^{Image credit: Grok AI.}

By Selwyn Duke

For years now, article after article has been written about how young men are struggling. They fare worse in school than young women and are less likely to graduate college, we hear. Young men have mental-health issues and are more apt to commit suicide. They are socially isolated and lack motivation and direction. All these things are true, too, either in whole or to a degree. But what if it’s not young men, but young women, who actually are struggling more?

And what if this is ignored — not because of “patriarchy,” but because of feminism-aligned values that confuse good with bad?

This is evident in statistics, some of which American Thinker presented Sunday, writing:

Today, most of those self-identifying as LGBTQ are young women. The growth has been dramatic. In the US, some thirty percent of Gen Z women (age 18-27) are self-identifying as LGBTQ, etc. … compared to around 1-2% for women in the World War 2 generation. This means that almost a third of traditionally marital-age women are likely disinterested in traditional marriage. This is a significant factor in why almost half of Americans are unmarried.

…The effect of this unprecedented lesbian phenomenon is producing societal and demographic challenges that do not bode well for the US.

The intersex gap here is profound, too. While 31 percent of Gen Z women claim sexual devolutionary (“LGBTQ”) status, “only” 12 percent of the men do. (Of course, even this figure is alarmingly high.) Among the millennial generation (age 28-43), the female/male sexual devolutionary identification numbers are, respectively, 18 and nine percent.

Is this, though, a problem reflecting greater female struggles?

Not according to today’s prevailing (and ever-changing) secular values. They cast these identities as either “lifestyle choices” or, maybe more fashionably still, as expressions of one’s “true self.” And if believing the latter, you may suppose women are doing better than men. They’re perhaps more likely to “authentically express themselves.”

The picture looks different, however, if embracing that moral yardstick consistent through time: the virtues. First revealed by ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato, they were further developed by Christian thinkers and are defined as “objectively good moral habits.” And one of them, Chastity (which dictates sexual propriety), informs that sexual devolutionary thinking really does constitute devolution. It thus also tells us that women are, relatively speaking, struggling badly.

I am Woman, Hear Me … Cry for Help?

Related to the above and flipping the script, young men are now more interested than young women in having kids. This trumping of the famed “maternal instinct” is a striking development. Yet again, secularists may approve. Women are “liberated,” they may say, and are less likely to increase their “carbon footprint.”

Realizing that marriage and procreation are practically life’s highest calling, however, changes the equation. You then grasp that family formation is an expression of the virtue of Love. It’s also one of the most meaningful things you can do.

This would explain, too, why research finds that married women are significantly happier than single, childless women. The stereotypical spinster, vainly trying to satisfy her loneliness and maternal instinct through her three cats, too often reflects reality.

More to consider:

• Studies have found that women today are not as happy as their grandmothers were at their age. What’s more, while women registered greater happiness than men did in the 1970s, this pattern has now reversed.
• As mentioned earlier, men are more likely to actually commit suicide. But women attempt it two to three times as much and report higher rates of suicidal ideation. (Men’s higher “success rate” is attributable to their use of more violent means, such as firearms and hanging.)
• Related to the above, women are about twice as likely as men to use psychotropic medication (e.g., antidepressants). Fifteen to 20 percent of women are on such drugs. And the younger women? An AI analysis I ran estimated that 38-45 percent of Gen Z females use psychotropics. (The men weren’t doing so well, either, with their figures ranging from 25-32 percent. And in fairness, men are more likely to drink alcohol and do recreational drugs, which can constitute self-medication. This said, the intersex gap in alcohol abuse has narrowed.)

Ideology as Pathology?

Now we get to the truly controversial. (I know. What was I being up till now, right?) There has long been an intersex voting gap in politics, with men being more “conservative.” It has now, however, widened to a chasm. In fact, a study found that “women aged 18 to 30 are currently 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries,” reported the Financial Times in 2024.

Many of these left-wing women aren’t doing well, either. Why, 2020 research found that more than 50 percent of young, liberal, white women have been diagnosed with some form of “mental health” problem. What does this tell us?

Well, those embracing “fashionable” secular values may state that such women are simply more likely to seek help. The rest of us, the theory goes, run around undiagnosed. Yet again, the traditional, virtue-ordered mindset informs otherwise.

If, for example, you’re radio legend Michael Savage, who penned Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder, you’ll understand the connection. What we call “leftism” today is actually movement toward moral disorder. Evidence for this is that, as I illustrated here, leftism’s prescriptions contradict every single virtue. They oppose all that is great and good.

And leftists themselves can be characterized as low-virtue people, with research showing that they actually are less moral. Thus is it not surprising that they’re less happy, too. As Greek philosopher Aristotle pointed out, living a moral life is a prerequisite for true happiness (eudaimonia). What we call sin is essentially psychological poison — and it can manifest itself in what we call “psychological problems.”

Poison Yielding Power

Of course, all this will sound like nonsense to those with secular/leftist mindsets. It will, too, appear that men are struggling more when reckoning “success” in college degrees and other superficial measures. It all comes down to whether you apply the spirit of the age or the ageless, the ephemeral or ethereal, the times or the Truth. And while both sexes are having issues, something else is also for sure.

Women’s woes will often be welcomed as long as their problems translate into a certain ideological movement’s power.

This article was originally published at The New American.