Why Aren't There More Women In Atheism?

[joreth]

Question:
Why aren't there more women involved in atheism & skepticism, and in particular, why don't they come to the conferences?

Answer:
Well, besides daycare and expense issues, many of us don't come because we feel we are often dismissed, judged for our looks first and brains second (if at all), ignored, talked over, condescended to, hit on, and there is an underlying attitude of sexism and misogyny, not to mention being outnumbered by so many men, even if they are being nice.  Sometimes, I even feel afraid for my own safety because my concerns are not taken seriously and my wishes to not be hit on are ignored.

Responses:

• "Smart women are hot."
• "Oh lighten up, you should be flattered that men want to hit on you!"
• "Consider yourself lucky that men hit on you! I wouldn't be upset if more women hit on me!"
• "Please, you're not pretty enough for anyone to hit on you or rape you, so relax."
• "You think you have problems? There are women in other countries who are being beaten and mutilated! You have no room to complain because of how good you have it here!"
• "Let's get some perspective on this. Men have problems too, y'know. We have to deal with you being afraid of us, and every so often, a man gets raped too."
• "The problem with women is that you're just too emotional. I understand that this is an emotional topic, but you're not discussing this in a rational manner. There's no evidence that any of this happens or that it's the reason why so many women stay away; you're just a single data point."
• "You used some words that I mistakenly attribute to man-hating feminazis because someone else told me that use of these words is anti-men. So I'm not even going to listen to your actual point because I don't like the words you used. Instead, I'm going to throw my own loaded terminology at you like 'feminist propaganda' and 'agenda' and 'reverse sexism' and then unironically complain about not getting your point across because I have a problem with the words you use."
• "You fucking bitch, I hope you get raped."
• "You're just an attention-whore."
• "*cough*dramaqueen*cough*"
• "Does getting all this attention from men get you wet? Because you seem like the kind of woman that does."
• "I'm totally going to cop a feel when I see you at the next convention.  What? It was just a joke!"
• "I'm going to drug you and rape you."

Several of these comments are direct quotes.  In fact, the most offensive ones are the direct quotes. So please do not tell me that I'm building straw men or overreacting. I have a right to be both afraid and angry at the way women are treated in this culture even though men can have bad things happen to them too and even though women in other countries have it worse.

Comments

[joreth]

I did see all the clammor from PZ about the "dictionary atheism" but I had not heard the explanation he was able to give to you. I'm glad to hear that cleared up, because what I saw seemed to be saying that "atheism is being opposed to god", which is not what it is AT ALL (and I happen to be one of those atheists who DO oppose the notion of god). I can see the rational behind PZ being annoyed with atheists who refuse to answer why they are atheist and only respond with "because I just don't". That's just not the impression he was giving. I'm a stickler for semantics, so the way he phrased his argument online just seemed to be grammatically and factually wrong even though my personal brand of atheism happens to be very similar to his.

I think one of the important lessons we can take away from the whole Dawkins/PZ/Phil Plait/Any Other Skeptic-Atheist problem is that the skeptic and atheist circles differ in a huge way from the theist communities in that we do not follow the Word Of Our Leaders. And that's a feature, IMO, not a bug. We say this all the time, with our citing of the Argument From Authority as one of the most common logical fallacies. Our "leaders" are people who have presented some ideas that stand on their own merits, and our "leaders" are still people who can also say some really stupid shit. Even rational skeptics and atheists have a tendency to idolize famous or important people, so this is a good reminder to stay focused on the claims or the arguments or the ideas and to not get too hung up on who is making them.

As to your question, my own personal experience is that this phenomenon is actually better at atheist cons vs. other types of conventions, however, being "better" makes it all the more important that we call out the little things when they happen - to make sure they never have a chance to grow into the big issues. But that statement should be qualified in two ways: 1) I have very little opportunity to actually go to specifically atheist or skeptical cons and 2) other types of cons are deliberately more sexualized in nature.

At D*C, I spend my time exclusively in the skeptics track, so although that is not an atheist convention, I see almost nothing of D*C EXCEPT the skeptic and atheist sub-con within it. And I see very little of this kind of behaviour in the hallways, meeting rooms, and parties that are dedicated to the skeptics track. That doesn't mean that it's not there, but I am very introverted, I am very strong-willed (and told that I'm intimidating in person), I am usually there with at least one of my boyfriends, and I'm often in some kind of sexy costume. So those might be some reasons why I don't see very much of this kind of blatant sexism at the D*C skeptics track, in spite of the fact that the attendees are made up of both skeptics and geeks - neither of which has a stellar reputation for being social graceful.

cont...