Are women more drawn to these things because Abrahamic religions are so patriarchal? If so perhaps women are looking for beliefs outside of what has been written by, taught by and manipulated by men.
@am77494 is Hinduism less patriarchal? I see that it is structured around Gods and Goddesses.
I’m thinking that there is less stigma against believing occult woo for women than there is for men. Men are conditioned to be stoic and self-reliant. Trying to go looking for answers for emotional problems in magical solutions is perceived as weak-minded in men.
Also, as many women feel powerless against the rampant misogyny in society, turning to occultism/pagan belief systems makes a lot of women feel in control of their destinies in a way that society discourages for women.
Although you may be right, I am wondering how you noticed this.
I know more women than men who have wanted to discuss The Secret, mentioned their sign or expressed a belief “there must be something more”. But I can’t say I have vetted clientele lists, know many soothsayers or even who reads the dodgier sections of newspapers if today is their birthday.
The amount of woo people of any gender believe is pretty large. I’m not sure that I’m important enough that the light from distant constellations, travelling for hundreds or thousands of years or more, affect too many of my decisions - probably just the important ones. But so much of what is taken for solid truth has its hollow elements. Which does not mean one can’t play Science Says. Science Says vaccines often save lives. Also, injecting bleach might help with Cov - WAIT! I didn’t say Scuence Says!!
In northeast India, there is a state high in the mountains called Meghalaya or the abode of clouds. Himalaya is Abode of Snow
Meghalaya has the world’s last surviving matrilineal indigenous society : Khasis: India's indigenous matrilineal society
Alas, it stops there. I am not a sociologist and to my limited knowledge, Hinduism is just as Patriarchal as western societies. In some regions of India, there is a lot more of Patriarchy than the west and in some regions it is less but overall it is the same. Again - this is a layman’s understanding
This.
Men believe stupid things, but we seem to need to wrap them in pseudo logic and bravado. Women are content to just wave their hands.
In a place like India, chances are there are a lot of social and cultural issues at play as well when it comes to gambling. I have definitely heard of Indian companies paying their women in scrip instead of cash, because they knew that if her male relatives (husband, brother, father, sons, etc.) found that money, they would drink or gamble it away, and there would be nothing she could do about it if she didn’t want a no-consequences beating or worse.
I think it might have to do with empathy. The act of going to see a psychic requires emotional vulnerability. Someone’s regular psychic usually knows all about their problems and their job is to make the client feel supported. It’s basically therapy. A therapy where you have to be vulnerable and admit you need direction in life. And keep coming back to that same person over and over to be more vulnerable and get more help. I can see why men would not be drawn to that.
Anecdotally, I know a lot of gay men who are into astrology. In fact I learned about astrology from a gay man. This reinforces my theory because I don’t think gay men adhere as frequently to taboos against male emotional vulnerability. Such men are also less likely to shame women for their intuitive impulses.
Generalizing, generalizing.
The gambling statistics are for the USA, not India. I was comparing the propensity to believe in something woo like astrological lucky gem stones, to believing in woo with gambling.
For a moment I thought you were describing organized religion and priests.
Youre a Cancer, right?
I used to read my daily horoscope in the newspaper and then online when newspapers went away. I read it at the end of the day to compare how my actual day was compared to what was forecasted for that day. It was usually amusing in an Alanis Morissette ironic way.
IMHO the key is who the woo is coming from. To the extent there is a difference, I think it’s that (some) men prefer to believe their own bullshit rather than looking for someone else’s to believe, while (some) women have no problems with believing bullshit that comes from other people. It’s no different than the husband who tells his wife “I’m not gonna call a plumber, I’ll fix that leaky pipe myself” even though the extent of his knowledge of plumbing is a YouTube video he just watched, and the wife who tells him “where did you learn how to fix leaking pipes, it’s better to leave that to a professional.” Only with metaphysical woo instead of car repair or plumbing.
The two people I know who claim to be “professional astrologers” are both men. Also the “Empath”. In general I think of women as seeming more susceptible to believing in woo like this but I don’t know if it’s true at all. I think it has more to do with education levels and subjects.
I have an undocumented anecdotal feeling that men are more likely to beleive in UFOs, Ancient Aliens, Bigfoot and perhaps Cryptozoology in general. Has anyone done any research into this i wonder?
While we’re making mostly unfounded guesses about men vs. women & beliefs in silly things, what about Conspiracy Theories & all that BS? More men, more women, or about the same?
I vote (aka total WAG) it’s more men than women, but not by a huge margin. Kinda like MAGAts: more men than women, but still plenty of women.
Maybe so, but Rasputin was a man, Aleister Crowley was a man, L. Ron Hubbard was a man…an unbelievable number of men - including really smart men, look up Jack Parsons sometime - threw themselves into ridiculous “mystical” lunacy. And that’s what I believe it is - it’s lunacy, and it’s cringe as hell. All that 19th and early 20th century occult nonsense, including that which was tied up with fascist movements, has a distinctly masculine character to me, but as far as I’m concerned it fits the same general pattern as the more feminine type of superstition (fortune telling, tarot cards, psychics)…I think men and women are equally supsceptible to it.
In the case of L. Ron Hubbard, though, he was a charlatan who likely believed none of what he promoted. The rest of your post stands, though.
That might be true, but he had and still has a lot of male followers. Whether there are more men in Scientology than women, I don’t know, but it seems to have universal appeal. Unfortunately.
The Fox sisters played an important role in the creation of spiritualism. In later years they admitted that it was a hoax.
Disagree. Many more women’s magazines have a horoscope section than men’s, for example. That’s a fact not confirmation. Same for women asking me my sign or explaining my behavior due to my sign. Exactly zero men have asked me my sign - again fact, not confirmation.,