Why are women more religious than men?

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Okay, so women have been more committed to religious practice within a religion and less likely to be an atheist than men in Anglo-American and Western European countries.

Why is that?

Two explanations, however, seemed pretty lame and improbable to me:



Source: http://www.livescience.com/7689-women-r ... s-men.html

This seems waaayyyyy too dependent on gender stereotypes and, generally, studies have found atheists on average display less immoral, "risky" behaviour than theists and many have higher education, implying some restraint, long-term planning, and self-discipline.
The difference is also apparent in some European countries:



http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,214 ... 83,00.html

Taner Edis speculated, back in 2008, on the matter:



http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2008 ... igion.html

I don’t find this speculation too convincing either, as while European women are more conservative than European men, its the opposite case in the US/Canada, yet the women > religious than men fact still holds.

Now, I find the conservatism of European women ironic as well, especially compared to the social liberalism to centre-leftism of Canadian/American women (in Canada, many of the early suffragists were quite conservative, yet women aren’t in Canada today – while in Europe, many of the early suffragists were radical leftists/socialists, yet women in Europe today aren’t).

A lot of early feminists were atheists, so I find this ironic as well. Ernestine Rose was an atheist and religious oppression really motivated a lot of her activism. Many feminist theorists have blasted monotheistic religions are patriarchal and the Roman Catholic Church is even blatant enough to discriminate against women when hiring for their Priests (no women can join the priesthood). I’ve asked one feminist I know, and she had an answer that I think revolved around conformity to societal roles (so, sorta like the one Live Science explanation).

Another answer I got was from a person who I consider grossly intellectually dishonest – a member of the Salvation Army in the religious sense – who said basically it was due to religion “looking out for the oppressed” in the past. I find that ironic, as religion has also been quite instrumental in opposing structural reforms to help the oppressed, but I guess that’s what happens when the alleviation of suffering would remove your base.

So, what do you think?

I think it has a lot to do with the roles of women, and the church, historically. Only in the last few hundred years were women really thought to be worth the effort of educating. A female's only objective was to grow up to be a good wife, mother, and homemaker. The church offered social networking. Once philosophies began to change, women were still being raised by women who were brought up in the old philosophies.. It takes awhile to break the cycle. It's only been in the last 50 years or so that we've been able to mostly shake off those stereotypical ideals of what is and isn't acceptable for a woman to do or be.

I think too that as times have changed, women raised with the old ideals find security in the authority and ritual of religion.

An interesting note... All of the atheists I know IRL, are female. (I'm sure there are some males.. we've just never had 'the talk')

Mmm I think you been stealing my ideas as I made reference to the reason why one religion organization as been focusing men between 18-30 year in European in another thread.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt161819.html

I've gone to an atheist group at a University where the supermajority of students are women, yet most of the people who attend the meetings are men.

Apparently Atheism is mostly a sausage fest...

Perhaps that's what it is to men, and that's why it's mostly men who go to the Atheist Group meetings.... to feel out one another's sausages..

No, but really... is there a need or feeling of "My atheism is bigger than yours"?

Here, perhaps - but it's really an idiosyncratic quirk of me deciding to parody Sand's complaints of being labelled "the most atheistic guy here" by actually semi-seriously formalizing the whole process. Generally, there aren't "atheist offs" at any of the groups I've come to - and, oddly enough, some of the groups with older members do have more women than the younger groups.

And I thought of that a few minutes after posting my question... but the current contest isn't really what I meant.

Sometimes, during a hot debate, the parties get so immersed in their academia speak, that the point of their argument becomes quite lost on the casual observer...There's been a few times I've had to go back and read the entire thread to figure out what the hell is going on... (which can really suck when it gets into 15+pages and such) I have often times wondered if the debate isn't more a quest to determine who has the bigger brain and who can out talk the other....

(Don't get me wrong, Believers do it too.... they just aren't always as intellectual)

Well, of the few secular groups I've been in, I have realized that they get very caught up in the minor details when wording documents or group constitutions.

Poverty, lack of education, and non-whiteness are also strongly correlated with religiosity.
http://blog.themonastery.org/2011/01/re ... ypothesis/
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/09/re ... h-poverty/

'Religion is the opiate of the people' is just as true now as then, but the meaning has changed a little since back then opiates were the best pain-killers around.

I think this on to something. Generally speaking, I think men are more individualistic while women are more social beings. I think women on a personal level, even though women in the US tend to lean left politically relative to men, are conservative in their regular day life.

I think Jacoby's response seems more correct. For instance, libertarianism is very strongly a male ideology, likely having less female adherents as a percent than both the right and left, and the ideology itself is very strongly individualistic in emotive focus compared to nearly any other ideology. Women can be individualists, but often that's not how they develop their identity, instead being more social in nature and in outlook.

Another rationale is derived from how women also seem to oppose cryogenics while men do not: http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/is-t ... -cryonics/ The rationale is that men are bigger risk-takers in most senses. Men are more likely to take the intellectual risks, the social risks, and even the existential risks involved with being an atheist compared to women. This profile of taking more risk is displayed across various other things that being a male correlates with.

A final rationale, which.... I will put the least weight on is the idea that variability in male intelligence is higher than female intelligence. This would mean that mean intelligence is the same, but that more men have high IQs in the population. If atheism correlates with high IQ, then more men with high IQs due to higher variability of intelligence could mean more male atheists. (This, however, has nothing to do with the non-religious behavior of men relative to women in most cases, so.... it deserves having very little weight put on it, particularly given that the variability idea is questioned)

I dunno, more ideas can likely be generated with the given data.

Church services usually revolve around singing songs and listening to someone talk about love and self-improvement. Right up the average woman's alley.
Churches also tend to do a lot of charity work that involves things like quilting and baking and collecting mittens for children. Again, not a big draw for men.
Churches also offer free (for a small donation) Sunday School (child care). Dump the kids and join the other parents in the fellowship hall for some coffee and chit-chat! Can't see too many men jumping at that chance.

So....churches offer activities that are more attractive to women than men. This makes women more likely to attend church, which in turn makes them more likely to become religious.

Master Pedant's Live Science quote becomes a tad less lame when you consider Pascal.

170. Diversion.- If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was diverted, like the Saints and God. Yes; but is it not to be happy to have a faculty of being amused by diversion? No; for that comes from elsewhere and from without, and thus is dependent, and therefore subject to be disturbed by a thousand accidents, which bring inevitable griefs.

And many other sites, but this is short and relatively apt.

Thats not the only sources he been using, as you can see by my comment in this thread,
he's based this thread from a post I made in one of your threads sir without giving me an acknowledged for inspiration!

Men tend to be more "left brained" and logical than women on the average.

ruveyn