Women are in crisis.
Many claim that young men are in crisis, but statistics show that young women are suffering a spiritual crisis in far greater numbers than their male counterparts—a complete existential collapse of what it even means to be a woman.
Unmarried, childless women (18–34) are the least happy of any group;
43% of young women (18-29) now have no religion, higher than young men;
Over a quarter of younger women (12-19) report depression, double than in boys, with over 20% of all white women being on antidepressants;
Only 61% of high-school girls say they want to get married someday, compared with 74% of boys (historically unprecedented).
The U.S. total fertility rate is near 1.6, well below the 2.1 replacement level; and
Abortion far outpaces war in total number of deaths, as more abortions have occurred inside the U.S. since 1973 than in all wars during the same time period—and globally, the number of abortions for that time period is in the low billions.
What is happening to the modern woman?
Well, an ancient tale may help—a story of lust and rage, of how all the women in a city once went mad.
Let’s us look at the crisis of women, the crisis of our American Bacchae.
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What has happened to Women?
The modern American women is in crisis. While certainly not all women, there is a dominative picture of what it means to be female in American that is historically unprecedented. That which has been most associated with being a woman in Western civilization—a wife and a mother—is being firmly rejected. Women too are walking away from religion, especially Christianity, leaving men, for maybe the first time in history, as the more pious of the sexes.
Christians believe that the modern American woman is in a spiritual crisis. That which should bring love and identity to the feminine heart—God, a husband, children, etc.—is now met with indifference, mockery, or hate. It is a downward spiral into an existential collapse, an extraordinary crisis of identity.
The old sacred stories of the West, like Eve as the pinnacle of creation or the immortal glory of Penelope, mean almost nothing to today’s femininity. Like a masterpiece that has lost faith in its own beauty, women no longer see themselves as icons of the Divine Beauty-itself—they no longer see themselves in the image of God.
The question, however, is in what image is this new femininity made?
The American Bacchae
An ancient story may help you unravel this mystery. In Euripides’ play The Bacchae (405 BC), the god of wine and joviality, Dionysus, comes to the town of Thebes and drives the local women mad. The women abandon their husbands to run wild in the woods amongst rumors of orgies and unspeakable acts. Young women abandon their infants and ease their swollen breasts by nursing wild animals. Wrapping themselves in fawn skins and crowns of ivy, these wives, daughters, and mothers give themselves over to the lusts of men. The women fall upon cattle, and, as the creatures bellow in terror, the women tear them apart with their bare hands. The woods are filled with dancing and gore, lust and rage—as these women, the new Bacchae, offer these acts in praise of their new god, Dionysus.
You should carefully consider the fact that The Bacchae ends with a mother tearing apart her own son in a scene of primal gore. He cries: “No, no mother… pity me, spare me Mother!” The fellow Bacchae join in the slaughter, as “one tore off an arm, another a foot still warm in its shoe.” The mother then impales the head of her son on her wand and parades with it throughout Thebes—and it is only until her father, Cadmus, leads her to sanity that she can understand what she has done.
In sum, Dionysius, though he presents as a god of wine and mirth, is actually a god of licentiousness, irrationality, and bestial release. He represents an erotics of descent, a plummet into subhuman sex and violence—a victory of the savage appetites of the soul over the intellect.
Dionysius entered the town, and the women went mad.
Here are the questions you must ask:
In what way do we see the Bacchae in our own society?
Who or what is the Dionysius that has entered our Western civilization?
Let us take up the first question and examine whether the statistics on the modern American woman show a creature suffering a spiritual crisis, a creature becoming the Bacchae.
The Rise of the American Bacchae
1. Religion & Spiritual Practice
We are witnessing a religious change in women on a historically unprecedented scale. PRRI data show 43% of women ages 18–29 now identify as religiously unaffiliated, up from 29% in 2013 (a 14-point rise)[1], exceeding the approximately 35% rate among young men[2]. Gallup finds only 29–30% of young women say religion is “very important”[3], while Barna reports women overall now trail men in weekly church attendance (36% vs. 43% in 2025 tracking)[4]—a reversal of the historic pattern in which women consistently outpaced men.
In short, young women are disaffiliating in record numbers from religion, especially Christianity, while their male counterparts are starting to turn back. As Christians would note, you are observing a new generation of women unmoored from any relationship with Jesus or connection to an institutional Church.
The question, again, is what are they mooring themselves to—what is it to which they are now affiliated? There is no neutral.
Let’s explore five other categories: (2) the female crisis of unhappiness; (3) the rejection of marriage; (4) the crisis of abortion and fertility; (5) smut books and porn use amongst women; and (6) the radical shift leftward in politics.
Women are in crisis.
Remember the Bacchae.
