What Women Are Most Afraid Of, According To Our Readers

These lists never feature the realistic, common fears most of us experience – like heights, sharks, or financial ruin, to name a few – but are usually more centered on moral posturing or ideological pedantry through popular, abstract concepts like misogyny or female success. But we at Evie wanted to know what women are really most afraid of, so we asked our readers. Here’s what they had to say.

Serial Killers

This fear speaks for itself. Women as a whole may be obsessed with true crime, but is it because we love it as a genre or because we’re actually taking notes? There’s a voyeuristic aspect to true crime as a whole, but naturally we also experience anxiety over similar situations potentially befalling us. Fortunately, the numbers are in our favor. Based on crime statistics from 2020, an individual has a 1 in 645,000 chance of being murdered by a serial killer.

A Lackluster Marriage 

One reader writes that she is afraid of “losing chemistry” with her husband. This is a very real and honest concern many wives will experience at one time or another. The early days of dating and marriage can be so exciting and unpredictable. Then, years will pass, and we fall into comfort and a habitual routine with our spouses. But in reality, this is a blessing and not a misfortune. Keeping the excitement alive in your marriage, and indeed, waking up each day and loving your husband, is an active choice we make as wives. Many days are easier than others, just as some days are more difficult. Marriage takes work and cultivation, and it’s not easy. This realization is the best way we can set ourselves and our relationships up for success. 

Agenda 2030

Branded as a conspiracy theory by so-called fact-checkers and the media writ large, Agenda 2030 is the all-encompassing plan the elites within the United Nations and the UN-owned World Economic Forum have for our society and our world as a whole. Believe what you want, but there’s available and well-documented evidence that the WEF, to say the least, doesn’t have our best interests at heart. 

Used in tandem with other “conspiracy theories” like Build Back Better and the Great Reset, Agenda 2030 seeks to establish one governing body made of an elite consortium, who, among other things, want a cashless society, digital wallets which assign and deny fundamental rights based on their own criteria, eugenicist policies, reliance on artificial intelligence to monitor citizens, and above all, complete authoritarianism. The WEF and its allies benefited greatly from the Covid-19 pandemic, which they saw as an opportunity to begin to implement these programs, namely, vaccine passports. 

It’s a uniquely female ability to instinctively care for others, which is evident even in the things we fear.

Not Living Up to Their Potential

As women, we are constantly being pulled in different directions. We may have a successful career but want marriage and a family, and be discouraged for wanting “traditional” goals. We may have a family and a home we’re responsible for, and be told we’re not contributing to society by being “just” a mom. Every woman can thrive in an environment of her own making through her own choices, but that looks different for each of us. We decide our potential, truth be told. But every day can feel like a battle between what we want and the messages we’re targeted with, and it’s difficult for that not to take a toll on us.

Being Sexually Assaulted

Having our agency robbed of us in the most vulnerable and disgusting of ways has crossed all of our minds at least once. One specific study which investigated the different fears of men and women found that almost 54% of the female participants feared sexual assault, more than dying or burglary. Working with victims of sexual assault is my day job, and talking with women who’ve been victimized in this specifically malicious way never gets any easier. Many women grapple with this trauma for decades after the incident, but if I can speak to anything about what they share collectively, it’s their resilience. Life moves on with or without us, and each day we can wake up and choose to move with it or not. Because this very real fear happens perhaps more than we might think and even to people who never think it will happen to them, it’s especially important to know that even if this ever were to happen to us, it does not fundamentally diminish our value.

Dying

They say there are two certainties in this life: death and taxes. Taxes are just annoying, but death is something else, and it’s for this reason that dying was the most common fear submitted by our readers. We fear death for many reasons, but mainly because it’s both inevitable and it could happen at any time. The best thing we can hope for in either case is that we’re afforded a good death, one that is relatively painless and allots us time to say our goodbyes to our friends and family. Until then, we can work on becoming more comfortable with it. Death is frightening, but it’s also natural. We don’t have to fear it if we live full, rewarding lives, and especially if we find meaning in something larger than ourselves. Psychological evidence suggests that those who are spiritual or religious have a more optimistic perspective and fear death less than those who have no such views.

Losing Their Kids

The other most common submission by our readers was losing children. For mothers, this thought is a constant, nagging fear, one that enters our heads the day our children are born and rarely leaves. But there is a distinct difference between realities and intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are incredibly common for moms, and we keep them at bay by reminding ourselves what is rational and what is irrational. This is perhaps an oversimplification, but it’s also a practical mindset to have.

What we fear most is one of the most revealing indicators of who we are as women.

Where Our Country Is Headed

A look at the current state of affairs has many of us feeling cautious. We can’t trust our schools and universities not to teach their own ideologies, and we’re seeing record increases in the price of everyday necessities. All of this is bad enough, but to add insult to injury, our concerns are written off as fear-mongering or as conspiracy theories. But the difference between what’s branded as a conspiracy theory these days and what’s then accepted by the mainstream media after a lengthy period of denial is about eighteen months, give or take. If you feel crazy or misguided for having anxiety around where our country is going, don’t. All that means is that you’re paying attention.

Choosing Between a Career and Motherhood

If we work, we’re not good mothers. If we stay at home, we don’t contribute in any meaningful way. We can’t win no matter what we do, so why try to meet the standards of others? Regardless of what success looks like to us, we make our own happiness. If that means we finally start our family, then so be it. If that means we look for opportunities to be productive from home and within our means, then so be it. There is no right or wrong way to do what is best for ourselves and our families. That will look different from others’ versions of what we should be doing, but a life lived for others will be a life wasted.

Being Alone Forever

Many women admitted their fear of never finding ‘the one,’ or of never having a family. This fear is so real to many of us because women are facing it more and more. We’re traumatized by hookup culture or by postmodern feminism. In our youth, we trade marriage and motherhood for academia, careers, or other pursuits. While these goals are important, they aren’t the end all, be all of our existence. It’s admirable and understandable to want companionship for as long as we live and to want a legacy that survives after we’re gone. Confronting this fear head-on is the first step in dismantling the toxic messaging our society constantly throws at us, and the sooner we realize what will truly make us fulfilled, the better.

Closing Thoughts

There’s a common denominator within each of these admissions. Deeply rooted within our female psyche is the fear of what would happen to those who depend on us – as family, wives, friends, mothers – if a trauma, tragedy, or other external force took us away or inhibited our ability to care for others or worse, never gave us the opportunity. 

It’s a uniquely female emotion and ability to instinctively care for others, and this is clearly present even in the things we fear. While our worst fears will never come to pass for many of us, there is a quiet kind of peace and understanding we can obtain in knowing both that fear is natural and that what we fear most is one of the most revealing indicators of who we are as women.

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