We can't let politicians exploit the very real problem of loneliness

In the culture wars of western societies, loneliness appears to have become a new battleground. A couple of months ago, a video of Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance went viral. In it, Mr Vance refers to "A bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made want to make the rest of the country miserable, too”.

As expected, the comments did not go down well with large sections of American society. One of the most public responses to Mr Vance came from a very public figure.

Taylor Swift, singer, songwriter and the world’s biggest pop star, posted a picture of herself with her cat and signed off her endorsement of the Democratic Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris aptly: “With love and hope, childless cat lady."

This might seem like political banter in a fraught American election campaign, but there is something far deeper and more dangerous being trivialised here, and that is the global epidemic of loneliness affecting both men and women.

According to a 2023 Gallup-Meta poll across 142 countries, nearly a quarter of people are experiencing feeling very or fairly lonely. Alarmingly, the highest rates of feeling lonely are reported among young adults (aged 19 to 29), with 27 per cent feeling very or fairly lonely. No surprise then that towards the end of last year, the World Health Organisation declared loneliness to be a pressing global health issue and launched a three-year international commission on social connection.

It estimated that one in four older adults experience social isolation and between five and 15 per cent of adolescents experience loneliness. Rates in low-and middle-income countries are comparable or higher than in high-income countries.

We are increasingly familiar with the distressing mental health affects of loneliness, such as the risk of depression, anxiety and even suicide. Alongside these dangers, there are also very real social impacts: dropping out of school or poorer economic outcomes. There are also startling physical affects.

Loneliness in older adults is associated with a 50 per cent increased risk of developing dementia and a 30 per cent increased risk of coronary artery disease or stroke. These are very real risks of cognitive decline as well as reduced life expectancy.

According to Dr Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, and who is leading the commission, the health risks are as bad as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than those associated with obesity and physical inactivity.

It is, simply put, an epidemic affecting all groups, regions and notably, both sexes. Into this scenario, enter the culture wars and their ruthlessness in weaponising the very real suffering of both men and women to create division with seemingly little care for solving this crisis. In fact the very opposite is true: the tools it uses actively harm the people suffering.

In the West, I have noticed that genders are at times pitted against each other: focusing pity for male loneliness epidemic versus derision and hatred for female loneliness. The thrust of this appears to be that women are bitter when they are lonely, but they are also to blame for male loneliness but also responsible for solving it and somehow thus should be demonised. The most troubling part of this characterisation is that it harms most the people it purports to help: men suffering from loneliness.

Instead of supporting men to develop their own tools and support networks and engage with services aiming to help them, agency is taken away from men and instead the problem is someone else's, in this case, women. This therefore harms men further because they move further away from seeking help and instead do not take agency to solve their very real and very damaging problems.

This draws on long-standing cultural mores about the role of men and women in fostering social connection anywhere in the world. For example, women in relationships take on the bulk of the work of maintaining connections with extended family and friend groups, organising events, gatherings and keeping the wheels of social convention oiled.

This is part of "mankeeping", a relatively new term that talks about the responsibilities that fall on women to manage men’s emotional health, social lives and prompting them to seek care. It also draws on pervasive ideas that a woman’s purpose and fulfilment only comes from being married. And that a man must be strong and unemotional and it is unmanly to seek help.

In some sections of society, women who express loneliness can sometimes be portrayed as "desperate," which implies their loneliness is a personal failure and their only route to success is to be married. But women now, such as Taylor Swift, may lean into these narratives, using humour as empowerment, to reclaim their own independent identities.

For men, believing in misleading tropes of masculinity can lead to a vicious circle. Men’s loneliness is often labelled merely as them being "alphas" and "sigmas", while their counterparts, or "betas", signify vulnerability. The very traits men are told to embrace are the ones that harm them, preventing them from seeking help.

Loneliness is a deeply serious issue for anyone, men and women. It shows up in different ways, which means that we need to be alert to its weaponisation in cultural and political discourse. This needs collective attention and compassion, perhaps particularly for men who are being harmed by these narratives while trying to navigate their feelings of isolation.

The most beautiful and simple solution to the disconnection that culture wars try to exacerbate would be to reach across divides, talk to each other and create real human connection.