All the atheist online communities as well as the IRL meetup groups have a lopsided gender representation. In the case of meetups, this strikes me as odd because in general, it seems that many of the other interest groups (yoga, book clubs, etc.) reflect womens’ kaffeklatching tendencies. Also odd, given the claim that religion is a patriarchal imposition on women. You’d think they’d be into it.
But why not? Are atheist guys perceived as being a bunch of antisocial malcontents? Does a pervasive stigma of atheism being all about negativity put women off? Or is it simply that when a single woman or small group of women enter into any forum that has passed a certain male overload, they back away and stasis prevails?
And the comment threads are always incredibly telling. Check out comment #4. Classic. When women actually do try to engage, their concerns are dismissed. Far easier to simply BE an atheist or skeptic, when engaging in these groups brings so much pain and frustration.
My spirituality, or more specifically the lack thereof, is not something to which I give much consideration or devote much time thinking about. I can’t imagine joining a community devoted to talking about something that has no bearing or interest to my day to day life.
It seems to me those who regularly consider their own belief system relative to others and have the need to label and sort theists versus atheists are struggling with a degree of internal discourse about religion.
The fact there are communities of religious people and what they do or believe in is, to me, akin to the fact there are communities of Shriners. I don’t know what Shriners do or why they do it. I don’t go around professing to be not a Shriner, nor do most people I know. However, theism seems to be something some people feel they need to ascribe some sort of allegiance toward or against and to justify their belief by having some sort of creed to tell. To me Shriners and religious worshippers are roughly the same thing. I don’t understand either one, nor do I want to. I certainly don’t devote any time or energy thinking or talking about why or why not.
One factor might be that women who are not satisfied with Abrahamic religion might be more likely to migrate into stuff like New Age/paganism rather than rejecting religion entirely. I’ve known a lot more females who are into stuff like Wicca than dudes.
I also suspect that in many cases women enjoy the social aspects of religion more than guys do (especially after they have kids) and therefore are less likely to want to sever all ties to religion. There are plenty of people out there who are technically atheists but don’t think of themselves that way because they still participate in religion for social reasons.
Even though there are groups of atheists out there, it seems to me like many atheists reject the idea of “joining”/congregating either because they are independent people by nature (since declaring atheism still is a bit against the norm for American society) and/or they have grown tired of being in congregations from their religious experiences. That could be a deterrant to people who want that experience still.
For example, I offered to check out a UU church with my atheist boyfriend because I thought he might enjoy meeting others of his kind and that the social/community aspects might be good for when we have children in the future. However, my bf indicated to me that he found the idea of attending even a UU church rather silly. He has no malice against religion, but just tends to be an independent sort of person who doesn’t identify much with groups. I think that people like that are more often male than female.
This pretty much. Being part of a spiritual community has (on average) a lot of social benefits for women with children or who are thinking of having children. I suspect there are just a many intellectually disaffected women as men re actually hardcore belief.
Re why women are not part of atheist groups, I’m mostly an atheist and I wouldn’t be part of those groups. Honestly, if I was a woman I’m not sure I would want to marry an atheist man. As long as the faith is not too oppressive people have loads of fun and good fellowship through their spiritual connections with people of of a like minded faith. It even helps you prosper business-wise. There is relatively little downside in American society to being a “believer”.
I’m guessing that a man who is hardcore enough to declare himself publicly as an atheist is (in many women’s minds) probably going to lack a certain emotional resonance they find attractive. Atheism just isn’t sexy.
Surveys do indicate that women are more likely to have faith than men, and I think the social aspect of religious groups is a major difference maker. There are atheist groups out there. From what I remember of the Ethical Humanist Society, it wasn’t a sausage-fest. But atheist groups aren’t as numerous or accessible and I have the feeling that arguing about religion is a little bit more of a male pursuit.
On a less warm-and-fuzzy note, I expect that women more than men fear the likely result of them being cut off and despised by all their religious friends. It’s not just the social functions of the church they’ll lose, they have a good chance of losing most or all of their friends in the church entirely.
Yep it’s cracks like this that keep us away.
That and the annoyance with the constant whining and complaining about how horrible Christians are. I’d love to have a conversation with like-minded individuals, but it seems like every time atheists get together, particularly the guys, they suddenly turn into mini-Dawkins and Hitchens-bots.
Because men and women have different interests and predilections. Generally anything that nerdy will be mostly men because nerdiness is an extremely masculine trait. Religion and spirituality feeds into those more emotional needs.
I think child rearing is a big factor. In spite of all the progress toward gender equality, women are still more involved with the raising of kids. And in our society it’s a common belief that children need to be raised with some kind of religious values. There’s lots of peer pressure for this.
Not intrinsically maybe, but in the current environment it is, especially the type in the OP. If you go on the internet and discuss some philosophical idea or try to join a like minded minority community you’re nerdy. Most people are just whatever their parents are, or don’t think about it much. To be the type of atheist as described by the OP especially you’re probably a book worm with non-normative interests. Most of the popular atheists who write books are the nerdy professorial types or an academic in general. The more educated someone is the more likely they are to be atheist/agnostic.
But in general, “because that’s nerdy” is a good answer to most of these sorts of sex difference questions. Why are so few competitive video game players female? Why so few female economists or engineers? Our brains are just way different in what we like.
Anecdotally, the most vocal atheist I ever knew was a tomboy nerd girl.
I was thinking exactly the first two sentences as I read the thread, but I went in an entirely different direction with it. Women are usually more responsible for child-rearing, so we don’t have fucking TIME to go to atheist gatherings. As interested as I am in atheism and yeah, even just sitting around bemoaning religious belief, I just don’t have the opportunity to get out and meet. Consider that atheists are kind of thin on the ground, and any non-urban group is going to be a considerable haul for many of the potential members too. And that competing activities that are easier to participate in and of more immediate impact on one’s life exist, and I can see a lot of moms not getting involved.
So we’ve got young women who may not have become atheists yet, and get hit on/leered at more than is comfortable at these meetings. Then more mature women with babies and young kids to juggle, and you wind up with what I’ve seen in my few forays - some female representation, but mostly in the older age range.
The extent to which religion is a patriarchal imposition on women is a topic for another thread but let’s accept that proposition for the sake of the argument.
You don’t get to be a patriarchal imposition on women by external main force. You get to be a patriarchal imposition by incorporating into your religion a lot of elements that are highly appealing to women.
I suspect they already ARE atheists, but to astro’s point - you don’t need meetings to be an atheist. You go to meetings because like minded people are going to make interesting conversation. But conversation is a two way street. To Margo’s links, getting treating like you have two heads because you are female, getting talked down to, getting treated like a piece of meat … why go to meetings? And not every guy at an atheist meeting will, but just a few - even just one - is enough to creep out many women, and make them wonder why they are bothering
An organization of atheists has to offer something to the participants who go. For the guys who go, it apparently does. For female atheists, it has less.
I do suspect there are fewer female atheists - women seem to be less in need of black and white - I think a lot of women who aren’t believers would self identify as agnostic. Or even if they cease to believe, profess belief for the sake of having the community and belonging. Or be non-confrontational about it.
I suspect its more the groups you read about tend to divide genderwise, because of the focus of the topics and partly the ‘feel’. There are various female based atheism or skepticism based sites, eg skepchick.
The internet has made it so groups dont have to be so one size fits all, so theres more splintering of interests inside atheism rather than one monolithic group. By definition its not going to be as united in its goals as a church based organisation.
I believe this is a big part of it (including many forms of paganism). If you do a meetup search for witches you should come up with a lot of groups primarily female.
If you reject a patriarchal God women can go much easier to a matriarchal God(ess), and many of those IMHO place men in a lower class, so it is not as attractive to men, leaving them with Atheism as a major choice.
I’ve heard there are lots of guys at those atheist meetings (and forums). That’s enough to keep me as far away as possible.
That’s probably the only reason related to the fact that I’m female. I also don’t like group activities as a rule, and my boyfriend and the majority of my close friends are atheists, apathetic agnostics, or cultural Jews so it’s not like I’m missing out on people agreeing with my core beliefs or poking fun at Jesus with me. I’m 99.999% atheist - I’m not going to argue about it, and I don’t need convincing. In my mind there’s not much left to be discussed that I didn’t already thoroughly delve into during the years in which I was slowly discovering that all the adults in my life believed in unsubstantiated fairy tales.
If I’m going to sit around with a bunch of atheists, there’s much better ways to do it than join some kind of discussion group full of strange dudes. Every party my best friend throws is pretty much a bunch of atheists, but it’s a party and there are a lot of women I know.
It’s not like I screen potential friends and ask about their spiritual beliefs, but somehow I mostly become close to people who also think the God thing is pretty much a crock. Even if they didn’t when I first became friends with them, they do now…
