The growing monster of anxiety in girls and women, or is it?

 The growing monster of anxiety in girls and women, or is it?

https://www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/anxietystress/74604

This article started the thoughts. It’s an older article that I found when I was searching for recommendations to make to a young lady for whom I had completed an educational assessment. Her family thought she had ADHD, I think she has social anxiety. As I read articles and suggestions trying to think outside the box and dream up something this family hasn’t tried, I was struck by the approaches. The idea that anxiety is out of control and this concept that it’s almost a new thing or a new idea. 

I thought back to my own mother, grandmother, even great-grandmother. Heaven knows I’ve battled my own anxiety over my life. I’ve tried exercise, drinking more water, medications, more sleep, less stress, being busier… the list is endless. I was raised with a mother who voiced her anxiety frequently and loudly. As an adult, watching my more stoic grandmother, I can see the anxiety within her as well. Yet, these articles and experts write as if this is a new issue. 

Anxiety is often another word for fear. It’s the fear of the unknown, the fear of being judged, the fear of… everything. 

Why are women more afraid? Are women more afraid? And when did it start?

As I brainstorm this concept, it makes perfect sense. Of course women are more afraid, we are the ones that the tiny, inexperienced humans depend upon most. Evolutionarily women carry more responsibility with less ability to meet that responsibility than men. I won’t say I couldn’t hunt and provide should I need to, but it’s awfully hard to do that with a baby on my back. So, since the beginning of time women have cared for the tiny humans, while themselves depending on the male portion of the species to provide. 

Now, why are we all acting like this is a new issue? Social Anxiety is the official diagnosis I gave to my young friend, but what is that and is it a new concept? 

I tend to believe humans rarely come up with anything new. We just recycle the old things in new packages. It’d take a bit to dream up something that millenia of humans have not in fact, already dreamed up. As I let my mind turn that thought over, what comes to me is the idea that our big, formal Social Anxiety monster is really just the fear of being rejected by our tribe. Cavewoman Jenny would have been terrified of being rejected by her tribe. Rejection would be starvation, isolation and almost certain death. So the next thought, is our modern Social Anxiety simply a Caveperson hold over, or is it still real?

Our tribes are larger and yet, at the same time smaller. Loneliness is at epidemic levels. More young people voice feeling alone than at any other time in history, yet, we are constantly connected. How does Social Anxiety fit into that? Is it just women and girls or does it impact males too? Where is it coming from? Is it worse? And how do we determine that it’s worse? 

As I end this blog post, I realize I have far more questions than I had in the beginning and I wonder even more what the impact of all of this anxiety is and why we think it’s new. 

I’ll sleep on this. More to come. 

Jenny Streets

NCSP, LCPC, LMHC

8/29/2025