The Extreme Crisis of Young Women - Freya India
In a Nutshell
Freya India's book critiques the mental health crisis among young liberal women, blaming social media's commodification of emotions, family breakdown, risk-averse "girl boss" feminism, hookup culture paradoxes, and porn exposure for fostering pessimism, vulnerability fears, declining marriage/childbirth desires, and leftward radicalization. Young women face pressure to optimize as marketable products, perform vulnerability online for clout, and adopt hyper-independent traits that hinder relationships, while influencers escalate neurotic trends in beauty, mental health, and politics. Critics dismiss her as right-wing or misogynistic despite evidence-based observations matching progressive outlets like New Statesman, highlighting cultural blind spots to conservative solutions like community anchors and motherhood incentives.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Freya India's book received one-star reviews on Goodreads from liberal women. Free galleys were sent to avid Goodreads readers outside their sphere. The book cover suggests anti-capitalist Marxist content, with no indication of skepticism toward the mental health industry or discussions of cultural trends like family breakdown. Reviews warn others that it contains unexpected viewpoints, especially after the first chapter mentions trans issues.
Started writing about women and girls in 2021 due to personal anxiety, taking five to six years to finish the book, incorporating years of life experiences. Co-wrote an article with William Costello in Quillette while in sixth form college. Criticism claims she's using the topic to push a right-wing agenda, labeling her fascist.
Research shows young women are more pessimistic, less likely to feel happy, ambitious, excited, or fulfilled, and pessimistic about future happiness. New Statesman piece "Angry Young Women" concludes young women feel pessimistic, have more negative views of men than vice versa. Contrasts with focus on manosphere radicalizing men. Argues women are radicalized by social media and femosphere influencers warning off men. Piece reaches same observations as conservative commentators but is celebrated, while Freya faces misogyny and far-right accusations for similar claims about liberal young women's unhappiness, relationship hopelessness, and future pessimism. More privileged women felt even more pessimistic.
Douglas Murray notes being white and conservative makes him an "honorary straight guy," overriding gay privilege. Freya, as white, British, right-leaning woman, has female privilege dismissed. Critics attack her as white cis heterosexual woman arguing from her perspective, yet she'd be attacked for writing about black women's feelings. Book targets Anglosphere women facing pathologization and medicalization of emotions, pressure to stay single and self-actualized, not stigma or pressure to settle down. Critics call it ranty opinion funneling to right-wing conservatism with dog whistles. New Statesman reaches identical conclusions after interviewing women.
Worst feeling is being right but early or right but wrong class to discuss. Environmentalists, seeing ice sheets melting, water levels rising, forest fires, feel vindicated but shout louder (e.g., soup on paintings, glue to M25), appearing deranged due to incentive to escalate for attention.
Women have everything they want but nothing they need: eroded foundations like family breakdown, no neighbor knowledge, no communities, less religious than young men. Social media offered substitutes, destroying young women lacking grounding. Girls from conservative religious households do better, protected from mental health crisis. Liberal teen girls: 31% use social media >5 hours/day, higher than others. Liberal upbringing leaves no anchors, leading to higher addiction.
Women encouraged to optimize selves for market, not human experiences. Explains aversion to children: motherhood risks body destruction, unpredictability, danger, not displayable. Current generation values differently from previous.
Opposite of pressure to settle down; pressure to stay single, unattached, available. Emma Watson describes pressure to settle as violence, feeling rush, but Freya sees pressure to self-actualize first (heal, fix mental health, become best self) before committing. Post-motherhood ends public profile (no brunch, cute heels, flexing nappies). Girls on Instagram at 10-11 document everything for audience. Hard to switch mindset to quiet satisfactions requiring giving up self. Parents register kids' Instagram handles before birth; plan baby showers, hospital bags on YouTube, select usernames. UK: nearly 25% of 5-7 year olds have smartphones; 38% on social media. Instagram age 13, but just enter birthday, no verification.
Australia's under-16 ban spearheaded by person at dinner with Tony Abbott. UK may struggle due to complaint culture, surveillance state, Online Safety Bill requiring age verification (ID upload), protecting from bullying/hatred (impacts Substack), illegal content. Karma wants to double down.
Pew survey: 12th grade girls less likely to want marriage someday than young men. Single young women more likely to see marriage as outdated. Men more open to dating/relationships. Due to product mindset, risk aversion, fear from family breakdown, no stable models. Online: deranged gender discourse from wounded adults, porn teaching men as brutal/predatory.
"Girl with the list" details terrifying childbirth risks, more dangerous than glamorizing child-free life. Risk-averse generation reads neurotic analyses previous generations couldn't. Childbirth physically/emotionally taxing for women asymmetrically. Men seeming dismissive appears callous. New Statesman girls: "It's a much bigger deal for us to become mothers. We have to get rid of our career... I just really don't want to lose the other things and become just a mother. I still want to be me." Fear of vulnerability, dependence; girl boss feminism as control if relationships fail.
Sponsor: Eight Sleep Pod 5 smart cover cools/heats bed up to 20°, temperature duvet/pillowcase, sensors track heartbeats/breathing/HRV, white noise speaker, autopilot, snoring detection. Clinically adds up to 1 hour quality sleep/night. 30-day trial, international shipping, $350 off at eightsleep.com/modernwisdom code modernwisdom.
Fear of vulnerability drives young men and women to chase productivity and independence, avoiding dependence and leaps of faith in relationships. Men are told to focus on career because women will hurt them; similar dynamics affect young women. This stems from fear, needing compassion.
As women become socioeconomically successful with careers, they adopt independent, assertive, dominant, disagreeable traits to climb ladders.
Independence and assertiveness create a ratchet effect, hard to reverse. Starting a family or relationship requires relinquishing control, compromising, and showing up for others beyond personal freedom. Marriage ties finances; women out-earning partners face liability without prenups. With kids, relinquishing control intensifies—you need to be looked after, express needs. Nobody wants to strip female independence (many marriages endured due to financial dependence), but inability to let go hinders successful relationships and families. You're a partner, mother, unit member who gives/takes without keeping score.
Personality traits that work for your career will not work in your relationship. You get praised for in public, you pay for in private.
No problem with women working, but lean-in feminism makes leaning back out difficult. Generation needs to lean into risk and vulnerability; over-investing in work sacrifices dependence, compromise, sacrifice.
Young liberal women seem confused: hate capitalism yet love independent careers. Book criticized as anti-capitalist for not attacking it (author believes in free markets), yet also for questioning girl-boss feminism and career focus. Incompatible. Progressives demonize authority (religion, parents), leaving market/influencers to define right/wrong/values.
Progressives want to take down forms of belonging/meaning, leaving companies/industries. Difficult circle to square.
Book covers 2010-now cultural/technological changes. Research shows hookup culture pushed: Teen Vogue taught teens anal sex/hookup tips; Call Her Daddy (late 2010s) promoted sleeping around as empowering/healthy. Alex Cooper now engaged. Yet statistics show no sex increase—paradox between messaging and outcomes. Gen Z hypersexualized but having less sex; possibly linked.
Sex sounded horrifying/scary. Not just advertising sex; for 4/5 out of 10s, learn tips to compensate—you're just a hole. Stereotypical worst masculine banter from women. Guest Mil Hunter (slept with older women) gave horrifying advice, ended with "Men don't care about you," even in marriage they cheat. Hosts: "I hope you girls are listening." Most-listened podcast by women. Contributes to sex recession alongside femosphere/manosphere messaging: investing in opposite sex/vulnerability gets you hurt—need defense/bravado. Same messaging both sides.
Porn terrifies young women, exposed before relationships (e.g., Gen Z forum: first exposure at 6/8 accidentally on platforms). Focus on men's impact overlooks women's, even if not watching—social media exposure (Twitter/Instagram accidental, leading to addiction). Creates fear/crazy expectations. Pornbrained women speak of themselves heartbreakingly like porn sites: object/product. Paradox: porn meaningless/transactional yet potentially most traumatic if done wrong.
No understanding of progressive defense of porn (e.g., empowers disadvantaged with iPhone/dildo). Book avoids caveats/disclaimers (tired of them), gives skeptical side.
Book critiques without constant disclaimers (brief initial acknowledgment: some medication/therapy helps/saves lives). Heard benefits elsewhere; book gives untold dangers. Progressives alarmed, want disclaimers.
Starts with perfect-life highlight reels, traces to influencers' vulnerability. Zoella (huge UK beauty influencer for young British women, perfect-looking/inspirational) revealed anxiety/panic attacks dramatically—millions of views, felt personal/private. Healthy then; incentivized industry—opening up gets clicks/money (gossip-like intimacy). Girls saw influencers offering deepest feelings to market/algorithms, copied. Became performance as damaging as perfect lives: live-streaming panic attacks/messy depression.
Perfect lives aspirational (even if untrue); vulnerable content harmful to scroll/consume/share. Companies (Instagram/Facebook/Snapchat) encouraged sharing feelings (for data). Instagram evolution: images → videos → stories (for not-good-enough feed content) → close friends (members-only, like OnlyFans gatewalling). Refined breakdown content for public.
Young girls share vulnerable selves, categorize as disorders (e.g., social anxiety at 13), permanent record. Mental health industry categorizes/sells/diagnoses, preventing growth out of it. Fossilized record challenges future U-turns.
Influencers' big-scale events (cancellations, breakdowns) mimicked by ordinary girls performing for followers/subscribers. Role models were influencers.
Nearly 30% of teenage American girls (14-18) seriously considered suicide in 2021. Genuine distress exists—not just self-diagnosis from feeling fine. Mental health industry encourages rumination/inward focus/diagnosis. Distress from world: less face-to-face practice → outsized socializing reactions (not disorders). Women go inwards when distressed; industries say problem is you. Reactions human to world turning you into product (perfect look/feel/label/distress packaged/displayed to market).
New Statesman admits young women radicalized leftward from 2010s (men stable; women lurched left, widening under-30s gap). Not men to populist right.
Prevailing narrative: young men (manosphere/Andrew Tate) radicalized faster/more than women, creating gulf. Compelling but inaccurate—young women to radical left widening gap.
Social media drags to extremes. Women down rabbit holes (mental health → identity; progressive politics → further left via algorithm). Progressive politics fits women's traits (compassion/empathy) and vices (indirect aggression, cancel culture, risk aversion, safety). Women sucked in more than men.
New Statesman: women won't date/friend different-politics men ("don't see you as human"); one (Evelyn) has male friends but fears pickme label, worries what men watch (reels bad about women). She gets reels bad about men, but interprets as warning vs. men's danger. Parallels extreme manosphere/Call Her Daddy: same language/thumbnails/titles ("we don't need men/women").
At 19, during Black Lives Matter protests, celebrities, influencers, and ordinary girls pressured each other for not posting content online. By then, everything—relationships, memories, holidays—was compulsively shared online, so not posting a black square looked suspect. In 2020, morality became measurable and instantly judged by Instagram profiles. For teenage girls, life is constant reputation management, hitting hard with the idea that not joining in or displaying stances means not being a good person.
"Silence is consent" – Cara Delevingne's Instagram story line.
Young women pressured each other, using it as another form of reputation destruction for having offensive or outdated views, separate from politics, becoming competition.
Beauty influencers like Zoella started with simple back-to-school makeup tutorials, harmless for teens. Competition for clicks and money led to extremes: from normal tutorials to vlogs casually showing Brazilian butt lifts as standard routines; anti-aging from simple routines to 50-step processes starting younger, with thumbnails like "Botox at 17" performing best.
Social media drags mental health, political, and beauty trends to extremes. Spending most waking hours on it makes extremes the norm for information on beauty, relationships, politics.
Instagram and TikTok changed attractiveness toward avatars with terror of aging: 12-year-olds on Reddit forums obsess over wrinkles, ruminate on pictures, list sun exposure, compare anti-aging routines before puberty, influenced by influencers exaggerating neuroticism for clicks.
Social media amplifies girls' higher rumination, co-ruminating on platforms like Reddit with one-upmanship escalation, like conspiracy icebergs racing deeper.
Mental health trends escalate diagnoses competitively: influencers brand as ADHD influencer, competing over diagnoses.
Psychological cost of 24/7 front-facing cameras: Snapchat dysmorphia (wanting surgery to match filters), Zoom face during lockdown. Facetune app popular among teen girls: edit jaw, enlarge eyes, change waist, tan skin, whiten teeth—used during formative years, leading to body dysmorphia in 20s when undoing edits reveals horrifying reality.
Self-love messaging coexists with record body dissatisfaction as marketing: Facetune sold as empowering; influencers claim overcoming insecurities while teaching jaw reshaping, comments ignore hypocrisy.
Recognize being sold vs. told: apps/trends promise feelings they don't deliver; Facetune use leaves embarrassment, shame, worse self-feeling.
Similar to pickup artist movement: contorting self for superficial gains (likes/dopamine) widens gap to natural self, fostering disgust; hooks on app, aversion to natural photos—girls fight over phones for editing control. Explains social anxiety: real world feels out of control, uneditable.
Observation: teenage girls at sunset took hundreds of photos for perfect shots; candid snaps prompted hands covering faces—not cutesy, but defensive.
Grew up with dog ear Snapchat filter beautifying (enlarged eyes, smoothed skin), leading 13-year-olds to hate normal photos. Vain and insecure paradox.
Girls use social media more, find it harder to quit, taps vulnerabilities. Platforms encourage teenage girl behaviors for all: ruminative, sharing feelings daily, catastrophizing; insecurity from front-facing analysis (looksmaxing for boys); indirect aggression (gossip, reputation destruction via unflattering pics) since physical aggression impossible online.
Men online act catty like teenage girls; all regress to high school mean behaviorally despite ideological divides. Being a teenage girl miserable stage—traps in destructive developmental time, bad for mental health.
Influencers (beauty, mental health) pose as friends: YouTube titles like "let's get ready like we're on FaceTime," simulating friendship. Stops girls getting lonely enough to make real friends.
Male sedation hypothesis: porn, screens, video games sedate sexless young men, reducing antisocial behavior (no incel killings as expected).
For girls: belonging, advice, emotional understanding via day-in-life vlogs (get ready with me).
Teen gaming: 99% boys, 94% girls play; boys 39% daily gamers (1.5-2.5 hrs/day), girls 22% (0.5-1.5 hrs/day). Boys: FPS, sports, action, strategy, competitive multiplayer. Girls: social sandbox (Roblox, Minecraft), simulation (Sims, Animal Crossing), cozy/puzzle (Candy Crush, Subway Surfers)—short, low-commitment.
"The average woman's misandry comes from online radicalization, not experience."
Young women complain of situationships (no commitment); less incentives for men to formalize, muddled dynamics (e.g., not girlfriend yet, dating others but exclusive). Forums seek validation: "Is this normal?" Online radicalizes by generalizing bad experiences to "all men." Counter: not all girls OnlyFans stars or promiscuous—generalization error.
Extreme stories go viral online, leading to generalized catastrophizing for both sexes. The most egregious stories get the most attention, creating recursive red pill learning. Example: A guy loses his job, leaves for 2 hours, returns to find his wife in bed with the milkman and the milkman's dog, she leaves him broke, he gets addicted to fentanyl. Whether true or not, extreme stories dominate because they generate clicks. Normal stories like a minor argument resolved with tea do not.
This trains people on unrepresentative extremes, like training ChatGPT on viral data. Bidirectional trial incentive system: extreme stories get posted and seen more.
Study of 15 years of Reddit relationship advice (1,166,592 comments):
- End relationship or cut contact: Up from 30% to 50%.
- Communicate: Dropped by a quarter.
- Give space and time: Dropped even more.
- Seek therapy and counseling: Ticked up slightly.
- Set and respect boundaries: Increased (weaponizing therapy language).
- Compromise: Dropped by half.
ChatGPT trained heavily on Reddit data, yet rarely advises breakups. Reddit advice sometimes inward-spirals legitimate problems.
Example from book: Young woman upset her partner is addicted to porn and watches girls like her to "reassure" her (e.g., "I watch average bodies like yours"). Her Reddit post pleading for help gets responses blaming her: anxiety disorder, attachment issues, porn is normal. She insists she needs to get over it but can't stop crying.
Mental health problems are both underdiagnosed (serious cases untreated) and overdiagnosed (normal people gaslit into believing they have issues). Relationship advice is too fragile/accusatory and too forgiving/blameless simultaneously.
Hyperresponders (self-critical girls) take accusatory advice seriously and echo chamber in those communities. Guys should take responsibility, but not grit through intimate relationships—it's a safe space, not a war.
Therapy language obscures real problems: endless communication, boundaries, personal tastes lead to articulate therapy-speak without identifying core issues. Alandarbot video: Late-night journaling, couples counseling, 4-hour calls indicate incompatibility, not fixable rupture and repair. Tools like attachment styles and love languages have limits.
Girls mislabel bad partners as causing anxious attachment, thinking secure attachment means never feeling jealous/insecure. TikTok advice lacks context, dramatically labels normal reactions as problems.
Megan Cooper (British trauma-informed holistic therapist, Higher Love podcast) discusses violence against women, hypermasculinity, manufactured male victimhood. Instagram post on conflicts in Iran, Palestine, Beirut, Sudan: "For the past few months, my bones have ached... The viscerality of the feminine wound."
This injects female-coded language into global wars without clear link; likely signaling goodness ("look at how much I care"). Public empathy incentivized on social media deranges, preventing local impact. October 7th turning point for many young women, but not 7/7 bombings or UK grooming gangs crisis affecting women directly.
Wars kill more men (military actors); women/children tragedy huge but gendered framing odd. Grooming gangs politically incorrect/right-coded. New Statesman piece: Woman calls boyfriend a "Labrador" who's never faced adversity (privately educated), says she's his adversity—lacks empathy for those closest.
Press calls book dangerous, not genuine empathy (should discuss Sudan), grift (Guardian), can't save anyone because sold (New Statesman—ironic for paywalled pub). Criticisms cancel out; real issue: not politically correct, no patriarchy/Middle East disclaimers, reaches conservative conclusions (divorce, porn).
Anti-tech commodification of kids should be progressive, but platforms teach feminism. Young women define lives by DSM diagnoses from rich white men; hate billionaires but use their labels/pharma. Anti-divorce coded conservative, but divorce now glamorized for self-actualization (divorce parties).
Normalization/glamorization hurts wives/children. Double shift myth: Women work + housework; add emotional labor, numbers fall. Post-divorce with young kids: Quadruple burden, no dual income. Erica Komisar: Custody not 50/50; babies need mom more initially. Breakups peak 6 months-3 years under stress.
Hypersexualized culture but less sex; sex sacred yet traumatic if wrong. More connected yet isolated. Independence highest calling yet extend maternity leave. Billionaires bad yet corporate jobs meaningful. Freedom important.
Overthinking natural instincts: Child harmed by parents splitting (no data needed; seen in divorced parents' attachment issues). Progressives love attachment theory/abandonment but ignore causes like divorce. Focus backward (heal inner child) not forward (prevent). Blame prior generation's lack of tools, celebrate own breakups.
Movements like resist and unsubscribe (Scott Galloway) target companies (e.g., Netflix), but left-leaning Gen Z girls keep Instagram/TikTok (China abuses), X (Elon Musk), skip Bluesky. Hypocritical clout-seeking.
Skepticism of companies progressive/Marxist: Identify needs exploited (e.g., Better Help markets as parent/friend for dating/crushes/exams). Replaces family guidance. Like paying cuddlers for hugs.
Better Help ads: Dad says "go for walk in sun" → unhelpful; use code. Suspicious of companies urging detachment from loved ones, attachment to experts.
Internet consensus makes you question sanity ("Are we the baddies?"). Examples rejected as anti-woman:
- "Just a mother" raises women.
- Corporate jobs not highest calling.
- Mothers not domestic prostitutes/pickmes.
- Men pursuing careers not tyrants; emotional men not soy boys.
Mom calls book loving toward girls; online: hateful, misogynist, "Freya India would prefer a world without women's rights."
Goodreads: 3.16/5 (97 ratings). One-star: "Handmaid's Tale. What starts off as disappointing through its lack of nuance and depth make contradictory points and statistics that feel cherrypicked in order to back up points the author is
A review compares the book to The Handmaid's Tale, criticizing it for lacking nuance and depth, making contradictory points with cherrypicked statistics to desperately back up arguments. It descends into conservative pearl-clutching and concludes as a manifesto for girls returning to family values and baby-making, akin to something Serena Joy from The Handmaid's Tale would write. The premise is interesting and important, but the book misses the mark entirely. Side note: the term "age-old" appears excessively without editing.
Reviewer cannot recommend it due to zero nuance. Another rant in a blog post questions life without social media, trans rights, women's rights, or therapy, implying Freya India prefers that. Comments note transphobia and turf rhetoric.
Theory to tell if a content creator has your best interests at heart: whether the group is bound by mutual love of an in-group or mutual hatred of an out-group. That's an early warning sign.
- When was the last time they admitted they were wrong?
- When was the last time they surprised you with a take?
- When did they bring on someone they disagree with, not to mock but to learn?
For content diet: when was the last time you were surprised by this person's take? If predictable and cookie-cutter, they're not a serious thinker.
Freya India's book has unpredictable takes, like commodification of women, which conservatives don't often discuss. This makes her an unreliable ally rather than outright conservative, leading to more targeted hate than a typical right-wing influencer. Operating in the middle while figuring things out is more threatening.
Criticism tone is snarky, dismissive, judgmental, labeling her as evil. She reads books she disagrees with, including those with liberal assumptions (common in social media books), but doesn't write 2,000-word rants destroying them—instead puts energy into her own work.
View as a criticism-creation balance sheet: if criticizing more than creating, you're withdrawing from the system more than adding. Should be 10:1 ratio of creation to criticism. Check Twitter: tons of quote tweets (not positive ones) means extracting more than adding.
People who never written a book call it badly researched or lazy. Visceral critics have profiles full of criticizing others' attempts. Loudest shouts from cheapest seats—those furthest from doing something criticize most.
Insane reframing of UK mothers' tax benefits (like Hungary's) as inverse tax penalty on child-free women. New Statesman piece: young woman worried Reform will force babies. They extrapolate Handmaid's Tale onto everything, like defaulting to Nazi Germany in history.
Hungary: 25% off income tax for first kid, 50% for second, 100% for life with three or more.
How is incentivizing motherhood penalizing child-free women? It's adding to the system. Justifications for low birth rates: economic conditions, cost of living crisis, fear of partner abandonment/divorce, inability to afford kids. Incentives address that.
Response: "You're persecuting child-free women." No—everyone starts from current baseline. Wanting money for mothers excludes non-mothers, revealing desire for women-specific benefits generally.
Knowing only Nazi Germany makes anything exclusionary or closing (vs. endless opening) suspicious. Reasonable tax suggestion encouraging kids seen as slippery slope to fascism.
Cost-benefit: something wanted in disliked packaging—how much desired thing vs. undesired? Same with "capitalism bad" but liking social media for clout.
Critics haven't encountered conservative-leaning views accidentally. Liberal assumptions pervasive in culture, media, books on social media. Few books lean conservative without warning.
No disclaimer on book or Substack, which has girly magazine aesthetic—accused of tricking into conservative propaganda. Needs health warning like cigarettes or explicit mixtapes (e.g., Marshall Mathers EP).
Women's preferences unchanged, but funneled toward fake simulations—a big Ponzi scheme. Conservatives say young women radically left-wing because evil, wanting to tear down civilization. Actually well-intentioned: want to look compassionate, good to friends, but funneled weirdly.
Young British women care intensely about Middle East but zero empathy for boyfriend. Need for belonging met via YouTube simulating family/friends; parental advice from BetterHelp influencers.
Challenges not new, but more simulations than previous generations.
When they rate the book one star. Obvious when right goes too far (Peterson reference), but not for left. New Statesman sees women's left skew as aggressive radical left.
Obscene empathy turned to 11 becomes judgmental tribalism. Care for groups constrained to one makes you oppressor, not oppressed.
Left can't go too far: slightly conservative on one topic codes you right-wing, even if rest progressive. Guilt by association in interviews. No room to be moderately conservative or curious.
Room on left: communist writing book caring for girls unscrutinized. Conservative opinions in girls' care book? Not genuine—political operator.
Freya India's Substack: freyindia.co.uk. Not on Instagram or TikTok.
Keep Chris Williamson in your library
Save the videos and channels worth coming back to, and find them again in one place.
