Squires: What's wrong with our girls?

There has been a great deal of discussion over the past two years about rising rates of violent crime (homicide, assault, robbery) across the country. Politicians and pundits on the left blame COVID. The right attributes the trend largely to the “defund the police” movement and say it causes law enforcement to take a more reactive approach to fighting crime.

Each side will continue to blame the other, especially in an election year, but there is a disturbing trend that no one is talking about: There appear to be more girls involved in violent crime than at any other time in recent history. Two teenage girls from Washington, D.C., were charged in the death of an Uber Eats driver in 2021 after they tried to steal his car. A 14-year-old girl was charged with murder in Philadelphia after she and a group of teens beat an elderly man to death with traffic cones. A pair of girls in New York City were recently arrested along with their male counterparts for killing a taxi driver after he chased them for not paying their fare.

It is quite possible that my perception is being shaped by the ubiquity of cell phones and viral videos. It is also possible that media coverage is reflecting a new reality. Either way, the frequency with which girls are engaging in serious acts of violence is deeply disturbing.

Given the link between family structure and negative social outcomes, it also suggests many girls are not getting the love, structure, and supervision they need to stay out of trouble. It is hard to imagine that a 13-year-old girl who feels loved and protected at home would be out at 2:30 a.m. on the streets beating up old men.

The failure to inculcate a healthy sense of femininity in our girls can also be seen in the distorted sexual norms so prevalent in our culture.

Instagram celebrity Brittany Renner recently tweeted a picture of a front door that said, “It’s not a whore house. It’s a whore home.” The post was apparently on brand, because Renner was also in a video I saw recently arguing she could sleep with a man without any emotional attachment. When one man asked how she could do that, she angrily blurted out, “Because I’m not in tune with myself, that’s why!”

Renner is like a lot of young women today. They have been sold a lie about human nature and believe that sexual promiscuity is empowering. They claim to want a real man, but everything about them is fake, from their bodies to their bravado.

Renner admitted in an interview that the one thing that was missing from her life growing up was her parents. She said her mother’s decision to chase after various men made her ask a question that is familiar to many children with an absent parent: “How come I’m not enough?”

As is the case with teen girls and crime, women who think they can mimic the sexual behavior of men often have issues that lead back to the home.

The sexual revolution has cast a long shadow on American social norms for over half a century. One of its lasting legacies has been convincing young women that their sexuality is the primary asset they can offer the world. Some girls have gone in the complete opposite direction and rejected their bodies altogether, evidenced by the explosion of gender dysphoria among teenage girls in the last five years.

After a lifetime of being told that women are oppressed and men are privileged, a significant number of girls now want to be boys.

Between the aggression that some girls exhibit on the streets and the depression other girls express online, young women in this country are in trouble. The leaders and devotees of the second-wave feminist movement were so concerned about smashing the patriarchy that they failed to articulate a positive vision for femininity that could be passed down to the next generation of younger women.

One group that can help the next generation of girls is Christian women who believe that God’s design for male and female is a blessing, not a curse. These are women who embrace their exclusive ability to bring life into the world – a stark contrast to the celebrities who think access to abortion is the key to a truly liberated life.

These are also women who realize that there is nothing empowering about a woman selling her body for cash or clicks and nothing oppressed about a woman who submits to the leadership of her husband.

The Bible says that older women are to train younger women to love their husbands and children, exercise self-control, prioritize their homes, and exhibit kindness. This goes against the instruction most women get today: worship yourself, do what you want, prioritize your career, and be as aggressive as men.

American culture has been discipled by radical ideologues who think “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” and then wonder why so many children grow up without fathers.

It is time to reject any message of “female empowerment” that encourages women to deny their nature, degrade themselves, or engage in dysfunctional behavior. We are losing the battle for our girls because they have been convinced that acting like men is the best way to be a woman.

Nothing could be further from the truth.