In our increasingly isolated world, loneliness exists in abundance. While the forces of social media, political polarization, and ever-intensifying individualism are pulling people further from community connection, loneliness is not an unavoidable epidemic. And it certainly isn’t profoundly male.
Disconnection, en masse, is not a gendered phenomenon. To take pieces of the “male loneliness epidemic” seriously, we must contextualize them within the systemic conditions that produced them. The insistence on individual emotional strength, the forceful centering of the isolated nuclear family, the spread of suburbanization…these are all forms of curated isolation for the purpose of power structure preservation. Yet still, we—a patriarchally organized society—find ourselves surprised that the result is, well, loneliness. The regime of the patriarchy rules by suppressing knowledge and connection held in emotion, for fear that its realization will be an act of resistance to the systemically imposed, emotionless knowledge we take as hard fact.
As a result, men are expected to engage in side-by-side friendships rather than face-to-face ones in order to reproduce the emotionless norms that sustain power dynamics. They do things together, sure, but the focus is on the activity itself, not direct conversation. This less emotional male friendship design is suboptimal as a vessel for intimacy. While reproducing the expectations for a fear of intimacy, emotional vulnerability, and interdependence, they are dooming themselves to a lonely existence. And then, in a time of crisis, men learn that their shoulder-to-shoulder relationships don’t support them in the ways that they need.
Further, the label of the “male loneliness epidemic” centers the victimhood of men while ignoring systemic power relations that produce universal isolation. The current special attention on and exceptionalism of male loneliness just feeds into itself, and asks women to be more accommodating. When analyzing the results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the male loneliness epidemic was cited in abundance to explain away the rightward shift in young male voters. “How Andrew Tate Built an Army of Lonely, Angry Men,” the headlines would read. Let’s be clear: the algorithmic push toward red-pilling is no joke. This shift to the right creates a positive feedback loop for loneliness—as gender roles are more and more crystallized, men feel more alone.
However, the focus on male loneliness is a complete misdirection of energy. Society hasn’t abandoned men, its very creators. The real issue is not loneliness, it’s self-inflicted social starvation. And while it may not feel like an individual choice, there are individual ways to resist it. Hope is not lost, for men or anyone else affected by the crushing restriction of patriarchy.
Marx famously claimed that “what the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” The ruling class, in his eyes, creates its very means of destruction by oppressing the working class below them. The same is happening today, under the patriarchy. Under patriarchy, everyone both reproduces norms and is harmed by them—and men are certainly feeling harmed. This is the last gasp before the systemic and intentional isolation of the patriarchy forces its own creators to dig a hole six feet deep. And, with its final breaths, the focus remains on men’s pain instead of on dismantling the very system of oppression that led us here.
Male isolation cannot be a dog whistle for mobilizing the far right any longer. Instead, let’s receive it as an urgent call for working to dismantle the patriarchy. Here are a few small steps you can take, today, to push back against systematically-imposed loneliness. Make your neighbor some soup and eat it with them at their kitchen table. Find a local group organizing direct aid for a cause close to your heart. Read about relationship hierarchy, and remember that no romantic relationship will thrive as the singular point of support in your life. Embarrass yourself, in front of your friends. Speak with them face-to-face. Localize your engagement. Speak with the women in your life, and note the ways that they cultivate communities of their own. Learn from them. And most of all, remember that the patriarchy oppresses us all: so, don’t focus your attention on just one symptom of this oppression. We are all responsible for our collective liberation.
Artwork by Nicole Mousad