The New Feminine

Journalist and political commentator Rikki Schlott demystifies what has gone wrong for women when it comes to dating and sex and shows what they can do to reclaim their happiness and rediscover commitment, boundaries, and self-respect.

Why is it that, despite the many successes of modern feminism and the promise of empowerment, so many young women feel anxious, unfulfilled, and alone? And with so many choices available to them on dating apps, why is modern romance such a hellscape? In The New Feminine, journalist Rikki Schlott, who has known these struggles personally, sets out to answer these questions with reporting, interviews with experts, and analysis, ultimately putting forward a different approach to female empowerment and relationships that actually works for young women.

At the center of Schlott’s argument is a contradiction women keep running into: the things meant to empower women end up disempowering them. If it was once empowering to choose hookups and casual sex, today many young women feel the dating marketplace requires them to be sexually available. Or if women fought to be free to choose whether or not to seek out marriage and family life, today young women face stigma when they express traditional desires for commitment.

Schlott’s reporting, interviews, and storytelling from her own life reveal that what’s desperately needed among Gen Z women today is a new vision for female life and relationships―one that reclaims sexual choosiness as empowerment, that values and learns from the experiences of past generations of women, and that embraces biological realities with pragmatic wisdom. 

The New Feminine is not a call to turn back the clock or to judge other women’s choices. It’s an invitation to rethink what female empowerment really means and for women to trust their own instincts so they can build lives that are authentic and fulfilling. Schlott offers a perspective that is relatable, honest, and deeply empathetic, offering the guidance young women need to achieve the lives they want.