Why Are Women Abandoning Dating Men in Favour of Discovering Their Own Empowerment?

Written by Danielle Baron, Life and Business Coach & Licensed Integrative Therapist

Danielle catalyses children and adults to rise like a phoenix from the flames and to reach their optimum potential. She is an entrepreneur, an inspiring 11+ and 7+ entrance exams tutor, a rapid transformational therapist, a business coach for overachievers, a life coach for all, and an NLP Master practitioner, and she is also certified by the ILM.

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Across social media and modern dating culture, many women are choosing to step back, not out of bitterness or defeat, but out of self-respect. This article explores why increasing numbers of women are prioritising healing, autonomy, and empowerment over relationships that require self-abandonment.

Liz Lindenbauer, a screenwriter, creative producer, and journalist, starts by reflecting on this:

If anything, like me, you will have no doubt seen many sides of the online dating world echoed in social media, from the male podcasters spewing red flags for views to the trad wives baking bread whilst in labour, to the men complaining that women should be doing their laundry to avoid the male loneliness epidemic.

It can all be so disorientating. But what I see consistently and most importantly, authentically, are women who have chosen to step away from online dating and the hinders on Tinder, and instead to pour that energy back into themselves.

This has been a keen topic online for me, as years ago, after online dating went awry with a man that could have been a plot in a Nicolas Cage movie, I felt guided to turn away from the dating world and focus on myself.

I focused on trying to live a more balanced life. Raising my autistic daughter, focusing on my screenwriting and my agent in LA, and working on myself.

I had done it all by the age of 25. I had lived with two men (engaged to the first one), and then I was pregnant and married to the other at 23, (separated after abuse at 24), finding myself alone with a very young daughter, in a daunting situation where I put all of my energy into getting our lives together.

There I was on my 25th birthday, divorce in the works, and the first guy I had started to date ruined my birthday. I was doing all I could to be stable whilst coping with an incompetent council who couldn’t send us housing benefits on time, a creepy landlord who came onto me, a house that was in disrepair in a ditch, and living off welfare with little emotional support.

But I could dream! And I did so, writing one online article a week and getting free samples sent to me for mothers and babies. I would run a self-proclaimed yummy mummy article, and a lot of the products we tested were not even on the shelves yet, or even in well-designed packaging.

My point is, I had to go on my journey. A journey that a lot of women in our generation are lucky to be able to experience. We recognise it's no longer our job to keep a man happy, or to fix a broken man. In many cases, we have witnessed the damage this has caused our female relatives, and we wish to break that cycle.

I now write this article from a luxury apartment. My comedy writing has been considered at places I could only have dreamt of, as well as having fought the authorities single-handedly to get my daughter the right support, and we are happier and more successful than ever.

I had to go through the pain alone to make me unstoppable. Only then could I understand what many strong women bring to the table. In many cases, we are the table!

When I first left my ex-husband in secret with a baby, too naive to understand the difficulties I would have to overcome, I originally could only think of meeting a man and getting married, and having a few more kids.

I am still open to that. However, I am so glad that did not happen then! I would never have gotten to experience my self-discovery.

Which is the answer to my above question! The title of this article.

Women are choosing to rediscover who they are, and they haven’t abandoned men. They are just no longer choosing to abandon themselves! And a man’s reaction to that will tell you everything you need to know about him.

Danielle Baron is an Executive Contributor for Brainz Magazine, as well as an interviewer, host, model, and educator. She offers her perspective on this:

Reading Liz’s words, I felt an immediate, familiar recognition. Our life arcs mirror one another, each shaped by that pivotal moment, or moments, when a woman decides she will no longer sacrifice her peace or her potential.

I moved through relationships believing each one had taught me what to avoid, what never to tolerate again, only to find myself back in abuse, this time disguised by a different mask. More recently, I found myself sitting in a local council-run course where the unspoken message seemed to be that the ultimate goal was to learn to trust again, as if healing only counted if it led us back into another relationship. As if a woman on her own were somehow incomplete, unfinished, or waiting to be resolved.

For me, empowerment didn’t arrive as a sudden awakening or a neatly packaged revelation. It came slowly, in fragments earned through experience, loss, and evolution.

I became a mother at twenty-five, shortly after discovering I’d been cheated on. From that point on, life turned into a delicate balancing act, managing complicated relationships, layered responsibilities, and the quiet yet relentless pressure placed on women to hold everything together. To be the good wife, which to those around me meant without a life of her own, and the understanding partner who silences her boundaries and excuses her partner’s behaviour.

And this pressure is often upheld through internalised misogyny, passed down and reinforced by other women as well as men, where the expectations placed on us are endless, while the expectations of men remain minimal.

All carried alongside the persistent message, sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit, that partnership is the ultimate measure of success.

And yet, time and again, I found myself doing the hardest parts alone. And, paradoxically, those were the moments I was happiest and successful.

There was no dramatic declaration where I announced I was “done with dating.” There still isn’t. Instead, there’s a quiet bodily response, a subtle nausea, an instinctive avoidance when the possibility presents itself again.

When a woman stops abandoning herself, her entire nervous system recalibrates. Her standards rise, not from entitlement, but from self-respect. What once felt exciting begins to feel unsafe. What once felt familiar begins to feel intolerable.

True empowerment is freedom, peace, and fulfilment. It is the calm, grounded certainty that you will be okay on your own, and because of that, you will only walk beside someone who adds, not drains. But let’s be frank here, the masks the other person wears at first imply and even demonstrate they will be a radiator and not a drainer.

However, then you realise their mask wasn’t real, and they are in fact a drainer. I’m tired of gambling my peace on that discovery.

This is why so many women are stepping back from dating culture as it currently exists. Not because men are obsolete. Not because love is unwanted. But because women are no longer willing to barter their well-being for companionship.

Read more from Danielle Baron

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Danielle Baron, Life and Business Coach & Licensed Integrative Therapist

Danielle catalyses children and adults to rise like a phoenix from the flames and to reach their optimum potential. She is an entrepreneur, inspiring 11+ and 7+ entrance exams tutor, rapid transformational therapist, business coach for overachievers, a life coach for all, and an NLP Master practitioner, and she is also certified by the ILM.

One of Danielle’s much-loved abilities is being an overachiever because she thrives on the excitement and follows her passion, which is to help people live fulfilling lives.