Surely the question should be why do women need men to validate them?
Far too many women still get into relationships because it boosts their ego. Others marry, or have kids, because 'it's just what you do', not because they want to. It's so depressing. I'm not anti-men, and I'm not anti-relationship. But people (both male and female) should only ever commit because they've met someone they really like and really want to spend their life with.
As somebody posted above, too many girls still think of their wedding day (their 'special day') as the ultimate validation. In some cases, you almost feel they don't care which man it is – that you could swap him for somebody else and they'd hardly notice. All that matters is a man has 'chosen' them, and now, at last, they can stop hating themselves, and stop hating their bodies.
I can think of two young women like this. Both are highly intelligent, well-read, and well-educated. And both have married guys they have little in common with. You can see the writing on the wall. One of the men is like a 12-year-old. He sits cross-legged on the floor playing on his X-box, throws a tantrum if she asks him to help with the dishes, and is more like a schoolboy than a husband. Unbelievably, she's had a child with him! The other is a monosyllabic oaf who isn't interested in anything. He's got an ego the size of a planet, yet can barely string a sentence together. All he does is lounge around grunting and drinking beer from a can.
Why these young women have shackled themselves to such men is beyond me. I know they are both unhappy. You can see it a mile away. Yet both plaster their social media with photos of them and their partner smiling and staring at sunsets. It's so obvious what is going on. They're proving they can attract and hold onto a man. Maybe one day we'll outgrow this primitive way of thinking. If we do, I have a hunch that marriage/long-term relationships will become the exception rather than the norm.