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In 1953, Broadway lit up with the musical Annie Get Your Gun, where the iconic Ethel Merman belted out a tongue-in-cheek tune that carried a deeper truth than it dared to admit: “You can’t get a man with a gun.” One particular line from the same musical—“You can’t get a man with your brains”—echoed a widespread cultural narrative of the time. It was a time when women’s intelligence was celebrated quietly in the background but seldom seen as an asset in the pursuit of love.

Today, we find ourselves in an era of liberation. Women have stormed the bastions of academia, surpassed men in college enrollment, and are increasingly the breadwinners in many homes.

The song, a cheeky, satirical nod to gender roles, it encapsulated the cultural sentiment of the time. Fast-forward to today, and women’s happiness has plummeted—despite all the liberation, opportunity, and education that modern feminism promised.

Yet, despite all this progress, a sobering question must be asked: are women happier today than they were in the 1950’s? And if not, what changed?

THE SHAPE OF HAPPINESS THEN

It would be dishonest to paint the 1950’s as a paradise for women. Many were boxed into roles they did not choose. Domestic violence was often hidden, ambitions stifled, and dreams shelved in favour of suburban stability. But there is another side to the story—one worth remembering.

In the 1950’s, there was a clarity of roles—however imperfect—that offered stability. The nuclear family was intact, community ties were stronger, and expectations were anchored in shared cultural norms. Marriage rates were higher, and divorce was rare. While these metrics do not necessarily equate to happiness, they do correlate with a sense of belonging and purpose.

In her book Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism, F. Carolyn Graglia argues:

“The domestic role, far from being oppressive, gave women dignity, authority, and influence in the one realm that mattered most: the moral formation of the next generation.”

In 2009, a landmark study by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers (University of Pennsylvania) titled “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness“ found that despite immense economic and social gains, women’s self-reported happiness has steadily declined since the 1970s—while men’s has remained largely stable. And even that is now going down.

But the downward curve didn’t begin in a vacuum.

In 1971, President Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard . Simultaneously, the pill for unmarried women (1972), the sexual revolution, abortion (1973), no-fault divorce, and second-wave feminism began reshaping marriage, family, and vocation. The traditional family model—where women were often homemakers and men the breadwinners—was labelled oppressive. In its place rose careerism, individualism, and sexual autonomy.

Women gained the world—but many lost the home.

WOMEN’S LIBERATION OR WOMEN’S ISOLATION?

On paper, women are doing better than ever:

• Higher university attendance (surpassing men since the 1980’s)
• More financial independence
• Increased presence in professional fields

Yet, paradoxically:

• Rates of depression and anxiety in women have skyrocketed
• Fertility rates are at record lows
• Marriage rates have dropped, and divorce rates remain high
• Loneliness is now described as an epidemic among single women over 30
• 45% Of Women Are Expected To Be Single And Childless By 2030

We were told that economic empowerment and sexual liberation would lead to fulfilment. But the data suggests a deeper void. As journalist and author Mary Harrington puts it:

“We threw out the scripts and the roles, only to discover that biology doesn’t care about ideology.”

THE SHAPE OF HAPPINESS NOW

A key but often taboo topic here is female hypergamy—the tendency for women to prefer partners who are higher in status, education, income, more intelligent and taller etc. While this was relatively sustainable in a 1950’s world where fewer women had higher education or earnings, today it creates what researchers call “mating gaps.”

Fast forward to today, and we are surrounded by the language of empowerment. Women are told they can have it all—career, love, children, freedom, travel, status, and self-expression. Yet survey after survey reveals a different story.

Depression and anxiety rates among women are rising. Many report feeling overwhelmed, unsupported, and lonely—particularly single, educated women past a certain age. Dating apps have become a battleground of attention economies, where genuine connection is often replaced by perpetual swiping.

“The more options people perceive, the more paralysed they become, and the more they fear making the wrong choice.” — Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice

With the rise of hypergamy (the tendency for women to marry up in income, education, and status), educated women now outnumber eligible male counterparts. The pool of perceived suitable men shrinks as women ascend, and this makes committed, godly partnerships increasingly difficult to find.

HYPERGAMY AND STATISTICAL REALITY: HOW MANY MEN QUALIFY?

Criteria	Estimated % of Male Population	Estimated Number (based on ~130M men)	Comments
All Men in USA (18+)	100%	130,000,000	Total adult male population in the USA
Men Over 6ft Tall	14.5%	18,850,000	Only 14.5% of men are over 6ft (average height is ~5’9″)
Men Earning Over $100K	15.0%	19,500,000	About 15% of men earn $100,000 or more annually
Men Over 6ft & Earning $100K+	~1.0%	~1,300,000	Doesn’t factor in age, marital status, race preference, or sexual orientation

COMMENTARY

Hypergamy—women’s historical tendency to “marry up” in terms of income, status, or height—was once grounded in economic survival and biological drive. But in the modern era, as women gain economic independence, this mating preference has run into the hard wall of statistical scarcity.

Even if a woman is looking for just height or income, she already narrows the field drastically. Combining both? We’re talking 1 in 100 men—and that’s without accounting for:

• Men who are already married
• Men who are much older or too young
• Men uninterested in women (LGBTQ+)
• Men of a different race or culture, if that’s a limiting factor
• Health, Fitness & Obesity

In a world where women are encouraged to never settle, the paradox is this: the men they desire most are statistically rare and heavily competed for. This mismatch between expectation and availability fuels much of the modern dating discontent.

📌 “A good man is hard to find” isn’t just a proverb. It’s a math problem.

→ “There just aren’t any good men left!” – A common refrain from women
→ “There are, but 99% of them have been filtered out.” – The data

DATING APP ATTENTION: MEN’S VS WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE

Statistic	Men (%)	Women (%)	Comments
Swipe‑right rate (likes given)	~65%	~5‑15%	Men like broadly; women are highly selective
Match rate (ratio of likes returned)	~0.6%	~10%	From controlled study on likes and matches
Average likes per man per day	~1	~90+ (for typical woman)	Women generate far more inbound interest
Percentage of men getting zero matches	~~50‑60% (bottom half get ~4% total matches)	Very low	Bottom 50% of men receive ~4.3% of total matches while top 10% get 58%

COMMENTARY

• Men tend to swipe right on a majority of profiles (~65%), hoping to raise their match odds. Women swipe less than 15%, but receive a much higher return on selectivity.
• Match rates are heavily skewed: men may receive a match only 0.6% of the time they swipe right, while women match at around 10%—a stark imbalance.
• Visibility matters: if women only comprise ~25–35% of users, then even if every woman matched one man, the majority of men would still receive no matches because there simply aren’t enough women on the platform.
• Inequality within gender: the top 10% of men capture up to 58% of likes, while the remaining majority barely register any attention. Women experience a similar but less extreme concentration.

TAKEAWAY

• A majority of men (especially middle- and lower-tier attractiveness) get very little attention on dating apps—often no matches at all.
• Women—despite seeing fewer profiles—receive far more consistent interest and are highly selective.
• The system amplifies existing hypergamy and scarcity dynamics: only a small percentage of men receive most of the attention.
• Factors like age, marital status, orientation, race preferences, and visibility algorithms further narrow the field, compounding frustrations for men.

THE EDENIC TEMPTATION: TAKING MATTERS INTO OUR OWN HANDS

At the root of our modern dysfunction—relational, technological, emotional—is the ancient, Edenic temptation to seize control and manufacture outcomes on our own terms separate from God.

Just as Eve reached for the fruit in distrust of God’s intentions, humanity today continues to reach for the gleaming “apples” of innovation, autonomy, and synthetic order.

Technology, though neutral in itself, often becomes the idol through which we amplify our will and override divine timing.

It is the ultimate illusion of sovereignty—a dazzling tower of Babel rebuilt in the realm of circuits and screens. At its core, this compulsion to dominate, to automate, and to curate life without God is a confession of distrust: a belief that He will not make all things well, especially not in the intimate, slow, vulnerable space of relationships.

Yet Scripture testifies otherwise:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, NIV)

And,

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2).

And,

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV)

These verses are not merely financial or physical—they are holistic. God’s desire is for wholeness—in spirit, in body, and yes, in our human connections. But that wholeness cannot be engineered. It must be received, through faith, trust, and waiting on His Spirit. To manipulate the outcome is to mistrust the Gardener and pluck fruit not yet ripened. And we wonder why it leaves us sick.

That is why He says,

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)

But we don’t, and that’s why divorce rates, singleness, and hookup culture in the church are no different from those in the world.

THE SHIFT IN RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS

Marriage, once viewed as the sacred covenant foundational to society, is now optional, even outdated in many circles. Serial cohabitation has replaced covenant. Hookup culture has replaced holy pursuit. Women, encouraged to delay marriage for career, often reach their 30’s only to discover that the relational field has thinned.

“Hypergamy doesn’t care about fairness; it follows instinct. When women are taught to become the very men they once sought to marry, the natural order is disrupted.” (Rollo Tomassi)

From a biblical worldview, this disruption carries spiritual implications. We are not merely social animals responding to cultural incentives. We are image-bearers, designed with divine intention.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BOSS BITCH ARCHETYPE

The rise of the “boss bitch” archetype reflects a cultural pivot towards hyper-independence, ambition, and female dominance in traditionally masculine arenas—but beneath the empowerment rhetoric often lies a deeper exhaustion and disconnection from intimacy.

Fuelled by social media, hustle culture, and post-feminist individualism, this persona glorifies control, sexual power, and financial autonomy, yet can leave many women silently burnt out, guarded, and lonely. In rejecting submission, dependency, and vulnerability—traits historically associated with femininity—many inadvertently trade deep relational connection for performance, power, and protection.

Feminine energy is as powerful, directive, and divine as masculine energy—but its power is of a different order.

While masculine energy moves outward, penetrates, structures, and conquers, feminine energy draws inward, gestates, receives, weaves, nourishes, multiplies and transforms from within. It is the energy of the womb, of mystery, of becoming. They both give each other purpose. However, modern culture has conflated femaleness with feminine energy, assuming that a female body automatically expresses this deeper, sacred current. But biology alone does not guarantee spiritual embodiment.

A woman can be fully female, yet live entirely in masculine mode—striving, controlling, achieving, performing—cut off from the intuitive flow and deep inner rootedness of true feminine power. In fact, our society conditions both men and women to distrust feminine energy as weak or irrational, and so many women spend their lives in opposition to their own design, adopting external masculinity as armour, while their inner feminine lies silenced and starved.

To truly walk in feminine power is not to reject strength or agency, but to return to the ancient rhythms of the womb—to know when to rest, when to receive, when to yield, and when to rise. This is not passivity; it is deep spiritual intelligence. And it is just as ferocious, just as transformative, just as revolutionary—but rooted in being, not doing.

We step into true power not by rejecting who we are, but by reverently accepting the sacred design we once feared was our weakness.

Carl Jung would likely interpret the rise of the “boss bitch” archetype as a manifestation of an over-identification with the animus—the unconscious masculine aspect within a woman’s psyche. Rather than integrating the animus in a balanced, conscious way, the modern woman may be possessed by it, leading to a domination of willpower, control, and independence at the expense of the feminine principle—receptivity, relatedness, and emotional depth.

Jung might also frame it as a reactionary persona: a mask adopted by the ego to navigate a patriarchal world that historically protected feminine power. While the persona serves a function in achieving worldly success, it often alienates the individual from the deeper Self and authentic emotional needs.

In Jungian terms, the path to wholeness would require the modern “boss bitch” to reintegrate the feminine—not by rejecting strength, but by balancing it with softness, surrender, and soul. This would involve shadow work:

→ Confronting unconscious pain and resentment

→ Individuation (becoming whole)

→ Reconciling the wounded feminine and masculine within.

A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE: WHAT IS THE GOD-GIVEN ROLE OF WOMAN?

To speak of a woman’s God-given role is not to restrict, but to redeem her identity and celebrate her uniqueness. Scripture celebrates women not for their ability to mirror men, but for their unique calling as life-bearers, helpers, nurturers, multipliers, and wise stewards of the home, community, and even prophetic truth.

Proverbs 31 speaks not of a passive housewife, but of an industrious, dignified, respected woman who “laughs at the days to come.” She is clothed with strength and wisdom.

In the New Testament, we meet Lydia, a successful businesswoman who opened her home as the first European house-church. We see Priscilla, a theological teacher alongside her husband. The Bible does not flatten women into stereotypes, and while it equally values both the feminine and masculine, it doesn’t pretend that feminine and masculine energy are the same.

Instead, God honours the mutual complementarity and sacred distinctiveness of male and female, not as rivals, but as reflections of His wholeness in harmony.

“It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper [ezer] suitable for him.” (Genesis 2:18)

The word helper (ezer) is used also for God’s own role as helper to Israel (Psalm 33:20). It is a powerful term, not a subordinate one.

HAVE WOMEN BEEN DUPED?

It would be unjust to say all modern progress is a lie. Education, voting rights, freedom from abuse—these are blessings. But where the enemy deceives is in twisting freedom into dislocation, and equality into sameness.

The serpent still whispers: “Did God really say?”

Did God really say you need a family? Did God really say it’s noble to raise children? Did God really say submission is honourable?

And so, many women—though free, independent, and accomplished—find themselves quietly asking: Why does this still feel empty?

“Woman was made from the side of man, not to be above him or beneath him, but beside him—equal in worth, distinct in purpose.” (Matthew Henry on Genesis 2)

A REDEMPTIVE SOLUTION

For the woman who longs for something more than what this world has offered—for a home, a family, a husband to lead in love and protect in humility—there is hope.

First, we must deprogram the culture’s script and return to God’s Word.

Second, we must surround ourselves with wise counsel and communities that honour both calling and covenant.

Third, we must wait on the Lord—not passively, but faithfully.

And for those who are called to singleness, Scripture speaks of a sacred vocation too: one of radical devotion, undistracted service, and eternal fruit.

But to the woman who longs for marriage: you are not wrong. You have not failed. Your longing is not weakness. It is the echo of Eden.

FINAL WORD: REDEEMING DESIRE

The amplification effect of social media has drastically altered women’s perception of their own sexual marketplace value by expanding their reference pool from local communities to a global stage. This creates the illusion that they are no longer limited to the most eligible men in their town, since women now receive attention from high-status men—athletes, influencers, wealthy professionals—across the globe, many of whom have no intention of commitment.

This creates a false sense of abundance, skewing expectations and often leading women to believe that such high-tier men are the standard or attainable long-term partners, while in reality these interactions are fleeting, inflated by algorithms and not grounded in mutual proximity, values, or intent. Consequently, the average man in her real-life vicinity—who may be well-suited for lasting commitment—feels invisible by comparison, and she may delay or forgo meaningful partnership, chasing a curated mirage.

This is why 45% of eligible women are projected to be single by 2030…

There is no shame in desiring what God designed. But let us also submit our desire to His timing and wisdom. The goal is not to go back to the 1950’s. It is to go forward—into the kingdom culture that redeems both men and women, calling them to love, sacrifice, and covenantal unity.

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)

May we, as the Church, speak life over women—not demanding they deny their femininity, nor pressuring them to pursue false independence. May we honour womanhood as God created it: radiant, resilient, and redeemed.

If you’re a woman who wants to be loved, to build a life with a godly man, to raise children, to co-rule in love—not to “win the world” alone—you are not wrong. You are not backwards. You are not weak.

You are longing for Eden.

No degree, pay raise, or feminist applause will ever substitute for the covenantal safety of love rooted in Christ. If the world has promised you everything but delivered isolation, come home—to God’s design, to biblical womanhood, to a faith that nourishes your soul.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

For women who desire to live fully into their God-given femininity:

1. Return to the Word. Let Scripture—not culture—define success.
2. Build from the inside out. Focus on inner beauty, wisdom, and spiritual maturity (1 Peter 3:4).
3. Seek equally yoked relationships. Don’t settle, but don’t idolise perfection.
4. Honour your body and purpose. Your design is not a liability but a glory.
5. Find a Christ-centred community. We grow in covenant, not isolation.

You were made to bear life—in the womb, the home, the heart, and the world.

QUOTES TO REMEMBER

“The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.”
(William Ross Wallace)

“The home is the greatest school of virtue in the world.”
(Mother Teresa)

“She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.”
(Proverbs 31:26)

“You can’t get a man with a gun,” sang the 1950’s. But in 2025, we might ask: Can you keep your soul with a résumé alone?

MEMORY VERSE

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labour: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up… Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
(Ecclesiastes 4:9–12, NIV)

KEY STATEMENT

True feminine power is not found in independence, but in interdependence with God and those we are called to love.

CLOSING PRAYER

Abba Father,
We thank You for the beauty and dignity of womanhood. In a world that distorts design and trades truth for trends, restore our hearts to Your vision. Heal the wounds of disillusionment. Unclutter the noise of comparison. Anchor us in our eternal worth—not in status, success, or sexuality, but in Your love.

Teach us to walk with grace, wisdom, and strength. For every woman who feels unseen, exhausted, or confused, let Your Spirit whisper truth. Raise up a generation of women who reflect Your heart in their homes, their callings, and their covenants.

In Jesus’ Name,
Amen.