Here’s the thing: females aren’t a minority. Constant reminders consisting of everything from TV ads to misused pronouns don’t let us forget the struggle with basic civil and social rights that women have battled, past and present alike. Caught up in the urgent ideals of feminism and modern liberal values, it’s sometimes easy (even for women) to forget that females are half of the world’s population, especially when it comes to things like careers in math and science. A survey conducted by the Center for Inquiry shows that over 80% of atheists are male. What’s more, the same survey suggested that over 40% had at least a six-figure income.
It’s hardly a secret that there just tend to be more men in science. The times are a-changin’, but even so, let’s face it. The face of atheism is now, more than ever, a gray-haired sausage fest in a thousand dollar tux. This is one of the more unfortunate side effects of “new atheism” brought up by the (otherwise exceptional) lead of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris: the “big three” of non-belief nowadays. (Ironically, I’m pretty sure Dawkins would have been Woodrow Wilson.) Personally, I’m not a complainer. Somebody needed to resurrect (excuse the poor choice of words) atheism, and that’s just what happens when the only people bold enough to do it happen mostly to be our male, bordering-on-senior-citizen counterparts. We’ll just have to problem solve, and put our noggins to use, as atheists and members of society.
Well, by now, we pretty much know that an atheist woman is kind of like your token gay uncle.
So now what?
Mass cultural change was never easy, especially since the problem lies beyond atheism itself. Obviously, much of it has to do with how women fit in with science. While valid, that point has been brought up enough times that if I had a dollar every time I heard it, by now I would have been able to afford a tux, a sex reassignment surgery, and a serious box of hair bleach instead of spending my time actually working on the issue.
As it is, no one gives out grants for counting the repetition of an argument.
Maybe instead of trying to draw in more women first, we should focus on encouraging the atheist females we already have. As Islam shows us, it’s better to have people following big rather than a big following. (It also shows us that having both isn’t half bad, either.) What I’m saying is that if you’re female… what are you doing reading my thoughts about feminism? Go start your own blog, and put yourself out there.
Next to religion, it’s no surprise that we’ve been losing the women. After all, they have things like the Virgin Mary, nuns, and Rebecca St. James. What can I say, they’ve one-up’d us in that respect.
We have no official organization, no official leaders, no Avril Lavigne wannabes to proselytize for us… in fact, we’re only left with one single thing which we all happen not to believe. It’s only to be expected that its public image would go uncontrolled. So who should control it?
Well, you already do. One of the nice things about atheism is that it’s sort of an anarchy in itself, but it’s also a democracy by default, because only the atheist public can really decide their own image. For example, with The God Delusion, Dawkins certainly decided what his was, and everyone else just kind of picked it up and followed his lead.
Which brings me to my point: it’s important over time that atheism gains some more female poster-children. Women otherwise attracted to religion should be shown that atheism is not a patriarchy (like religion is).
And getting those reps is not the onus of some pie-in-the-sky organization that controls atheism behind the scenes. We don’t have an atheist Vatican. It’s up to you to decide the image you put out of your own brand of atheism. We just have to remember to include women in the same outreach.
Cheers
Why atheism is a rich man’s world – and why it doesn’t matter.
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008This is a response to Chris’ post: Why atheism is a rich man’s world – and how we can change it
I get it, women like being included, and that’s fine. Honestly now, it’s not like we’re excluding women in this faction. But! Before I get to the meat of Chris’ post, I just wanted to comment on a couple smaller pedantic issues:
Yes, and consistently feminists all over North America are using these “reminders” to slam men every chance they get. But for some reason the sexism against men is completely over looked. There are ads in the Toronto subways right now for the restaurant Moxies. I hear a couple of girls talking about how “sexist” the ad is because the woman is depicted in a pretty slut-tastic dress and all her jewelry is being pulled to the man beside her who is wearing an outfit that would make him out to be a magnet. They ended their conversation with “the guy is pretty sexy though”. … WTF?
So is it because our “movement” is so science oriented that there are fewer women? Maybe we should focus on the arts more in our programming to draw in a new (and possibly more feminine […stereotype alert!]) crowd? Hmm. Just a thought.
I’m not sure that it’s their gender that is the unfortunate thing about these three men, it’s the lack of connection with individuals and how many people can’t relate to them that is truly unfortunate. What I’d like to see is someone who can talk reasonably about religion and life – but not be full of fluff with whom I can relate to. Woman or not.
Anyway, onto my real points!
The “new face” of atheism – as it seems to be called – is indeed very white male oriented. But why does this matter? Secularism in the public sphere is a somewhat innovative fad we’re diving into. Only recently have people felt comfortable enough to leap out and declare atheism as a way to brand themselves. Realistically, it just so happens that those who had the time and money to start this whole atheistic movement were white, well-off men. But the important part, is that it happened! And that it’s still happening! Now about who is running it.
Being involved with secularism, the movement, is a privilege. It’s a privilege that many people simply don’t have. It’s like complaining that you’re soup is too hot – people with another option can do it. And it seems like the people who did have this option, were white males, so they started this new stream of atheism. And it’s that, new… you can’t expect it to be a plethora of sexes and races when it’s barely accepted by the public at large!
But that entire point is extraneous, much like actively attempting to get women involved. It’s futile. The people who are currently involved are the ones who desire to be; at this point we should be attempting to get more people in general involved, not simply encouraging women to step into the movement. If I spent my time trying to get our women volunteers more active and encouraging them to be more vocal within our groups – I’d be wasting a whole lot of time where I could be doing more productive things like giving support to our already active volunteers.
Aggressively encouraging women to get involved is just like affirmative action. We start overlooking a plethora of capable people simply to be more inclusive. We look at a group of say 10 individuals, where 1 is a female…we ask the female to do the work simply because she’s a women and it turns out she’s the least capable. I’ve just wasted all of my time and invested interest in this person who is less capable than 9 other people, but I overlooked that point because for some reason we think that having women involved with organizations makes them more successful? Makes them more appealing? Makes us look less sexist? What?
Who cares what sex we have working with us? I don’t feel like I could relate to a woman Paul Kurtz any more or less than I can relate to the male Paul Kurtz. It’s reverse discrimination, as this unwarranted need for a closer male to female ratio requires the very discrimination that supporters are seeking to eradicate.
I personally think we have bigger fish to fry than putting energy into getting women involved. To be completely straightforward, I don’t have time to wave my hand at all the women screaming at them “Hey! Look! It’s fun! And non-patriarchal!” …Because those who want to be involved are already here, and are already contributing.
There is no “anti-women” sign on any of our doors. The exact same opportunities are available to women as are to men. When I’m looking for someone to fill a position, I’m just looking for a committed body and mind, not a gender. Why not invest our interests somewhere that it makes sense, like putting time, energy and money into art programs. (By stereotypical nature this would eventually lead to an increase in women, but that’s not the point.) It’s an entire social, cultural and academic side of things that we hardly ever touch on, but where there is a market for our mindsets and thoughts. Some of your are going to argue that women add more diversity, and different thoughts. …Any number of people despite sex, age or race are going to add diversity! I have the same opinions and thoughts as most of the guys in my little secular group. I don’t add diversity.
A social movement such as secularism is equal opportunity. If there are women out there pining to save the world from religion, teach other about science education or explore the paranormal they’re more than welcome to come on it. But I’m not going to waste my time convincing them that it’s okay to do that.
Tags: atheism, feminism, women
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