Why Are Our Young Women Unhappy and on Drugs?

The following is a preview of Daily Signal Politics Editor Bradley Devlin’s interview with Emma Waters, a policy analyst in the Center for Technology and the Human Person at The Heritage Foundation and author of “Lead Like Jael: 7 Timeless Principles for Today’s Women of Faith,” on “The Signal Sitdown.” The full interview premieres on The Daily Signal’s YouTube page at 6:30 a.m. EST on March 19.

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 NIH 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.

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.

“They have a competitive edge when it comes to higher education, to workplace advancement, in part because of DEI initiatives and in part because they have simply been excelling in higher education and credentialism in the last decade,” Waters explained. “And yet, despite the abundance of choices before them, they are less equipped than ever before with the life script or guidance necessary to make good decisions.”

The initial thought of endless possibilities appears enticing. Try telling that to Theseus before he enters the Labyrinth, much less your grandparent trying to remember their Facebook password.

Young women are left “in the state of being continually overwhelmed and paralyzed by the seeming endless list of choices,” Waters claims.

In the story from Greek mythology, Theseus overcomes his fear and enters the Labyrinth. But without a guide, he wouldn’t have come out alive.

Navigating life as a young woman is a daunting maze all its own. Waters argues that today’s young women are missing a guide.

Theseus would have died in that maze had it not been for the love of Ariadne and her thread. That thread for women in prior generations, was “mentorship and intergenerational relationships.” These relationships transmitted what it meant to be a virtuous woman, but the thread has been broken.

“It’s been largely broken today,” Waters suggests. “Where you don’t have older faithful mentors truly pouring into younger women, then you have a ton of younger women who don’t have a good life script, they don’t really have any models to point to.”

Waters’ book turns to scripture and unpacks the transcendent and ancient wisdom it offers to women with the hope of stitching back together what has been severed.

The post Why Are Our Young Women Unhappy and on Drugs? appeared first on The Daily Signal.