Even in the modern day it's somewhat frowned upon for Muslim women to attend mosque for Friday prayer. They're supposed to pray at home. The practice is changing across the world but there is still gender segregation when women attend mosques. It's more productive to ask Muslim women if they pray 5 times a day as a test for religiosity.
Thanks a million for this! I literally dropped everything I was doing to read this. Now the fun question from the perspective of my work is why! And since my research is about women’s religious exits and transitions, what implications do these findings have for how we understand deconversion and religious switching? I’ve been saying for years that the narrative of doubt, exit, atheism doesn’t capture what happens for many, many women. In fact, women in my research and experience were more likely to leave because a) burnout and b) things that pulled them away and interested them on the other side, not only the “bad things” that pushed them out! And they don’t seem to have more “doubts” than men - as this shows.
Wish I could write more but I’m at work. Thanks again!
Thanks so linking the Fetzer site, and congratulations on receiving the presigious Templeton Prize. The Fetzer data must be a treasure trove of information.
Needless to say, there are numerous ways to stratify how different categories of people think about religion, gender being one of many. Most likely it will also form distributions by education, childhood exposure, wealth, geography, and ethnic lineages. As noted, the religious practices also influence this. Orthodox men and Muslim men have dominant roles at our places of worship, so male dominance of attendance is explained by the religion itself sometimes.
Since there is a gender difference not only in ritual practice but in some of the fundamental elements of religion's purpose, it would be interesting to see if the women perform better in the imitatio dei elements that span religion such as kindness or generosity.
Some of the activity data is not what I expected. If I see 100 office patients during a week, would 5 of them have fasted for one day during that previous week? Unlikely unless it was Yom Kippur week. Would less than half spend some time reading? It seems a lower fraction than I'd predict. Do I even know anyone with Tarot cards? But taken as an aggregate of all reported activities, it does not surprise me that women offer more personal reflective activity than men.
It's worth noting that the tarot cards thing is a bit of a fad right now, especially among younger generations. I suspect that this poll taken even a few years ago would have lower numbers on that question.
As an evangelical by background, I'm intrigued by the behavioural chart because it seems to defy many stereotypes about gender and spirituality/religion. I would have expected behaviours like being in nature, tarot/fortune telling, and, to a certain degree, yoga/martial arts, to skew female, whereas behaviours like studying religious texts and teaching in a religious setting to skew male. I wonder if the numbers would turn out that way in evangelical contexts because of the stricter gender norms.
There are more people teaching in a religious setting from a subordinate position than there are people teaching from a position of headship. If all you are is a Sunday-school teacher or teaching in women's ministry, you're still teaching in a religious setting. So I would expect the sheer number of religious teachers in an Evangelical setting to skew female.
The stricter gender norms among Evangelicals don't prohibit women's reading or teaching, there's just less opportunity for women to do these things with full authority over men. Even so, as Kate Bowler points out, entrepreneurial women who find ways through many of the limitations on their authority are fairly common in the Evangelical world:
Regarding yoga/martial arts, I understand why those were combined into a "fitness with spiritual component" category, combination one category of spiritualized fitness that's stereotypically female (yoga) and one that's stereotypically male (martial arts), but then it's not so surprising for the number of males and females practicing something in this combination to be more equal.
Yeah, I knew that people would include various kinds/levels of teaching in that answer. I hadn't considered the sheer number of women that would teach in most Sunday Schools, though - you're right that that would likely tip the scales all on its own!
Re. the yoga/martial arts bit, I'm still a little surprised because of how much more often I hear of women engaging in yoga than I hear about men engaging in martial arts. But, then, men engage in yoga, too, and I would imagine both yoga and martial arts would be more common pursuits among non-evangelicals, since there are often taboos around those practices in evangelical churches.
In Australia, the adult population is 51.1% female, adults identifying as Christian in the census are 54.4% female and adults counted at church by National Church Life Survey are about 60% female. Adults indicating no religion in the census are 48.2% female.
As a pastor, it is quite obvious that there is a gender gap. In very few churches (and those I know of seem to not be healthy ones), are males the majority or even achieve parity. Often the vibration revolves around men doing things together, but it also seems the starting point is different.
Yes, women are more spiritual. Most men in today's evangelical world just follow their wives to church. They cannot converse about anything except their latest material possessions and who will win the next election. It's stale and boring. Jesus gives us a lot to do in this life, not only to work out our own salvation among each other in the church, but to also make disciples. Instead, the men in the church just show up and pretend they are doing these things. The survey is tough, because that too can be based on self-deceived pretense.
Inaction by some or most leads basically to inaction by all, because we are called to work together, not in a vacuum. Instead, we have caring and exhausted people accomplishing very little. Men who are supposed to lead their families are basically AWOL in the church.
Even in the modern day it's somewhat frowned upon for Muslim women to attend mosque for Friday prayer. They're supposed to pray at home. The practice is changing across the world but there is still gender segregation when women attend mosques. It's more productive to ask Muslim women if they pray 5 times a day as a test for religiosity.
Thanks a million for this! I literally dropped everything I was doing to read this. Now the fun question from the perspective of my work is why! And since my research is about women’s religious exits and transitions, what implications do these findings have for how we understand deconversion and religious switching? I’ve been saying for years that the narrative of doubt, exit, atheism doesn’t capture what happens for many, many women. In fact, women in my research and experience were more likely to leave because a) burnout and b) things that pulled them away and interested them on the other side, not only the “bad things” that pushed them out! And they don’t seem to have more “doubts” than men - as this shows.
Wish I could write more but I’m at work. Thanks again!
Btw Linda Woodhead has a great piece that captures some of the “why” here. Feminist perspective religious studies. Chapter 6. http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/54642/1/25.KIERAN%20FLANAGAN.pdf#page=132
Women and non binary people who are going through faith transition and looking for a supportive community are welcome to join us at SisterWild! https://open.substack.com/pub/thesisterwild?r=3r4ibm&utm_medium=ios
Thanks so linking the Fetzer site, and congratulations on receiving the presigious Templeton Prize. The Fetzer data must be a treasure trove of information.
Needless to say, there are numerous ways to stratify how different categories of people think about religion, gender being one of many. Most likely it will also form distributions by education, childhood exposure, wealth, geography, and ethnic lineages. As noted, the religious practices also influence this. Orthodox men and Muslim men have dominant roles at our places of worship, so male dominance of attendance is explained by the religion itself sometimes.
Since there is a gender difference not only in ritual practice but in some of the fundamental elements of religion's purpose, it would be interesting to see if the women perform better in the imitatio dei elements that span religion such as kindness or generosity.
Some of the activity data is not what I expected. If I see 100 office patients during a week, would 5 of them have fasted for one day during that previous week? Unlikely unless it was Yom Kippur week. Would less than half spend some time reading? It seems a lower fraction than I'd predict. Do I even know anyone with Tarot cards? But taken as an aggregate of all reported activities, it does not surprise me that women offer more personal reflective activity than men.
It's worth noting that the tarot cards thing is a bit of a fad right now, especially among younger generations. I suspect that this poll taken even a few years ago would have lower numbers on that question.
As an evangelical by background, I'm intrigued by the behavioural chart because it seems to defy many stereotypes about gender and spirituality/religion. I would have expected behaviours like being in nature, tarot/fortune telling, and, to a certain degree, yoga/martial arts, to skew female, whereas behaviours like studying religious texts and teaching in a religious setting to skew male. I wonder if the numbers would turn out that way in evangelical contexts because of the stricter gender norms.
There are more people teaching in a religious setting from a subordinate position than there are people teaching from a position of headship. If all you are is a Sunday-school teacher or teaching in women's ministry, you're still teaching in a religious setting. So I would expect the sheer number of religious teachers in an Evangelical setting to skew female.
The stricter gender norms among Evangelicals don't prohibit women's reading or teaching, there's just less opportunity for women to do these things with full authority over men. Even so, as Kate Bowler points out, entrepreneurial women who find ways through many of the limitations on their authority are fairly common in the Evangelical world:
https://www.amazon.com/Preachers-Wife-Precarious-Evangelical-Celebrities/dp/0691179611
Regarding yoga/martial arts, I understand why those were combined into a "fitness with spiritual component" category, combination one category of spiritualized fitness that's stereotypically female (yoga) and one that's stereotypically male (martial arts), but then it's not so surprising for the number of males and females practicing something in this combination to be more equal.
Yeah, I knew that people would include various kinds/levels of teaching in that answer. I hadn't considered the sheer number of women that would teach in most Sunday Schools, though - you're right that that would likely tip the scales all on its own!
Re. the yoga/martial arts bit, I'm still a little surprised because of how much more often I hear of women engaging in yoga than I hear about men engaging in martial arts. But, then, men engage in yoga, too, and I would imagine both yoga and martial arts would be more common pursuits among non-evangelicals, since there are often taboos around those practices in evangelical churches.
I'm curious, too. That would probably require a study with different data points.
I recall UK studies saying that "spiritual, not religious" is mostly an intermediate stage between "religious + spiritual" and "neither".
In Australia, the adult population is 51.1% female, adults identifying as Christian in the census are 54.4% female and adults counted at church by National Church Life Survey are about 60% female. Adults indicating no religion in the census are 48.2% female.
https://mappage.net.au/?a=gm_cc_au
As a pastor, it is quite obvious that there is a gender gap. In very few churches (and those I know of seem to not be healthy ones), are males the majority or even achieve parity. Often the vibration revolves around men doing things together, but it also seems the starting point is different.
Yes, women are more spiritual. Most men in today's evangelical world just follow their wives to church. They cannot converse about anything except their latest material possessions and who will win the next election. It's stale and boring. Jesus gives us a lot to do in this life, not only to work out our own salvation among each other in the church, but to also make disciples. Instead, the men in the church just show up and pretend they are doing these things. The survey is tough, because that too can be based on self-deceived pretense.
Inaction by some or most leads basically to inaction by all, because we are called to work together, not in a vacuum. Instead, we have caring and exhausted people accomplishing very little. Men who are supposed to lead their families are basically AWOL in the church.
Don’t you mean “more women are spiritual and religious than men” instead of “women are more”?