- Feb 5, 2002
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With so many feminist advances, women should be getting happier instead of just more medicated.
Over the last five decades, feminism has made a long march through American culture, culminating in the first female vice president of the United States. But it isn’t clear that feminism’s fruits are helping everyone. Happiness metrics confirm that women are struggling: Suicides, depression, substance abuse, and sexually transmitted infections have all increased dramatically over the last five decades. Women aren’t becoming happier, just more medicated. A 2020 Pew Report showed that over 50 percent of liberal white women under 30 have some sort of mental-health issue. That statistic alone is stunning enough to indicate that something is going very wrong for the modern woman, despite the steady uptick of feminist advances.
I recently had dinner with two friends who work at a crisis-pregnancy center. They told me some far from unusual stories about the challenges their residents face and the rough living most have experienced — being trafficked, pimped, addicted, incarcerated, abused, and on and on. Crisis-pregnancy homes, despite their recent mischaracterization in The Handmaid’s Tale, do amazing work to protect and help rebuild the lives of new mothers. But it is striking to consider that we as a culture do precious little to help women avoid these troublesome situations from the beginning. It is only when women get this far down the road and in this much trouble that mentoring women can step in and say, “Something has to change.” And those in crisis are willing to listen because they have tried everything else. As lives are rebuilt, basic changes to behavior are taught — albeit as an uphill battle because of the absence of cultural support.
Continued below.
Feminism & Its Failures | National Review
Over the last five decades, feminism has made a long march through American culture, culminating in the first female vice president of the United States. But it isn’t clear that feminism’s fruits are helping everyone. Happiness metrics confirm that women are struggling: Suicides, depression, substance abuse, and sexually transmitted infections have all increased dramatically over the last five decades. Women aren’t becoming happier, just more medicated. A 2020 Pew Report showed that over 50 percent of liberal white women under 30 have some sort of mental-health issue. That statistic alone is stunning enough to indicate that something is going very wrong for the modern woman, despite the steady uptick of feminist advances.
I recently had dinner with two friends who work at a crisis-pregnancy center. They told me some far from unusual stories about the challenges their residents face and the rough living most have experienced — being trafficked, pimped, addicted, incarcerated, abused, and on and on. Crisis-pregnancy homes, despite their recent mischaracterization in The Handmaid’s Tale, do amazing work to protect and help rebuild the lives of new mothers. But it is striking to consider that we as a culture do precious little to help women avoid these troublesome situations from the beginning. It is only when women get this far down the road and in this much trouble that mentoring women can step in and say, “Something has to change.” And those in crisis are willing to listen because they have tried everything else. As lives are rebuilt, basic changes to behavior are taught — albeit as an uphill battle because of the absence of cultural support.
Continued below.
Feminism & Its Failures | National Review
