Great Women Atheists

[Mole]

Why is it that the great athiests today are men like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett? There seem to be no great women atheists today, or perhaps I am just missing them?

Almost all religions are misogynist, yet women form the backbone of most religions.

Yet women want to be priests and bishops and popes rather than atheists. Why is this?

 

[ZPowers]

There's Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She's seen (which includes being a victim of) more religiously based violence than anyone you mentioned and is an open and outspoken atheist.

The founder of the American Atheist organization was also a woman (Madalyn O'Hair).

Additionally, how many active bishops can you name? Very few, if any. Atheists have no assigned positions, and only a handful of well-known representatives.

Even then, people probably don't devote their lives to lack of beliefs the same way the do to realization of beliefs.

 

[Nicodemus]

Ariane Sherine, Ayn Rand, Barbara Smoker, Emma Goldman, Emma Thompson, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Jodie Foster, Julia Sweeney, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Margaret Downey, Polly Toynbee, Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Jacoby...

 

[The Great One]

Betty White is my favorite female atheist.

 

[Within]

Betty White is my favorite female atheist.

Weird that you say so, I have a poster featuring her above my bed.

 

[The Great One]

Weird that you say so, I have a poster featuring her above my bed.

LMAO! Congrats on being the first person I've ever known to have a poster of "Betty White" over your bed. On a side note, my favorite male atheists are "Howard Stern" and "Hugh Hefner".

 

[Thalassa]

Betty White is my favorite female atheist.

Betty White is awesome.

 

[Coriolis]

Almost all religions are misogynist, yet women form the backbone of most religions.

Yet women want to be priests and bishops and popes rather than atheists. Why is this?

Perhaps so they can start to correct the misogyny.

As for Ayn Rand, her greatness comes from her degree of influence on the world. Whether one agrees with her or not, "great" does not mean "good".

 

[ZPowers]

Betty White is my favorite female atheist.

Wait, is Betty White actually an atheist?

 

[The Great One]

Wait, is Betty White actually an atheist?

Damn it, you're right. I mean, Phillis Diller.

 

[UniqueMixture]

Weird that you say so, I have a poster featuring her above my bed.

Hopefully no one masturbates to this.

Anyhow, back on topic. Many religious organizations may in philosophy be misogynist, but in reality they are places that are dominated by women socially and they're simply used for social politicking which attracts a lot of women (and explains the preponderance of esfjs in such institutions ). Also, these same institutions act as social communities and are places where values that women are supposed to have from a religious viewpoint like humility are rewarded whereas they are not in the broader culture.

[MENTION=122]marm[/MENTION]ie_dearest do you believe that there is such a thing a absolute intellectual authority (if only within a given field)?

On why atheism is not more popular among women, I believe it is because it is associated with despair and an ethical system that is dehumanizing. Both of these are very unattractive to people in general, but particularly to women looking for a mate.

 

[ZPowers]

On why atheism is not more popular among women, I believe it is because it is associated with despair and an ethical system that is dehumanizing. Both of these are very unattractive to people in general, but particularly to women looking for a mate.

I hadn't thought of it before, but after looking it up, apparently men are more likely to be atheists than women (19 to 12 percent of the population). Kinda strange, considering religious organizations have done quite a bit more damage to women historically (and still do) than they have to men.

I have several intelligent female friends who I guess I'd describe as "non-religious." They have very strong and nuanced political beliefs (they keep abreast of the news, particularly political news, better than I do), but very little interest in defining, debating or researching theological or other philosophical ideals.

I only really know one woman (a physicist who has done work with the Hadron Collider) who is strongly and definitively an atheist.

On the other hand, I know quite a few males who flatly consider themselves atheists (including myself). I wonder if this split in interest is common, or just how my situation shakes out.

Most of what I see online implies seems to argue it has to do with women being more risk-averse and/or differences in societal expectations between the genders pushing women towards belief more than men. Not sure if I'm totally behind any of those explanations, though.

 

[Viridian]

If anyone's interested, there's a female atheist called Greta Christina who blogs about irreligion and feminism. Might wanna check her out.

 

[Blackmail!]

On why atheism is not more popular among women, I believe it is because it is associated with despair and an ethical system that is dehumanizing.

Are you implying that atheists are necessarily "associated with despair and an ethical system that is dehumanizing"?

On what grounds?

 

[UniqueMixture]

No, I am not. I think that is the very visceral reaction that religious and/or spiritual people often may have however. I think the fear comes from believing that if there really is no ultimate punishment for real deeds then one is free to go around slaying others mindlessly. Most reactions we have toward social groups different from our own that we have no personal experience with come from fear imo. One of my best friends believes that atheists are more ethical than the religious. I for one see it as more of a social interaction than anything really having to do with "truth" lol.

 

[Xenon]

If anyone's interested, there's a female atheist called Greta Christina who blogs about irreligion and feminism. Might wanna check her out.

Well, ya could use a link dude.

Greta Christina's Blog

I've been quite a fan of her writing since discovering her at the end of 2010. She isn't well-known enough to be considered one of the "greats", but she just got a book published and apparently she's been getting a lot of speaking engagements, so who knows, she might be sometime.

I hadn't thought of it before, but after looking it up, apparently men are more likely to be atheists than women (19 to 12 percent of the population). Kinda strange, considering religious organizations have done quite a bit more damage to women historically (and still do) than they have to men.

Most of what I see online implies seems to argue it has to do with women being more risk-averse and/or differences in societal expectations between the genders pushing women towards belief more than men. Not sure if I'm totally behind any of those explanations, though.

Have you come across any stats on the percentages of men and women who merely describe themselves as non-religious? I'd be curious to see if those are closer. I've heard elsewhere that women are more likely to describe themselves as religious. I do think social roles have a lot to do with it. Religion is deeply interwoven with family life for many people (this was a sore point for my mother when I gradually stopped going to church; she saw it as a "special family thing"), and with marking important events (births, deaths, coming of age, etc.), and it's still assumed by many that raising kids properly and teaching them morality requires religion. All traditionally more the domain of women.

Greta Christina, the blogger above, had a post discussing a study that found less atheism and more religion in countries where people often lived in poverty, had less education or otherwise had less control over their life circumstances. Maybe this also has something to do with the difference between male and female rates of atheism. There are sex differences in all these things as well.

 

[Mole]

Ariane Sherine, Ayn Rand, Barbara Smoker, Emma Goldman, Emma Thompson, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Jodie Foster, Julia Sweeney, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Margaret Downey, Polly Toynbee, Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Jacoby...

An embarrassment of riches.

 

[gmanyo]

Almost all religions are misogynist, yet women form the backbone of most religions.

lol

 

[iwakar]

Why is it that the great athiests today are men like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett? There seem to be no great women atheists today, or perhaps I am just missing them?

Almost all religions are misogynist, yet women form the backbone of most religions.

Yet women want to be priests and bishops and popes rather than atheists. Why is this?

Following all the discussion, do any women qualify now in your mind? Do you have a theory?

 

[Mole]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Following all the discussion, do any women qualify now in your mind? Do you have a theory?

I think Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a clear sighted intellectual with moral and physical courage who has rejected Islam on moral, intellectual and social grounds at risk to her life and the lives of her friends. And Ayaan describes herself as an atheist.

Islam describes Ayaan as an Islamic apostate and so Islam has condemned Ayaan to the same death as her collegue, Theo Van Gogh, who was butched in the street in front of his home, with a note stuck to his chest with a knife, warning Ayaan that she was next.