To be entirely honest a great to overwhelming deal of the supposed mental/self esteem effects of growing up without a father/"male role model" or whatever mystical connective essence your biological parents supposedly have comes from the constant social messaging that these things are important and that you are a broken person without them. People will constantly reinforce the idea that a childs life is incomplete and unfulfilled without some supposedly missing (and generally immaterial) parental element in a way that conveniently justifies and reinforces whatever family structure is dominant in that specific culture.
And frankly a great deal of young men work themselves up into a misogynistic complex about having been "denied" male role models or some shit, and that's why they need to listen to some stochastic terrorist dickhead on a podcast. After all: It could never be the patriarchy. It's probably women's fault
TLDR this shit is culturally and socially defined and does not exist in a vacuum. There is no ingrained need for a "male presence", there is no ingrained need for biological parents (or even parents at all). The 1% of harm coming from something other than the socio-economic effects of being raised by a single mother comes from social pressure, stigma and misogny.
