cultural-identity, demographyMost of well-known atheists and skeptics are men. My grandfather never gave a shit about religion unlike grandmother, and if I remember a few families I would say women tend to be more religious than men. What might be the cause of it: social influence, or.. nature?
So it saddens me that in a skeptical community rather than relying on evidence, the accepted answer is based on someone's opinion that "[they] wouldn't say women are more religious than men are." |edit - The above statement is no longer true, but it was once upon a time.|
Actually, as someone just pointed out studies have found gender to be positively correlated with religiosity. Even more precisely, there is a strong positive correlation with female gender identification and positively responding to "Is there a God?", "Is there life after death?", whether God answers prayers, whether ghosts and esp exist, and whether astrology is valid (Rice, 2003 "Believe It Or Not: Religious and Other Paranormal Beliefs in the United States" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 42(1)). This is only within the United States of course, but still it is a mere fact that these correlations exist.
This doesn't mean anything at all about how this occurred (i.e. nature or nurture or the combination, though it is inevitably a combination), but there are other approaches than the one made by Guillame.
I DO NOT ENDORSE THIS FOLLOWING HYPOTHESIS AS TRUE I am merely bringing it up for consideration and to hear others' ideas about it. It was an argument I heard someone make not too long ago, unfortunately, I cannot remember the woman's name, or I'd give her credit.
Some have argued that there are fundamental differences in the neurological functioning of the genders that manifests itself most strongly in the cases of autism and agoraphobia, which are predominantly expressed in men and women, respectively(http://www.la-press.com/gender-ratios-in-autism-asperger-syndrome-and-autism-spectrum-disorder-article-a1900, http://www.agoraphobia.ws/whogets.htm).
Those with autism tend to be have decreased facility in social interaction and empathy which have been shown to be negatively correlated with religiosity. Those with agoraphobia tend to have increased anxiety and introversion which both tend to positively correlate with religiosity.
The point is not that these diseases are biological and therefore it is "nature" that causes these differences, but simply that we may turn to the brain to investigate this question. It is a fallacy to think that only "nature" affects neurochemistry; we are shaped by our environments, which includes all of our experiences, be they biological(genetic) or social(cultural).
CRAZY HYPOTHESES ENDED
Returning to the question about prominent females in atheism, I have no idea why we don't hear about them more often, since, as always everything is a distribution and there are clearly brilliant female atheists even if on average women are more religious. It's a very interesting question, but not one to be answered by simply denying the gender differences that do exist.
I wonder if there are more female atheists than we know, but they simply aren’t willing to be open about it. Women are often socialized to be more peacemaking and less confrontational. A confrontational, assertive man is seen as strong and confident; a confrontational, assertive woman is seen as a bitch. Declaring that one doesn’t believe in a deity is, unfortunately, very often a confrontational act, and I think a lot of women just aren’t comfortable with “picking a fight.”
I wouldn't say that women are more religious than men are. I think it's more that men are just more prominent intellectuals as a whole, due to the power structure and patriarchy that's pervasive in most media-affected cultures.
I would hardly call it a woman's nature to be religious. Throughout recent history, there were few things a woman could do outside the home that would allow her to remain "respectable"; church activities fell into one of those categories, and women would be drawn to the community and ability to have friends away from her family that way.
Jen McCreight did a great article at Ms. Magazine about the awesome female atheists in the world, who are less globally prolific, but still well-known and outspoken. She also maintains A large list of awesome female atheists.
When study were done on the characteristic correlated to gender, religiosity came up associated with women. That been found in several independent studies.
An evolutive explanation been proposed for that : Women were traditionally taking care of children. For that, the social support is important. Religion make you part of a community. It been proposed that the benefit of a community would have favor women who were religious and increase the reproduction of those gene.
The explanation is untested scientifically, but several independent study confirm that women are generally more religious than men.
~Edit adding link to reference~
I was exposed to those study in a conference from Daniel Baril. You can read the transcript of the conference (in French) :
http://www.sceptiques.qc.ca/activites/conferences/novembre-2006
You can also learn in his book : La grande illusion
In the transcript of the conference, they mention the Bem Sex Role Inventory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bem_Sex_Role_Inventory) in which religion is more associated to woman. Other study where mention also mentioned during the conference, but they are not mention in the transcript.
I guess it has to do with rationality and emotions.
Statistically, women have tendency to more emotional than men.
And if one chooses (or clings) to a belief, it is usually because of emotions (community support, meaning of life, someone loves you, afterlife, reduced doubt…). If one chooses to abandon a religion, it may be of various reasons, but surely one is rationality.
One reason could be that the traditional religions are much more restrictive on women compared to men. It could be that men have more freedom and less stigma attached to leaving their religion, compared to women.
I expect it comes down to you more than anything. Your family back ground just supports your idea. But yes, thinking about it there does appear to be more males. Maybe it is because men are more likely to make stamp their feet about it while women are happier just getting on with more important things in their life.
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IMO many people in any given religion (I hope I’m not being too audacious by making such bold a statement here), are in it for the social support. A recent paper concluded that the benefit of religion came from belonging to the community, not to the beliefset. I think it is well known that on average women invest more in delevoping human relationships, while men are more likely to invest in material possesions. So I think it only natural that the sex who places higher value in human relationships would be higher in terms of church attendance regardless of their privately held beliefs.
I’ve also seen in my own family, that my wife is more sensitive to the potential perceptions of others, and is considerably less likely to risk a negative perception of her. Examples include, what to do if her three-yearold threatens to throw a fit in public (i.e. give in to avoid a scene), and whether she would want someone to think she was being environmentally responsible (despite the fact the she votes R and I vote D). Admittedly, given a sample size of one couple, it is only anecdotal. But, I bet it is a very common difference in contemprary America. And face it, outside of some narrow academic circles, admitting ones atheism/agnosticism does has potential social downsides.
Interestingly, didn’t the conservative just love to hate Madeline Murray O’Hare (spelling?). I would say that fact alone should put her on the list of very prominent atheists.
Hitch was asked about this once, and I thought his answer was very interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFHXul7AFG8&feature=player_detailpage#t=110s
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