Women have been plagued by modern feminism for a long time, but like most leftist concepts and causes, it's most effective when it starts infecting the youth.
Sure enough, feminism has been hard at work pushing itself on young women, and it's been working.
According to Pew Research, for the first time, more women in the 12th grade say they have no intention of getting married in the future, outpacing boys:
Boys are more likely than girls to say they want to get married someday (74% vs. 61%), but this wasn’t always the case. In 1993, a larger share of girls (83%) than boys (76%) said they wanted to get married.
The share of boys saying this is virtually unchanged over the 30-year period. But the share among girls dropped by 22 percentage points.
I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I'm not. In fact, the political division between young men and women has likely sparked an adherence to wildly different principles. Young men have been gravitating more rightward for some time, and are even leading something of a Christian revival, with many Gen Z men subscribing to the old church.
Read: Gen Z Is Getting Good With God
I think it's interesting that, at this time, social media algorithms can be very anti-male when pointed at women. An endless procession of girlboss TikToks and bitter single woman Instagram posts comes down like a tidal wave on today's young women. Even many married women aren't spared, as other women tell them that what they're getting out of their marriage is the "bare minimum."
Funny enough, on TikTok, "divorce" is a constant suggestion in the comments sections of women discussing their husbands, good or bad. The "husbands are another child to take care of" narrative is pretty thick on social media, and marriage is usually equated to struggle and even "settling." Rearing children is sold as something the woman will have to do alone, and of course, they're told this will ruin their professional life.
Read: The Modern Lie About Marriage Is Spreading Like Wildfire
Meanwhile, men aren't being hit with so many relationship-based social media posts. Their interests usually aren't as based in social dynamics as women's and thus, they are served fewer posts that center around love, marriage, and children.
Children are also a contributing factor to the decline in the willingness to get married. MomTok is awash with "mom rage" content, burnout posts, and, from time to time, content that shows some women voicing their regrets for having children.
Pair that with the cultural pressure to wait to get married until much later, and you have a perfect storm of anti-marriage sentiment inside young women who don't understand what it is they're avoiding. Even if they don't outright hate the idea of marriage, it has given them a lot of doubt to deal with on the subject. For a 17-year-old girl, being served these constant warning signs could really screw with your mental image of "happily ever after."
To be sure, a lot of these ideas may change over the course of the years. A woman may find a man she really loves and wants to settle down with, but priorities and opinions may evolve as they mature. Social circumstances might also change significantly, and in some cases, might already be changing with the growing movement of traditional views on marriage in women's circles.
Still, giving feminists the lead from an early age isn't exactly going to result in a lot of happy women down the road.
Especially in this day and age, it's important to reach out to women where they are and debunk the issues head-on. More women should take to TikTok and Instagram, countering the negative ideas surrounding marriage and motherhood. If anyone is going to convince women that feminism is misleading and wrong, it will be other women.
However, it will likely be an uphill fight for a while. Feminism hasn't just had a huge head start; it's still far superior at communicating ideas to women, but if there's one thing we've learned over the past few years, it's that leftist messaging tends to crumble quickly once effective communication is established that challenges its claims directly.
