I’m trying to phrase this thread carefully because I don’t intend it to come across as misogynistic in any way.
I’ve noticed that the vast majority of the clientele of palm-readers, fortune-tellers, psychics, soothsayers, prophets and prophetesses, etc. tend to be women. Relatively few men seemed interested in such things. This seems to hold true across religious/cultural/social lines and within charismatic Christianity (the sect-background that I grew up in,) despite most Christian “prophets” being men, it seemed that the bulk of people who would buy into such Christian “prophecies” were women. (The quotation marks being due to most such “prophecies” being utter nonsense.)
I had mentioned this to a family member one day and she replied that it was because generally speaking, at least in the past and still to some extent in the current day, women generally had less power over their future or the directions that their lives would go in than men. As such, there was strong appeal in being told by fortune-tellers or soothsayers that one was chosen for a special destiny or that good things lay ahead, etc. - it gave more of a sense of control or destiny.
While there may be some degree of sociological validity to that rationale in the context of the observation, it is painting with far to broad a brush to apply to “women” in general. It also comes with the implication that men are inherently more logical, either because they have more control or that control demonstrates a more rational nature, to which there is a ready availability of counterexamples, not the least of which is that psychics, astrologers, soothsayers, et cetera were historically employed by kings and tribal leaders who were almost exclusively male. The cultural aspect of how prophets, et cetera are regarded certainly has a greater impact than gender.
On a closely-related note, I belong to a skeptics-based FB group that posts screenshot comments of FB people who believe in alternative medicine and woo. A lot of it focuses on people who are anti-vaxxers, and the idiots who think “black salve” can cure cancer. In this particular FB group, I would estimate 90% of screenshots comments are made by women. Not sure why.
That is true too; I can’t name a single man who voluntarily asked me whether I was Scorpio, Capricorn, etc. but women are definitely much more into that.
This is a good example of confirmation bias, in which the unacknowledged assumption that women are predisposed toward illogical beliefs leads one to notice the illogical beliefs that are more common to women than men.
Men just have different illogical beliefs that favor their culturally skewed areas of interest and influence. You have the silly tricks used to predict or even influence the outcomes of sporting contests, for example (“what do you mean you washed my lucky sweat pants, now my team will lose”). Or you see irrational exuberance or fear about how the stock market may be likely to perform which has no basis in objective reality (“it’s the ten year anniversary of that one crash!”) but which may be so powerful it becomes a self-fulfilling superstition. (Not to mention the fact that Jim Cramer continues to have a loyal audience despite his objective record as a shitty prognosticator.) Or you might get combos, like the dopey idea that the Superbowl somehow predicts the coming economy.
More instructive for you, I think, will be the examples of illogical thinking that are gender-agnostic. An example that comes readily to mind is the variety of tricks people use for picking lottery numbers to “improve their odds.” I don’t have a cite, but it feels reasonable to me that men and women play the lottery in roughly equal numbers, and that they are equally irrational in how they approach the activity.
Eliminate confirmation bias and I think this “observation” evaporates.
There have been a lot of recent studies that show very little difference between the brains of men and women, biologically speaking. The myth that the brains of men and women are different seems to be just that, a myth. Individual differences in intelligence, brain size, etc. seem to be significantly more of a determination of differences than gender.
That said, there are two parts to the OP. The first is whether or not women are more likely than men to believe in fortune tellers, psychics, etc. And that part is definitely true. Significantly more women seek out fortune tellers, psychics, etc. than men. This “observation” does not evaporate. This is not saying that women are more illogical than men or that men might just have different ways of expressing their illogical side. All it says is that women do in fact seek or psychics, etc. more than men.
The second part of the OP is why, and none of the studies that I was able to find on my admittedly brief google search even proposed an answer for that.
There are differences between the genders. Almost all serial killers are men, for example. Exploring what these differences are and what the reason is behind them isn’t necessarily misogynistic. For example, why don’t men wear pink (usually) is based on the fact that pink is a women’s color and blue is a men’s color. But when you get to the answer of why that is, it’s purely a societal norm. Before WWII, it used to be that pink was for boys and blue was for girls. After WWII, it suddenly flipped.
So is the fact that women are more likely to seek out a psychic or a fortune teller purely a function of Western society? I have no idea. But it’s not necessarily bashing women by pointing out that it happens.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything in your post. However, the OP is not asking to compare mens and womens illogical beliefs, just the if women seem to believe psychics, fortune tellers, etc. more than men.
This article supports that opinion:
It may well be that more women believe in the occult than men. A 2009 study conducted by the Pew Research Centre found that women are twice as likely to visit a fortune teller or a psychic.
This could be rooted in old fashioned gender stereotypes, which have given women more freedom to be feeling-oriented, while men are encouraged to bottle up their emotions. This is why the phrase “women’s intuition” is commonly used, where as in the traditionally male dominated business world, a world, a man is much less likely to admit he’s acting on a hunch or instinct, instead citing logic or experience as the mechanism that led to his decision.
I don’t think it’s that women are more predisposed to believe that stuff. I think, and I hope this isn’t sexist to say as well, women are in general more verbal than the male of the species. They ‘talk things out’ among each other and work out problems verbally more than men do. I have a good friend who my wife likes as well. If my friend and I go camping for a couple days she’ll ask me a bunch of questions about him and his family when I get back. Which I have about 10% of the answers to if I’m lucky. So she’ll say “what did you guys talk about for 48 hours?!?” “I dunno, stuff.”
So, I think women gravitate to being psychics and fortunetellers because it’s really not much different than therapy on some level. They use cold-reading and empathy to suss out what is bothering their client and offer comforting platitudes and advice. Women are often their clients for the same reason.
As an aside, I was vising my (newly married) sister who lives in SE Florida years age, and we visited Key West. Walking down Duval Street, she saw a fortune teller who had an outdoor stand on the street and wanted to try it. I said, go ahead, but I’ll sit this one out. When she came back, she looked like she had seen a ghost. I asked her “what’s wrong?” and she said the fortune teller told her 3 terrible things: she would have a miscarriage, her husband would cheat on her, and a third terrible thing I forget. I said, damn, you’d think a fortune teller in a happy touristy place like this would be telling you pleasing platitudes: “you’ll come into money, your health will always be good, you’ll be blessed with perfect children, etc, etc.”
Yes, for a conventional definition of a fortune teller. My point is that Jim Cramer (for example) is equally as much a fortune teller, just in a different type of marketplace where he isn’t labeled or recognized as such.
Ah, but there’s good news! Yes, all of this can be averted if you’ll just let me ritually burn some of the cursed money you’ve come into possession of; I’ll don the ceremonial garb, we’ll intone the incantation together, and you’ll see me toss a sealed envelope into the sacred flame…
Yeah, a woman friend of mine was having a lot of trouble with her teenage daughter a few years ago and started seeing a psychic. I withheld my feelings about it being a waste of money, but it made her feel better, so I wont judge.
There is, has been, and probably will always be an ongoing debate about whether or not there are differences between how men and women think and how our brains work. I believe there are, but I think the root cause of those differences is sociological and not biological in nature.
As with most things cultural, even our belief in bullshit shows gender-based trends. In addition to the above, men are generally more likely to believe pseudo-science based woo, like “super energy drinks” that “enhance your testosterone”, because “science” is perceived as being male-centric.
And don’t get me started on the number of weird things guys have ingested on the promise of a bigger or harder erection.
This seems to go back a long way. Our “witchcraft” stereotypes mostly involve women, and those stereotypes go back through centuries of western culture. Witches are women. ‘Gypsy’ fortunetellers are women. Go back further - the Oracle of Delphi was a woman. The Norns were women. Women have always had secret medicines and mysteries that only they need or appreciate.
So that niche of “women do occult stuff” was already carved out, and it didn’t go away just because society modernized and stopped having kneejerk “burn them at the stake!” reactions to overt claims of magic.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a long game in play, but if there was any of that my sister didn’t say.
It was like a Stephen King short story. “I’m going to see this fortune teller who’s based in this touristy place-- it’ll be fun!” Then she comes back, pale and shaken to the core with what the fortune teller had predicted…
To inject semi-science into this debate, polls show women are significantly more likely than men to hold “New Age” beliefs, including support for astrology and spiritual characteristics of objects.
There’s also evidence of antivax beliefs similarly skewing by gender.
On the other hand, it looks like most of the prominent antivax “leaders”, like RFK Jr., Joe Mercola, Mike Adams, Alex Jones and the crowd leading the “Died Suddenly” charge against Covid-19 vaccination are men.