “the caretaker” and the other “the dependent,” romantic partnership erodes.

• Stalled growth: If one person does the emotional work for both, the other misses opportunities to grow emotional resilience.

It’s important to underline: It is not a woman’s role to soothe every fear, mood, “owie”, or insecurity her partner experiences—or to manage his social life, or beg for him to support her social life. Support should be reciprocal, not one-sided.

What Equality Looks Like in Practice

Arist credit: collin Merkel

Creating balance doesn’t mean splitting every task down the middle with rigid fairness—it means shared ownership of emotional, financial, domestic, parental, and social labor in ways that feel equitable. For example:

• Mutual emotional support: Both partners ask, “How are you doing?” and listen with presence.

• Shared responsibility: From paying bills, to childcare, to household chores, to errands,  to scheduling social events, tasks are distributed with intention.

• Encouraging connection: Men benefit from cultivating male friendships, therapy, or communities, so their partner isn’t their only emotional outlet.

• Honoring individuality: Each partner has room to nurture their own needs, interests, and well-being.

A Century of Shifting Rights and Roles

To put this into perspective, here’s a brief timeline of key milestones in women’s rights over the last century:

I. Early 20th Century (1900–1940s)

• 1920 – 19th Amendment: Women win the constitutional right to vote. However, barriers like Jim Crow laws continued to disenfranchise Black women, and Native American women were not recognized as U.S. citizens.

• 1924 – Indian Citizenship Act: Grants Native Americans citizenship, but many states still prevent Native women from voting until 1948.

• 1943 – Magnuson Act: Allows Chinese immigrants to become naturalized citizens, opening the door for Asian American women to vote.

II. Mid 20th Century (1950s–1970s)

• 1965 – Voting Rights Act: Ends literacy tests, poll taxes, and intimidation tactics, finally securing voting rights in practice for many women of color.

• 1974 – Equal Credit Opportunity Act: Women gain the right to open credit cards, apply for loans, and open bank accounts without a husband or male co-signer.

• 1978 – Pregnancy Discrimination Act: Protects women from being fired or denied work due to pregnancy.

III. Late 20th Century (1980s–1990s)

• 1981 – Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

• 1993 – Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): Provides job-protected unpaid leave for family and medical reasons, including childbirth and caregiving.

IV. 21st Century (2000–Present)

• 2016 – Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman to win a major U.S. party’s nomination for president.

• 2020 – Kamala Harris becomes the first woman, and woman of color for Vice-President of the United States.

• 2022 – Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization: The Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, revoking the federal constitutional right to abortion.

• 2025 – Federal rollbacks continue, including restrictions on reproductive rights and gender-related protections.

V. Educational Gains vs. Economic Inequality

Educational Attainment

• Women outpace men in higher education:

• Ages 25–34: 47% of women hold bachelor’s degrees vs. 37% of men.

• Undergraduates: 57% women vs. 43% men.

• Graduate students: 61% women vs. 39% men.

Pay Gap

• Women working full-time still earn about 83–84% of men’s earnings.

• Even with the same degree in the same field, women earn less:

• Electrical engineering: women earn 85% of men’s wages.

• Computer science: women earn 79.6% of men’s wages.

• Parenthood deepens the gap: each child reduces a mother’s wages by about 5%, while men’s earnings remain steady.

VI. The Larger Context for Relationships

• Despite surpassing men in education, women continue to:

• Carry heavier loads of emotional and domestic labor.

• Earn less money.

• Face reduced autonomy over reproductive rights.

My hope is that by putting this into context, this helps explain why many women are calling for equity in emotional, social, and relational spheres — not out of resentment, but out of fairness.

Artist credit: Gabriel Tovar

Closing Reflection

The question isn’t about rejecting tradition, nor is it about blaming men. It’s about asking:

• Are our partnerships truly mutual?

• Do both partners feel seen, supported, and valued?

• Are both individuals centering one another?

• Is emotional, financial, and domestic labor carried fairly, with awareness of the toll it takes when one partner shoulders most of the weight?

When women are free to share—not surrender—their emotional energy, they thrive. And when men cultivate emotional literacy and shared responsibility, relationships deepen in trust, intimacy, joy, and resilience.

That is what equality in love looks like.

What are your thoughts? You are welcome to share in the comments below.

Kindly,
Mari A. Lee, LMFT, CSAT-S, CPTT-S, MBATT-S

References

• American Association of University Women. (2023). The simple truth about the gender pay gap. https://www.aauw.org/resources/research/simple-truth/

• Census Bureau. (2023, December 5). Education does not resolve gender wage gap. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/12/education-does-not-resolve-gender-wage-gap.html

• Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1691 (1974).

• Magnuson Act of 1943, Pub. L. No. 78-199, 57 Stat. 600.

• National Archives. (1920). 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s right to vote (1920). https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/19th-amendment

• Pew Research Center. (2024, November 18). U.S. women are outpacing men in college completion, including in every major racial and ethnic group. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/18/us-women-are-outpacing-men-in-college-completion-including-in-every-major-racial-and-ethnic-group/

• Pew Research Center. (2025, March 4). Gender pay gap in U.S. has narrowed slightly over 2 decades. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/04/gender-pay-gap-in-us-has-narrowed-slightly-over-2-decades/

• U.S. Supreme Court. (2022). Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. ___ (2022).

• Voting Rights Act of 1965, Pub. L. No. 89-110, 79 Stat. 437.