To a theist! :O what’re the odds…?! Lol.

Why are so many atheist men single?

Conformation bias? Is she looking at the Internet alone, or does she notice this in her daily life, too? Because the Internet tends to be skewered toward the young, and the average age at marriage is increasing…

yinyang, I’ve asked Sara about this as I’m always skeptical whenever anyone makes a generalization based on personal anecdotes. She says that she’s observed the same thing with atheist men she knows outside of the internet. But she has decided to make a dating survey to try to get some actual statistical evidence on he subject. Of course I see all sorts of problems with getting a good representative sample (that could be a huge problem) and honest “atheist” evaluations (I think a better strategy than asking if one is an atheist–since many people don’t really understand what the word “atheist” means and therefore don’t identify themselves as such–she should ask questions about beliefs and world-views).

~Javier

Maybe this has some biological foundation, but I doubt that it’s really all that strong. Either way, there is a very clear and obvious social pressure for women to act in this way – a pressure that is in part reinforced by you “enlightened atheist men” who assume that we are just too emotional and stupid by nature (as opposed to the religious man who assumes that god(s) made us this way).

And by the way, Jen is my hero

But maybe it’s a matter of discussion style. A lot of men I know can be pretty belligerent about those subjects, even with a significant other. So it might not be the content but the style of the discussion that causes women to turn off and just not want to get into it.

I was actually going to mention that, and then I didn’t. Our society teaches men to be as loud as they need to be, and values competition in men more than in women, and teaches men to be more aggressive. All my life, I have had more female friends than males, and I do think it is a result of how they are socialized differently than I was, and I find large, loud, competitive groups of them to be obnoxious. Therefore, I might be less likely to attend an atheist event, if I had reason to believe it would be mostly men, since
1. Atheist meetings tend to have more men than women, and tend to be an older crowd
2. The older the man, the more “male” he was socialized to be, and I find that obnoxious.

And it might be a vicious cycle- women percieve there are large groups of men, who can be obnoxious in a specific way in large groups, and thus stay away, and therefore the meeting is mostly men.

I don’t necessarily think men and women are just naturally, biologically different in this case. I absolutely believe we are socialized differently, and as a result, grow up to have these “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” type differences.

Darryl, I will agree with you to a certain extent:

don’t know why, but women are the backbone of evangelical churches (probably all churches).

Perhaps because they are from an era and a specific church-based culture that only values women working in the church and/or at home? If they can’t have jobs, and have kids, and have few places they can socialize with the kids, it makes sense they would value church more than their husbands who have more opportunities to socialize.

Women… are not as challenging of religious authority as men tend to be.

Again, doesn’t necessarily mean men are biologically more likely to challenge authority figures. They are socialized to do so, and may have more education regarding specific doctrine that their wives are not privy to. And it may be that Christian women are too damn busy with their four kids, and the homeschooling, and all the domestic chores that they just don’t have time to think.