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The Gender Disparity in Atheism, How Can it Change?

It is clear to many members of the atheist internet blogosphere that there is a noticeable gender disparity among participants in atheist activities (fora, blogs, comments, readership) online.There are also indications that this discrepancy is continued offline as well, in self-identification on surveys and in participation in atheist community groups. There is a similar disproportion in popular published material and mainstream availability of women in outspoken positions. These areas, yet again, are dominated by men and the demographic is only slowly changing.

This is not to say that women are not involved in high positions of leadership within the atheist community, nor that their input is disregarded. To say so would be farcial. Women like Margaret Downey, president of the Freethought Society, Lori Lipman Brown, the founding director of the SCA, Lyz Lidell in the SSA, Debbie Goddard representing both the CFI and African Americans for Humanism, Susan Jacoby repping CFI, and so many others speak to, write about, educate and organize atheists across North America. And there are many more across the world. There are numbers of female atheist bloggers, authors, and thinkers all with as much to say, if not more, than their male counterparts. Yet the truth remains that the population of today's New Atheism remains heavily skewed toward the male, many places in ratios hovering near 3:1.

This topic has clearly been on the minds of many. Hemant Mehta (The Friendly Atheist), Jen McCreight (BlagHag), PZ Meyers (Pharyngula) and many others of note in the blogosphere have considered this issue in lengthy discussion. Much of this buzz was initiated by Carrie Iwan and Rebecca Watson of Skepchick when they podcasted about sexism and sexist remarks made at The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM), a conference for skeptics hosted by the James Randi Educational Foundation, in 2009.

I am currently doing research with a professor at my school on gender and atheism. For us, discussion is great. What would make that discussion even better would be to have empirical data to help support the integration of more women (especially women of color, former adherents to non-Abrahamic faiths, etc.) into the New Atheist movement. It is not enough to hope that time will even up the ratios, they must be actively addressed and we will all benefit. We have the potential to create a survey that can reach an international population of atheists online. Our question to you then becomes this: what questions need to be asked of a large, trans-national population in order to help us get at the root of this issue? What do women need from the New Atheist movement? What keeps women who don’t believe in deities from identifying as atheist?

We have a decent idea of what female atheists now look like: they tend to be liberal, white, under 40, highly educated, from backgrounds of low religious orthodoxy. How do we provide welcoming environments for the women who may face different struggles it they came out as atheists? Many have noted that this issue is not only about being more inclusive to women, but also about being more inclusive to all diversity. New Atheism, at its heart, does not need exclusion or discrimination or hierarchy. It needs brothers, it needs sisters. It needs transgendereds and androgyne's. The long and short of it is that we need community.

Now, how?

EDIT: this is in the works, again. Up above is about three or four editions behind.... whoops.

Tags: address, atheism, disparity, gap, gender, survey

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Comment by Lana on September 14, 2011 at 11:34am: I'm new here, but I'm just going to wade in. As a woman who by some definitions considers herself a feminist, I think it is perhaps useful to throw in my two cents.

Glen wrote:

I suspect that biological differences between the genders result in more male atheists. Females in general are more insistent that those around them practice religion. The emotional appeal of religion resonates to a greater extent in females. Men tend to be more independent and critical than women, attributes that are more likely to produce an atheist without exterior influences.

For a man an atheist movement is not critical. A woman on the other hand, needs to feel part of a community. Or at least she should have a community where she is welcome. To accomplish mass apostasy we need to be outspoken, not so much about the falsehood and perpetuation of absurd lies; more so the GREAT LIE equating religion and morality.

As a former fundamentalist christian who grew up as part of an active comminity, I can say that there are parts of that community that I do miss. As a young mother, it was even more a noticable deficit as I left the church. When I moved to a new town as a non-believer, I had no ready-made group who would wecome me (and my money) enthusiastically. They have programming for parents and for children. They are a massive self help organization that supports women particularly. I could not stay in it for reason of disbelief. But I understand why many women maintain belief in the unbelievable - it comes down to utility. I appreciate that this nexus has some groups for parents. The nexus as a whole may encourage more women to 'come out' merely because it is relatively anonymous and they presumably don't have to defend their reasons for disbelief within this group.

If the atheist movement (whatever that is) useful to women, it starts to outweigh the very real damage from ostracism that they will experience by their friends and family. Women from more conservative backgrounds have a hard time with this. They have been told by generations of men that they do not make the spiritual decisions for their family - the relevant male head of the household does. So most women in 'literalist' communities don't feel competent to think for themselves outside the bounds of their religion. I'm confronting this with my own twin sister right now.

Comment by G Smith on July 12, 2011 at 7:34pm: I'd also like to see the data.

Comment by sehkmet on July 11, 2011 at 9:42pm: Rikka,

Would it be possible to see the data from your survey identifying women atheists?

Comment by S.F. Zeigler on June 3, 2011 at 10:24pm: This will be the last time I respond or even read a post by someone that hasn't developed their profile. Don't get your tits in a pinch lover. To make myself clear:

We need more women Atheists because it would produce more men Atheists. The rest was entertainment for the intellectuals. Sorry i guess you missed out.

Cheers. -Z

Comment by S.F. Zeigler on June 3, 2011 at 2:08am: "native English speaker, or you have some brain disorder which compels you to engage in meaningless prattle"... AWESOME... hold on... you mean ME?... : ( wow. ok.

Comment by S.F. Zeigler on June 1, 2011 at 9:48pm: @ TB... love that word misandrist. It's not hateful... it's true. Are you trying to make a point or just making a pointless statement? If you are attempting to accuse me of something then lets hear the logic. fyi...You are asking leading questions which is a common form of passive aggression. -Z

Comment by S.F. Zeigler on June 1, 2011 at 12:29am: @ TByte. Hell generally speaking most PEOPLE will do anything for money. What's your point?

Comment by sehkmet on May 31, 2011 at 6:06pm: There are plenty of under forty atheists around. Please don't assume that because you are personally unaware of them, they don't exist. For many atheism is the logical progression of their feminism. This is something a lot of under forty women don't understand. Why do you want to divide us up this way?

Comment by S.F. Zeigler on May 31, 2011 at 5:37pm: I agree with the assertion of this blog. We need more women. Heterosexual men will do ANYTHING for pussy. Yes I'm generalizing. Proof? The oldest profession is prostitution. 80% of America's prison population are from "crimes of passion". African diamond rings. New Jersey. The proof is endless. However the system has been in place for a long time and women have adjusted to it. Even a dike with a mustache will tell you God is a man! The inferior imprinting is so strong that it even effects womans biology's... you know the "fairer sex".

To me the closest thing to the concept of God is a woman or the female species as a whole (pun unintended but funny none the less). They take a microscopic particle of my abundant excretory emission and "manufacture" or "create" another human. Fucking amazing.

Comment by Prog Rock Girl on May 31, 2011 at 5:34pm: Work harder, and you are guaranteed to get more money? Tell that to people who have had their workload double and are taking a paycut. Most people I've seen make a lot of money actually did less work but had the right friends and luck.

The statement stereotyping women as buying too many handbags with their husbands' money still makes me think he's just bitter about a divorce or being taken for a ride by some woman.