Why Are Our Young Women Unhappy and on Drugs?
19th March 2026
In a word? Feminism.
Girls just want to have fun, right? Not so much these days.
More than 20% of American women self-reported experiencing depression, a September 2025 Gallup survey found. An even higher percentage are medicating: A 2023 study published by the National Institutes of Health claimed that nearly 30% of American women are on SSRIs or some kind of antidepressant.
Women’s happiness has been trending downward for 50 years, and today we find ourselves in the midst of a crisis.
Gee, what happened fifty years ago? The tranche of girls who were accustomed to hormonal birth control and abortion on demend were just getting ready to hit college.
Yet, narratives of female empowerment have dominated the last 50 years of American life. Pervasive feminism has penetrated our public and private institutions so deeply that it has actually changed how our government works.
In a world where opportunity for women abounds, why are they so unhappy?
Emma Waters, a policy analyst in the Center for Technology and the Human Person at The Heritage Foundation and author of a new book titled “Lead Like Jael: 7 Timeless Principles for Today’s Women of Faith,” has thought deeply about this question and joins “The Signal Sitdown” this week to discuss.
“Women have more choices before them than ever before,” Waters told The Daily Signal.
Well, they think they do.
The rise of social media and dating apps and the Boss Babe ‘you can have it all’ have deluded young women that they can party hearty through their twenties without suffering any consequences, and then snag a ‘guy in finance—6’5″—trust fund—blue eyes” whenever they want to once they hit 30.
Unfortunately, they’re all competing for the top 1% of men nationwide; most of them are doomed to disappointment.
Those top 1% men aren’t stupid, however, and faced with the fact that 56% of marriages end in divorce, that 70% of divorces are initiated by women, and that the family courts are stacked full of female judges only to ready to give the ex-wife custody of the kids and half his stuff, they’re refusing to be tied down. (Fun exercise: Pick a billionaire who once was married and is now divorced. Look up who divorced whom. Look at how much it cost him.)
Nothing is more common on YouTube than videos from women in their 30s and 40s whining “Where are all the good men?” Rollo Tomassi has the answer: “Back in your twenties, where you left them.” The YouTuber hoe_math will be happy to draw you a picture.