We Must Stop Ignoring the Global Crisis of Mental Illness Among Young Women

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Henry Herrera

Telephone: +1-301-801-0608

We Must Stop Ignoring the Global Crisis of Mental Illness Among Young Women

April 20, 2026 – Across the globe, young women are facing an unprecedented mental health crisis. Compared to their male counterparts (1):

Canada: Girls in grades 7-12 are far more likely to experience fair to poor mental health, compared to boys.
Denmark: Females 16-24 are twice as likely to have poor mental health.
Finland: Fifteen-year-old girls are twice as likely to have depressive symptoms.
Sweden: Females 16-29 are twice as likely to have severe anxiety.
United States: Females 18-21 years old were twice as likely as men to report a broad range of problems such as “Felt nervous all/most of the time in past 30 days.” (Figure 1)

In Australia, France, Italy, and Norway, young females likewise report higher levels of mental illness, compared to males.

In the United Kingdom, a just-released study from Merlin Strategy found young women are more angry, pessimistic, and left-wing than their male peers (2). In particular, young UK women (3):

Believe that “things are stacked against me, no matter how hard I try.”
Do not want to have children.
View Communism more positively than young men.

The survey also reveals that 21% of UK women under 30 years view men in a negative light, compared to only 7% of men who see women in a similar way.

Over the past year, UK feminists fabricated a story-line about young men who are enamored of figures like Andrew Tate (4). Much of the scare was triggered by the Netflix show, Adolescence, a fictional drama that some falsely referred to as a “documentary.”

In response to the public outcry, officials created a school curriculum to protect students from the alleged “scourge of misogynism, deepfake porn and unhealthy attitudes to consent, power and control.“ (5)

But following the Merlin survey, commentators changed their tune and began to ask, “Why do young women hate men?” (6)

Now, feminists have lost control of the narrative. It’s not young boys who are seen as extremists – it’s young, angry women who are viewed as cultural misfits.

In the words of Scarlett Maguire, “Over the past decade we have had countless opinion pieces, documentaries and dramas about dangerously disenfranchised young men… Yet not enough thought has been given to young women’s much greater movement in the opposite direction.” (7)

If lawmakers are going to help solve the women’s mental health crisis, they need to ignore the shrill claims of the feminist ideologues, and take a good, hard look at the science.

The Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance – DAVIA — unites 231 member organizations from 42 countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. DAVIA seeks to ensure that domestic violence and abuse policies are science-based, family-affirming, and gender-inclusive. https://endtodv.org/coalitions/davia/

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