Ironically, the behaviours we most revile in “mama’s boys” may be a product of the same social forces that caused people to roll their eyes at close mother-son relationships in the first place: rigid gender roles and sexism. It is not an excess of emotional intimacy and support that breeds a man who can’t take care of himself, after all, or who can’t find a partner who lives up to his mother’s image. It’s a society that says that men shouldn’t need to know how to take care of themselves, and that puts women in constant competition for male attention and validation.