On Female Loneliness
by thethreepennyguignol
When it comes to loneliness, men’s suffering is treated as a legitimate problem by media at large – but the conversations around women struggling in the same ways have long been framed in very different terms.
The male loneliness epidemic has become one of the most oft-repeated phrases in popular culture over the course of the last few years, a calling card for concern over the way that modern men have faced a changing landscape of socialization and connection. From The New York Times to the Guardian to the Independent and beyond, there’s no shortage of coverage of men struggling with loneliness, whether on an individual or endemic scale. And, for the most part, this coverage is focused on the matter of improving that loneliness, identifying the harm that such loneliness causes both personally and societally, and making sense of the forces that have coalesced to leave men feeling socially isolated.
And, to be clear, that’s not a bad thing. I think this discussion is part of a slow, broad shift towards more direct conversations about emotional and mental health, and, regardless of the gender in question, I’m glad to see that happening. But it struck me – for all the loneliness men seemed to be enduring, at least according to popular media, were women really doing that much better?
It’s a topic that’s been earning a little more attention in the last years or so, with some research suggesting that women are disproportionately affected by loneliness, and the Campaign to End Loneliness identified more women as being affected by chronic loneliness than men (7.67% versus 6.33%). A study from the Pew Research Center suggested that the difference in the amount of men and women suffering from loneliness was less than a percent (16% versus 15%), suggesting that the issue of loneliness is more societal and structural than gendered. So where are the discussions centred on women’s loneliness? There are a handful to be found on similarly-large platforms, like Cosmopolitan, but earnest discussions of it seemed pretty hard to come by.
But the more thought I gave the matter, the more I came to realise that I had been hearing conversations about female loneliness for pretty much as long as I could remember. But that, instead of taking the form of serious op-eds in major news outlets, they were almost invariably side-swiping jokes from the media aimed at the lonely women in question.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen pop culture jump to a joke about mad old women living out their lives in loneliness, surrounded by cats, or heard some throwaway gag about women dying alone for being too picky in their personal lives, or that a woman passionate about her job should expect to make a choice between connection and career at some point or another. Loneliness isn’t an abstract thing that happens to women, but something they have an active, central role in causing. Women struggling with loneliness is something, according to pop culture, that they bring on themselves, and that just isn’t worthy of the same societal concern that men’s has earned.
And this approach, to my eyes, is underpinned by a bitter need to punish women for not following the traditional paths set out for them, the ones that are socially-condoned as a way to avoid loneliness – getting married, having children, connecting with family. Women’s loneliness is a point of ridicule because it’s so often framed as something women bring on themselves by failing to do what they should have, a punishment for those who rejected it and a warning to those thinking of doing the same. Stay in line – with traditional values and gender roles – and you won’t have to be one of those crazy cat ladies, a point of ridicule whose suffering is little more than a punchline.
Loneliness, without a shadow of a doubt, is a growing issue across almost all vectors of society right now, and dealing with that in a meaningful way is of profound importance. But the framing of this loneliness across gendered lines is one that serves to divide the issue in a way that helps nobody – and obfuscates the really extent of the problem.
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(header image via Dame Magazine)
The Cutprice Guignol 
1000% When men are lonely, it’s a cultu ral emergency. When women are lonely, it’s a joke, it’s our own fault, it’s proof that nothing we have to say about political issues is worthwhile.
But there’s also a mode of responding to the “male loneliness crisis” on the part of women that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, of listing off all the ways in which men aren’t taught to build and maintain community or male friendships as the reason why they’re lonely.
And like, then how do you account for lonely women?
“You don’t have community because you’re a bad community member,” I read in one post listing off the things that men don’t do habitually the way women are more likely to.
But I do do those things (to the best of my ability), and… I’m still lonely.