The singer’s album Man’s Best Friend bottles young women’s increasing sense of healthy relationships being out of reach

Sabrina Carpenter’s country-tinged synth-pop album Man’s Best Friend initially drew attention for its divisive album cover. But as masculinity researchers, we see her work differently. It’s a cultural marker of a wider phenomenon: young women’s increasing withdrawal from dating and committed relationships.

Carpenter bottles the palpable exasperation of young women’s experiences with emotionally unprepared partners. And her feelings show up in the data. Women are more likely than men to say dating is harder than it was 10 years ago and they are twice as likely to cite physical and emotional risk as the reason why. The disproportionate emotional labor placed on women in relationships, paired with rising economic insecurity, does not compute.

Caroline Hayes is a researcher and narrative strategist, specializing in the intersection of tech, culture and gender; Carolina Hidalgo-McCabe is an organizer, researcher and the host of The Masking Tapes, a podcast that explores 21st century masculinity and the gender divide; Alice Lassman is a policy expert, with her forthcoming book exploring how AI’s influence on gender and emotions are reshaping economic life.