Nontheism and Feminism: Why the Disconnect?

[rug]

December 12, 2012
Ophelia Benson

You would think that nontheism and feminism should be a natural combination. Women have the most to gain from escaping religion, after all: monotheism gives men higher status, starting with their allegedly being made in the image of God.

But atheism hasn’t always been very welcoming to women. Maybe there’s an idea that men created God, so men should do the uncreating.

Mostly though, it’s just a matter of stereotypes, the boring, stubborn, wrong stereotypes and implicit associations that feminism has been battling since, well, forever. The social psychologist Cordelia Fine sums them up in Delusions of Gender: “Measures of implicit associations reveal that men, more than women, are implicitly associated with science, math, career, hierarchy, and high authority. In contrast, women, more than men, are implicitly associated with the liberal arts, family and domesticity, egalitarianism, and low authority.”

The main stereotype in play, let’s face it, is that women are too stupid to do nontheism. Unbelieving in God is thinky work, and women don’t do thinky, because “that’s a guy thing.”

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=benson_33_1

Ophelia Benson is the editor of the website Butterflies and Wheels and the coauthor (with Jeremy Stangroom) of Does God Hate Women? (Con­tinuum, 2009), The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense (Souvenir, 2004), and Why Truth Matters (Continuum, 2006).

[cbayer]

1. Interesting theory on this.

If atheism is seen as rational and theism seen as emotional, then there may indeed be some sex based stereotypes. And there is no doubt that some do make that distinction.

[dimbear]

2. There is a long proud history of disbelief and secularism in the feminist community.

I have documented a few cases over in A and A. It's fitting that we recall in this, the last month of its centenary, the striking advances made by the Heterodoxy Club, which see. Although certainly not uniformly secularists, many were including the notable Emma Goldman.

[cbayer]

3. But is the converse true - Is there a long history of feminism in the secularist community?

[dimbear]

4. If you mean male secularists lifting up feminism in general, then verily so.

I call Joseph McCabe and Robert Ingersoll as witnesses.

[cbayer]

5. Good points. I was thinking more about the more modern movement

and prominence of feminists within the secularist movement.

[Phillip McCleod]

6. reminds me of a conversation we had in another thread

why are pews filled primarily with women? if they're in pews they're probably not non-believers. not saying ophelia is wrong that atheists aren't welcoming enough but maybe there's a bigger picture that would help explain aside from just sexism of unbelieving men.

[cbayer]

7. Because religion has always had an attraction for those most oppressed, imo.

When you see no way out of slavery, you are probably more likely to want to believe that there is some salvation, some reward, on the other side.

From what I understand, there are problems with sexism within the growing secular movements. This is not a surprise, as it is highly likely to happen in male dominated institutions of all stripes. It is the lack of will to openly confront and correct it that is the most bothersome to me.

[leftlibdem420]

8. Simple yet complicated.

In the modern West, anyways, secularism (and for that matter, liberalism and socialism) came to working-class men before it came to women because of the associations that working class men were able to builds through work and through the male bonding and socializing occasions which occurred outside of the auspices of either the church or the family, from which women of that time were generally excluded. In fact, in 19th century Utah, men were more likely to support the left-leaning, pro-labour, and secular/anti-LDS Liberal Party than were women for that very reason, which led to the superficially bizarre situation in which the Utah right supported extending suffrage to women whereas the LEFT had initially opposed it. The example mentioned above is a specific example of the original gender gap, in which women were more politically conservative because of the disproportionate amount of time they spent in the domestic sphere. While this gap has closed or reversed itself in most of the developed world (women tend to be more socially liberal than men on issues pertaining to marriage, labour, and the family), it still manifests itself to some extent in that men are more likely to be irreligious than women (especially in historically and culturally Christian societies) and that men are less likely than women to support the prohibition of cannabis and other soft drugs (mirroring a trend that existed with alcohol during the prohibition era), a holdover from the role that these drugs have played (and continue to play, in some cases) in many male bonding and socializing rituals of both the past and the present.

[cleanhippie]

9. "But atheism hasn’t always been very welcoming to women" FFS, atheism is not a club.

[dimbear]

10. Don't let this tiff put you off from the book "Does God Hate Women?".

Ms. Benson certainly thinks He does. It's reduced this week at Amazon, probably a Christmas special.