Are you a girl or a boy?

[Willow]

It looks like this forum is mostly men, but I thought I would ask.
Willow (woman)

[Tank]

It looks like this forum is mostly men, but I thought I would ask.
Willow (woman)

I'll tell you what, this place has a very high proportion of females in my experience of this type of forum. Now active (posting) members are mainly man. When you get to your 50 start some female centric threads and cultivate involvement of the women here.

[Willow]

okay.

[Whitney]

not everyone has filled out their gender (in fact most haven't)

but according to our stats (which you can find linked at the bottom of the main forum:

Male to Female Ratio:    18.1:1

[hismikeness]

Male to Female Ratio:    18.1:1

Take that, ladies! 

[original_gender]

It looks like this forum is mostly men, but I thought I would ask.
Willow (woman)

I'll tell you what, this place has a very high proportion of females in my experience of this type of forum. Now active (posting) members are mainly man. When you get to your 50 start some female centric threads and cultivate involvement of the women here.

This is an interesting topic, actually. Why do you think so few members of the female gender participate in debate oriented forums, typically? Even on this forum, 18.1:1 seems to call for an explanation.

[The Magic Pudding]

Why do you think so few members of the female gender participate in debate oriented forums, typically? Even on this forum, 18.1:1 seems to call for an explanation.

I'm not sure if the proportion is correct, it doesn't feel right.
Looking at the list of members there are a lot of members with 0 posts, maybe this has something to do with the forum changeover.  They are listed as lurkers many seem genderless.  I'm wondering if the stats haven't been distorted by spammers, hit and run theists or something.

[Whitney]

the proportion in the stats is going to be off for probably a year (or more...who knows)....there were a few thousand people registered when I moved the site to SMF and for all I know it assumed they all are male when figuring stats.

I don't know why it's hard to attract females to atheist/freethought....locally (in dallas/fort worth) we have no problem...most of our organizers/activists are women)

[Poptop]

I wonder what the ratio of men to women is in the group that considers themselves atheist. (in America)

[Whitney]

I wonder what the ratio of men to women is in the group that considers themselves atheist. (in America)

all of america...I haven't seen data on that.

I do know that the common story floating around it that women are not well represented in the atheist community and when we are the men treat us like sex objects that can be used to attract more men to the group.  But I say this knowing I'm repeating the pissed off feminist atheist commentary on he way things are.

Locally we are actually really close to even.... i'd say 40% women /60% men; I can get actual stats if I ask.  The only reason why it's not 50/50 is that most of the singles are men  (children are a good mix of male female)

[Poptop]

If the stats show that women are less likely to be atheists, I wonder what the reasons are.

[Whitney]

If the stats show that women are less likely to be atheists, I wonder what the reasons are.

probably patriarchy

if a woman is taught to think she needs to fall in line with expectations she would be less likely to express her disagreement with popular religious ideas.

But I think if that is the case then things are changing...quickly.

[Recusant]

For what it's worth, the Pew "U. S. Religious Landscape Survey" (2007) states that:

Men are significantly more likely than women to claim no religious affiliation. Nearly one-in-five men say they have no formal religious affiliation, compared with roughly 13% of women.

The thing is, "no religious affiliation" does not equal "atheist." However, according to this table (PDF) from the same survey, of those who identified themselves as atheist, 70% were men and 30% were women.

[leedan]

I think that women have have greater sense of survival than men. Religious gatherings may provide the security to enhance this greater instinct. I have no research to back this assumption, but it might explain why women are less inclined to admit there atheism.

[MariaEvri]

i am a man-wannabe female!