The Real Conversation About “Mankeeping” Isn’t About Men

The term mankeeping has gained traction as a way to describe the emotional labor women carry in relationships. It’s a provocative phrase, but I worry it oversimplifies something far more complex: the dynamics of agency and responsibility in emotional work.

Yes, women often carry a disproportionate share of emotional labor. But framing it as something done to us misses a critical point. Much of this labor isn’t just imposed—it’s internalized, socialized, and even maintained for our own benefit. Emotional labor often becomes a way to control the emotional temperature of our environment, to secure connection, or to meet our own unspoken needs.

Agency: What Are We Choosing?

When we position ourselves as default emotional caretakers, we often fail to recognize where we have choice. Do we really need to step in every time? Are we truly “doing the work” for others, or are we avoiding the discomfort of allowing people to show up imperfectly?

This is about taking ownership of our role in relational patterns. Agency means recognizing where we’ve overstepped or over-functioned, and choosing to recalibrate.

Resilience: The Emotional Armor We Build

Many women I work with aren’t just emotionally exhausted because of what’s demanded of them—they’re exhausted because they’re doing too much emotional gatekeeping. It’s resilience turned inward, bending into hyper-vigilance:

• Anticipating emotional needs before they’re voiced.

• “Smoothing” moments of tension before they fully unfold.

• Acting as the emotional shock absorber for everyone around them.

We call this care, but often, it’s control wrapped in nurturing language.

Clarity: Language Shapes the Narrative

Language like mankeeping can become a double-edged sword. On one hand, it surfaces valid frustrations about relational inequality. On the other, it risks locking us into a narrative where women are always the overburdened caretakers, and men are the emotional dependents. It flattens the truth: both men and women can be controlling, just in different ways. Women may not wield physical dominance, but emotional gatekeeping can be just as stifling—only quieter, harder to name.

Clarity asks us to pause and ask:

• Where am I choosing to hold this labor?

• What am I getting out of this dynamic?

• How might I create space for real partnership instead of invisible management?

What the Conversation Misses

I talk to men about feelings all the time. Hours of raw, vulnerable, honest conversations—men are not incapable of this work. But they often don’t feel invited into the process. When emotional labor is hoarded, even with good intentions, we unintentionally block others from building their own resilience.

This isn’t about labeling one gender as more emotionally “evolved” than the other. It’s about dismantling the patterns—on both sides—that keep us from true relational equity.

The Hidden Cost of Emotional Gatekeeping

• It creates silent resentment when one person feels responsible for the emotional well-being of everyone else.

• It blocks others from learning to manage their own emotions, keeping them dependent.

• It leads to burnout and erodes intimacy, as relationships become about management rather than connection.

• It feeds a cycle of control that disguises itself as care, limiting authentic partnership.

A Final Thought

The real problem isn’t just mankeeping. It’s the deeper issue of unclear boundaries, misplaced responsibility, and the belief that our worth is tied to managing the emotions of others.

Agency. Resilience. Clarity. When we bring these into our relationships, we stop defaulting to invisible labor and start building mutual capacity. That’s the work worth doing.