Penna Dexter

The Institute for Family Studies recently released its latest American Family Survey which revealed that liberal women are unhappier and lonelier than their conservative counterparts. Only 12 percent of them said they are “completely satisfied” with their lives, compared with 37 percent of conservative women.

Psychology professor Lucian Hanks explains in an essay in The American Spectator that “Two factors accounted for roughly half the gap between liberal and conservative women” in this study: “Church attendance and marriage.”

The study’s authors explain that the gap “seems to flow from the fact that liberal young women are less likely to be integrated into core American institutions — specifically marriage and religion — that lend meaning, direction, and a sense of solidarity to women’s lives.” They suggest that the fact that liberal women are less likely to marry or go to church “may also have a hand in their elevated reports of loneliness.”

These findings are backed up by other research. Dr. Hanks points to a recent study that reveals rising rates of depression in liberal adolescent females. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt says this phenomenon began back in 2012 when teens began to have smartphones and teen girls flocked to Instagram. Another prominent psychologist and author, Jean Twenge, has shown that liberal girls use social media more than any other group. They are comparing themselves with their peers’ flawless photos and conducting their social lives more online than in person. Dr. Twenge found that, beginning in the 70s, liberal girls spent more time with friends than conservative girls. There was a drastic reversal beginning in 2010.

Dr. Haidt adds that this is roughly the time when young women began to be inundated online with ideas about their own fragility. Liberal females are more likely to buy into woke lies about words and ideas being forms of violence toward them against which they are powerless.

Conservatives, instead, emphasize personal agency and resiliency. No wonder conservative women are happier.