With social media platforms like TikTok fueling a growing anti-marriage narrative, and influencers and celebrities casting men as adversaries, a new perspective suggests that women might ultimately bear the brunt of these shifts.
In a thought-provoking opinion piece for USA Today, columnist Ingrid Jacques highlights the surge of “heteropessimism,” a term she uses to describe the burgeoning sentiment of disillusionment and friction women feel towards relationships with men. She believes that viral phenomena such as “divorce glow-ups” and a rise in male-bashing content have intensified gender divides.
Jacques points to research indicating that married women typically report higher levels of happiness, enjoy longer lifespans, and have greater earning potential than their single peers.
She argues that the types of media contemporary women engage with increasingly portray traditional relationships negatively. She draws attention to popular books like “Yesteryear,” which follows the life of a “tradwife” influencer.
In “Yesteryear,” Jacques observes, male characters are often depicted in unflattering stereotypical roles: they are portrayed either as absurdly immature “man-babies” or as domineering patriarchs who indulge in misogynistic circles. At one point, husbands are even labeled as “freaks.”
On Amazon, the book’s description includes, “A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, ‘Yesteryear’ is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.”
The trend coincides with falling US marriage and birth rates. Official US Census Bureau data from December shows that just 47% of American households in 2025 were married couples, down from nearly 66% 50 years ago.
Of those married households, only 37% included their own children under age 18, compared to 54% in 1975.
Jacques linked the shift directly to liberal ideology, noting that left-leaning Americans choose to opt out of traditional family lifestyles “far more often than conservatives.”
“Wherever you look these days, women who ‘free’ themselves from the chains of marriage are being celebrated,” Jacques wrote.
She highlighted cultural figures who publicly champion singlehood or life after divorce, including “Eat, Pray, Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert and model Emily Ratajkowski.
In April, comedian Leslie Jones criticized marriage, saying that most people she knew who got married are now divorced and arguing that “marriage is legalized slavery.”
A 2024 American Family Survey found that 37% of conservative women and 28% of moderate women, between the ages of 18 and 40, reported being “completely satisfied” with their lives.
However, liberal women of the same age reported only 12% feeling the same way.
The sentiment has also taken over social media through trends like the TikTok “divorce glow up,” where women post before-and-after photos celebrating their split. Jacques noted that in these videos, the women “typically look happier and more radiant in the ‘after’ photo.”
Citing Louise Perry, author of “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution,” Jacques argued that young women are being alienated after getting “burned by hookup culture” and lacking real friendships with the opposite sex.
Jacques argued that, like Perry, returning to marriage, not abandoning men altogether, is the remedy for the cultural divide.
“That won’t be true for everyone, of course,” Jacques concluded. “But men and women need to find a way back to each other. Discounting marriage won’t get them there.”