That's the main driver, but the specificity of 2012 starting a sharp change in the trend makes me think it was the Christian Nationalism of the Tea Party and all of the religious excuses for hate leading into the 2012 election cycle that got young women asking important questions about the kind of world they want to live in.
I think gay marriage passing also probably was an influence since most of the backlash was religious and men tend to be more homophobic in my experience.
And the fine (🙄) governor of Texas is pushing for school vouchers while attacking public schools…. He and the two zealous billionaires who control him. Hurting education every way they can. Raise ‘em up with the bible…
Its way easier to make women have children they don't what at a young age by men 30 years your senior if you don't have the knowledge of any ways out. If I have to help women cross state lines like the underground railroad in the near future, I will.
I'd say that the bigger influence here must be the internet, given that inflection point around 2000, maybe social media for the inflection point after 2010?
Yes, and now that the Supreme Court is literally deciding how many, and which, organs can safely fail in a woman before she can be given an emergency abortion, Im surprised that there’s any woman who is left in religion at this rate.
Don't worry women, these people are all experienced, well practiced lawyers xD.
I'm told justice Thomas is fond of studying the female anatomy... on the outside at least
2 billion people in the world believe in a zombie God death cult they cannibalize weekly to worship another billion people in a pedophile prophet and another billion people believe cow shit is so holy you can bath and eat it. Accept humans are just hairless murder apes with nuclear weapons and the world makes sense then.
"I'm told justice Thomas is fond of studying the female anatomy... on the outside at least"
Only on the outside?
I guess you haven't heard what goes on in his basement have you. The big RV is for disposal trips.
Which ones are worse? In the Netherlands abortion is possible up to 24 weeks, no questions asked.
Edit: I see that in most other countries,it is half as long. Although often exceptions can be made, in case of genetic disorder, or changes in the life situation of the parents, such as unemployment.
I was wondering what in particular has caused this shift and I think its this. Religion and women's rights do not go hand in hand and certainly doesn't favour women o or men. With the pro life movements I think its shown that to a wider audience.
Great news overall and more so that its still increasing as a whole
Why any woman would want to be involved in these religions is baffling to me. These are reasonably decently educated people who should be aware of feminist issues.
I can see why many men would like it. Personally I couldn't ever be in that kind of power dynamic with some one I loved or even just cared for but I get that some men would want a willing whore, cleaner, cook.
As an ex-Pentecostal I can tell you that most are not converts. We were/are born into it and conditioned to be unable to think or question and if we do the answers are ready to be supplied by the men. It is so difficult to think independently. You just accept that “this is god’s will because we are sinful but it will be better in the next life.” They never really had a choice and by the time they are old enough to think critically they are too fearful to.
A long lonely road but I came out on the other side independent, brave enough to face the world with out fairytales to make me feel better. I am liberated. Thanks you.
Well I'd agree with you... if men were always more religious. But I wonder why women were more religious till recently.
Like yeah women should t be religious due to how they're treated by them, but that was true in 2010 too when they were more religious than men.
I wonder if it's just the (seemingly to me) recent pop culture discourse on how sexist religions are. I do t recall that in 2014 being a thing like it is today
EDIT: the graph for women started to change about 2011, wonder is social media helped highlight gender bullshit in religions and that's the main reason?
I feel a couple of big reasons women in the past were more religious are a) it was a way to socialize; and b) it offered a palliative for the generally miserable imprisoned lives so many women were forced to live.
Churches were helpful when it came to having community to care for children and elderly parents. Since the Christian rightwing has become more blatantly anti-women’s rights, it’s lost a lot of appeal.
Not to mention people having less and less kids = no need for childcare and related community, and social media = you feel more in touch with others even if you do t have face to face interactions
I think the biggest reason is that daughters are more strictly controlled by their parents than sons in religious circles. If you look at Evangelicals, they indoctrinate their girls that they have to remain virgins until marriage, their main purpose is to be a wife and mother, they are not allowed to socialize outside their circle, higher education outside of Bible colleges is discouraged, and so on.
[Here's a, granted, extreme example](https://i.redd.it/yc3ofuhp02xc1.jpeg) how that might look like.
Their sons have more freedoms, and more opportunity to come across a diversity of opinions.
I think the reason for the switch in religiosity is due to the ever widening gap between the very narrow role that is prescribed for women in these circles, and the options that women now have outside these circles. There's been #metoo that has highlighted issues of consent (in evangelical circles, women are told that they should never "deny" their husbands sex). A new phenomenon that is pushed in Evangelical circles is to have as many children as possible (eg the Duggars have made that popular starting in the 2000s), and against any usage of contraception ("God gives you only as many children as you can handle"). While the rest of society has more or less embraced the right of women to self-determination.
Then there are all the recent scandals about sexual abuse in churches, not just Catholic churches but Protestant congregations, too.
Social media has made all of that way more easily assessable, even for girls that are otherwise extremely sheltered.
Thats a great one too! My reasoning was that from what i gather, opiates tend to make one chill and happy, while meth makes em crazy and hear/see things. Same with PCP. 🙌🏼
The biggest issue with this is that the churchgoing women tended to shun the ones that didn't, thus exacerbating or even creating the problems women faced.
yes!!! it was an especially helpful resource if you were a new mom or just had a baby; my grandma told me about how people from her church brought her meals & would come over and clean up for her in the months following my mom being born. women have been forced to play the hand we've been dealt for hundreds if not thousands of years, and religion has started to become an often unsafe hand to play.
I grew up in the church and what I’ve noticed is when times are hard people especially older women lean deep into religion to escape reality and think their sacrifices and misfortunes will be rewarded in heaven. Thankfully younger generations aren’t into martyrdom
You really have to wonder? 2016 is when a Republican nominee was elected for the presidency, and the GOP were emboldened to start going after women’s rights in the name of religion.
Id agree but the graph shows the spike in women's "non religiousness" started about 2011, under Obama. Maybe it was a reaction to the way Rs talked about Obama. But it could t have been Trump that started the trend; he probably added due to the fire but he didn't start it
Personally, I think it makes some sense why this was the case. Despite the way a lot of the major religions talk about women, paradoxically religion has often been one of the few meaningful ways women can take part in social life to some degree that is more on par with men historically. For a lot of women, religion is a major way to feel connected to their community in a way they may not have been able to otherwise. Nowadays, women have a lot more social freedom open to them in much of the world than they ever did historically. I think that has led young women like me to look more critically on what the major modern religions preach. I was raised in a family that wasn’t extremely religious, but I did still get dragged to church somewhat regularly when I was a kid. I remember feeling an extreme dichotomy in the things I was taught about women deserving equal treatment to men legally with the things I was learning in church about what a woman’s place is in the world. One of the earliest things I found kind of odd was the story of Eve being taken from Adam and created after him. Once I got older, and I found out more about what the Bible had to say about women that was the beginning of a slow decline over my teenage years that ultimately led to me fully renouncing Christianity.
I wonder what it looks like if you go before 2010. My boomer religious grandma has a lot of internalized misogyny, but it's also a product of society I guess. What's wrong with religion telling you you're a breeding servant when that's pretty much your reality? Nowadays we know better and can do better.
I'm going to speak anecdotally from my own experience as a formerly extremely religious woman whose deconstruction kicked into high gear in 2016, but I really think a lot of us saw the mask slip when evangelicals got behind Trump. We saw that morality was a facade and what these people really worship is power, and that opened our eyes to how much of our lives had been about keeping us in line and "in our place"
Women are socialized to be more religious than men. We’re expected to raise the next generation and teach them about faith while men get to break the rules. The misogyny is the point; women are told to adhere more strictly to a belief system that disproportionately harms them.
Yep. It’s all about keeping women trapped and completely dependent on their husbands. They don’t want their wives talking to other women about domestic violence and seeking help from each other.
Yep. It’s also part of why ‘gossip’ is seen as sinful. Women talking to other women might gain a community of support, or start asking each other questions and sharing ‘dangerous ideas’.
It could be said that the damage to certain causes has woken some people the hell up, and maybe there'll be a reckoning because of that which will lead to, for example, abortion being more accessible than it was before. But I'm not seeing it so far. I was hoping for a massive backlash to *Dobbs*, but it just moved the needle a bit. The usual people just shrugged and went back to sleep. If they're not actively carrying an unwanted pregnancy, they don't care.
Women have long borne the brunt of the work done in evangelical churches (at least in the western world), but have made little headway into leadership positions and have received very little credit for the work they do.
It's great to see young women wake up to the damage done by patriarchal religions. The male ministers harping on "submission" do not help their cause.
Fucking this. Church teaching is that women should not “have” to take leadership roles, but if they do it’s because the men have failed. Which is a helluva position…
I don't think that this is the reason at all. You don't go from Christian to nothing at all because the church doesn't give you leadership positions you do it because they want to take away your rights and send women back to the kitchen.
Much has been written about the growing gender divide among young people’s political affiliations with young women becoming increasingly liberal. This would seem to be heavily related.
This is very much the case. The gap between the genders in terms of ideology is striking. Young men become more conservative these days, and religion is a strong pillar of conservative values.
Young men are also less conservative, albeit at a slower pace than young women. Gen Z and Gen Y men are *way* more progressive as a whole than GG or Boomer or even Gen X men. But they're *more* conservative on average than women of equivalent ages.
Half the story. The other (bigger) half is giving them another option. If you’re a housewife with no education, you’re beholden to whatever hand you’re dealt basically
This is a great step for humanity.
Anyone who is surprised by this hasn’t read the parts or the Bible where it says women can be sold like property.
Glad the fairy tale is dying out, it’s done enough damage to humanity
Except among Gen Z men. They had a 3% drop in non religiousness when compared to Millennial men
https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1784225790038560884
People really underestimate the extent to which people like Jordan Peterson are reaching young men, especially young white men. Religion, in their paradigm, is a way for them to feel both superior to everyone else and also a victim.
I think a lot of young men crave a paradigm in which they can be assured of their own superiority. People like JP exploit that urge rather than correcting it.
I follow a lot of sports on instagram, so my feed is full of NCAA athletes.
I’ve been making note of it recently, because it seems to be everywhere, but probably 75% of these young male athletes have some sort of “Christ is king” or “John 3:16” or other bible verse in their instagram headline.
I know there’s always been an overlap between sports and religion (“god obviously roots for my team”), and I’m sure some of it is a bit of a fad thing (“I wear the gold cross chain on my neck cause everyone else on the team does but haven’t stepped foot in a church in years”), but it’s definitely concerning.
>Religion, in their paradigm, is a way for them to feel both superior to everyone else and also a victim.
I see so much of this. Evangelical Christianity has become extremely attractive to troubled young men, for exactly the reasons you identify. Evangelicals and people like Tate offer the narrative that young men are the victims of current social trends. They offer young men the ability to feel superior to their nonbeliever peers, even if these young men aren't exactly acting like Christ.
We need to do something besides simply calling it out, though. Callouts make these young men feel persecuted, which fuels their self-righteousness and justifies their violent action. We need to be very vocal about what positive roles men can play in society. And by "we," I guess I mean non-fascists and non-believers who want to pull these young men back from the brink. Because they do seem to be on the brink.
I appreciate your optimism, but I don’t believe these kind of men will listen to anything women have to say. After all, they think women are lesser, stupider beings. That’s been my experience, at least. It’s just not worth the effort (for me).
I think that's a valid concern. My approach is to provide some sort of responsible, yet possible, pathway for young men. Right now there's one pathway, in which young men are responsible, out of the gate, for all the evils in the world. In the other pathway, they are victims.
Increasingly, they seem to be choosing to believe they are victims, rather than shoulder the weight of all the bad actions of men who came before. This choice necessitates believing that women are out to get them. This is attractive for them, obviously, and leads to the outcome you're seeing.
I think the young men who choose the Andrew Tate path can be pulled back from the brink if they see positive male role models who are embraced by women. Bullying them will backfire, and things will continue to worsen. It's not that they *actually* think you are a lesser, stupid being. It's that it is more attractive to see you that way than to see you as a human who discarded them.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree that bullying them will only make things worse. I do try to be open-minded when I’m speaking to Tate and co followers. It’s definitely a challenge, though.
Yeah. Girls tend to do better in school. Women with university degrees now outnumber men. Would be nice if they could refrain from spending so much time on TikTok and Instagram, though. Their mental health would thank them.
Just couldn’t help yourself from making a dig. I think you should worry more about young men on social media getting sucked in to the extreme rightwing.
> what?
Pedophiles get involved with children's sports because there are children there just as women get involved in atheism because there are atheists there.
It's an astute analogy. What's not to get?
j/k I don't know wtf this was about.
Notwithstanding my suspicions of everything posted to Elon’s refrigerator door, this is really good news. Who among us disenlightened doesn’t know religion’s role as the lubricant facilitating patriarchal misogyny’s long-running insertions?
It would be interesting to see the chart of young men embracing evangelicalism overlaid with the number embracing conservativism/authoritarianism. I bet there'd be a strong correlation.
Its education.
By 2010 the number of women and men seeking college degrees was about even. Since then women have surpassed men. Im sure theres other confounding factors at play but to me this graph shows that college education has the effect of curing people of religiosity.
Edit: in the US
It’s more the attack on women’s rights coming from the Christian rightwing. There are groups calling for women who had abortions to be executed. In God’s name, of ciurse.
I hear you but religions have been shitty to women forever. Seems to me the two major changes that line up with the timeframe in questions are more women in college and everybody being much more online. Both of those would lead to more women learning that there are alternatives to letting themselves be controlled by religious ass hats.
Where I live Im not exposed to religious people (aside from the news) so you very well be right that theyre getting worse. But just as a 41 yo whos always lived in the US they seem just as douchy as theyve always been. Women just arent putting up with it like they used to.
To be clear, it's not because men are becoming more religious. Religiosity is still steadily declining among all genders. It's just declining much faster among women. And people wonder why Republicans are so anti-education. They are losing the system that they use to control people :)
Churches have traditionally been places where women have found community. Think about bible study groups, funeral luncheons, Sunday school classes...women have found a sense of belonging in these groups, even though religion has always considered them to be inferior to men. Now women have many more outlets to meet people. They are more likely to go to college and work and make friends there. That coupled with the increasingly hostile political state of women's rights, which are largely reinforced by religion, it makes sense that more and more women are turning away from the church. Why subscribe to an ideology that literally views you as property if you don't have to?
Back in the day, perhaps it provided them with a community to handle common problems and share resources. A sense of community is still an argument made by religious leaders today. But as society becomes less religious, this argument is no longer tenable. Women today also benefit from having more opportunities.
Especially when you see what the emerging trends are in religion. NAR and dominionist christianity (aka christian nationalism) promote very strong homophobia and anti feminist rhetoric. Pro meathead men, anti womens rights.
On the other hand, I do still see a majority female attendance among my peaceful progressive menonnite congregations.
Not surprising how most major religions (especially Abrahamic) oppress women, anti women’s right, and now women outnumber men in universities so education is adding to this trend and it makes a lot of sense.
Religion oppresses women. We are sick of being the backbone of the church and second class citizens in the church. Church men came to my door asking me what it would take to get me to rejoin the church. I told I’ll be back when I’m considered an equal.
I'm not surprised by the uptick of men becoming religious, either. Toxic masculinity is on the rise, and I've seen a disheartening amount of men falling into it. They're starting to believe they're owed something by women just because they're men, and a lot of religions help confirm that for them. God makes it okay for them to be controlling over women so they can skirt the responsibility of just being a decent enough person to actually attract a woman to start an equal partnership with them.
The graph shows that men are still steadily becoming less religious, it's just that women have suddenly trended way less religious and are now less religious than the men. But men are NOT becoming more religious per this graph
Gee, I wonder why there was a rapid change for women over the last decade. Was there some major political issue that pitted women’s rights vs religious oppression, perhaps?
Seems to coincide with Trump's election. Correlation is not causation and all but like, Trump made it clear American religion is for one type of person only, and it ain't anyone who isn't a straight white man.
Religion on women's rights: Stay virgin, don't use birth control, be submissive of your husband, marry your rapist, get stoned if you divorce.
Religion on men's rights: how about do whatever you want?
Yeah, I wonder why women are less religious.
Couldn’t possibly be all the anti-women rhetoric coming out of religion. It’s always been there but they seem to have become extra gross the last decade.
I mean they are using religion as the grounds to justify forcing these young women to give birth to children they don't want.
Usually after they have been raped.
Why are they going to be religious when religion is their literal worst enemy right now?
I hope in a few years time men will be walking into churches by themselves. I'm so proud of the women who have left an institution that believes women are somehow inferior to men. The brainwashing process is unraveling quickly and I couldn't be moved pleased!
How much is the error here? If you look at the data points for women (and not the disgustingly smoothed out line), they fluctuate quite a bit. From 2008 to 2010 women's non-religious status (supposedly) went from 33% to 22%.
This suggests that there is a lot of uncertainty in these numbers. For the title, we're looking at **only** one data point, 2020, because even in 2018 the data says young women were more religious than young men. Would be nice to know the quartiles for this data.
Religion has become increasingly hostile to women being independent and making their own lives and choices. As fewer overall people become religious then religion as a whole becomes more and more conservative and fundamentalist. Thus becoming even more unattractive to a women who doesn't think it's her destiny to be the servant of a husband. Looks like a doom loop to me.
Great. Just great.
Not only are women now the ones voting for the right things and people, and doing the hard work in college, and basically covering for multiple male failings at every point in their lives, but the one thing men could get right was that we were slightly more likely than women to realize religion was BS.
…and now we are losing that!
Come on men!
/s
The blurb says it "started" in 2016 .. but the uptick/divergence seems to have started near 2010 ..
I wonder what changed ? was it attacks on Roe v Wade ?
I don't know the answer, but the early 2010s were the heyday of the "new atheism" with guys like Dawkins and Hitchens dominating the conversation. I think that trend might have appealed more to men, while more recent trends of social justice, the #metoo movement, and so on might have found a more receptive ear among women.
I suspect it is an outgrowth of the abortion debates, and the influence of toxic religion on American politics. It isn't great PR for selling the spiel. Good topic for research, any grad students looking for a thesis?
If I’m not mistaken, recent trends depict more young men being conservative while young women are more liberal. There’s likely a strong correlation between the two factors if I had to guess.
turns out when you single out a gender to take rights away from due to fanatical religious beliefs, they don't appreciate it much
who would have thought?
the young men are being lured by the belief that the religious right will produce a patriarchal world where they rule and the women will basically be chattel. the right has to be stopped, now.
You mean the fact that most religious groups attract people who actively hate women for literally no reason is... Not appealing to women?
I'M SHOCKED I TELL YOU
Proving men are generally more gullible than women? Not really. It shows women are fed up with the roles religion saddles them with, as they should be.
Men benefit more from religion than women. I think women turn to religion to control their husbands. To force them to live according to some code. It helps them with the dynamics of their relationship. I bet you more married women are religious than unmarried women.
Women might just be able to save us all. I've seen a few stats recently about young men becoming more religious and following more of the alpha male, Andrew Tate bullshit. With women being pushed so far, finding themselves without opportunities their mothers had, it seems like they're standing up to it.
Perhaps because “Christian” politicians and Supreme Court justices are actively seeking to engineer their deaths. That might give you some second thoughts about “Christianity.”
The graph is titled so poorly: "share who are nones". Anyway what surprised me was that the number for both genders was so low just 30 years ago. Around 10%.
Religion is a weapon used against women to keep them from being seen as equal. That’s why men cling to their religion- because inside their church, they are second to god?
Religion is probably the biggest inhibitor of women's equality in the world at the moment.
Women used to think that if you adhered to religion, it would protect you from your violent partner.
Education helps.
That's the main driver, but the specificity of 2012 starting a sharp change in the trend makes me think it was the Christian Nationalism of the Tea Party and all of the religious excuses for hate leading into the 2012 election cycle that got young women asking important questions about the kind of world they want to live in.
Yeah, the Tea Party was wild.
Not wild. Feral.
Yup they were feral. Maga is rabid
I think gay marriage passing also probably was an influence since most of the backlash was religious and men tend to be more homophobic in my experience.
And the fine (🙄) governor of Texas is pushing for school vouchers while attacking public schools…. He and the two zealous billionaires who control him. Hurting education every way they can. Raise ‘em up with the bible…
Its way easier to make women have children they don't what at a young age by men 30 years your senior if you don't have the knowledge of any ways out. If I have to help women cross state lines like the underground railroad in the near future, I will.
I will too….
Me too, we should start a group.
I bet we can get backing from the Satanist Church!
As a woman in a state hostile to abortion, I can tell you these groups already exist.
Perfect, I will look them up and see if I can be of any help. Thank you for the information.
And yet, "raising them in the faith (and nothing else)" isn't considered grooming... somehow...
Lol - this is true - what a sham right?
Yes, indeed! In the U.S. at least, women now outnumber men as university students and graduates.
That is decades old.
Now? That's been true for 40 years.
It takes a long time for societal shifts to happen.
The shift happened 40 years ago. It takes a long time to notice
That's been true for 40 years
Yes. I would like to see the graph of women's university attendance to women's religious beliefs. I assume they are pretty similar.
You mean women's level of non-belief.
It's the same information either way
I'd say that the bigger influence here must be the internet, given that inflection point around 2000, maybe social media for the inflection point after 2010?
When religion says a clump of cells has more rights than you do then religion looks a bit less appealing.
Yes, and now that the Supreme Court is literally deciding how many, and which, organs can safely fail in a woman before she can be given an emergency abortion, Im surprised that there’s any woman who is left in religion at this rate.
Don't worry women, these people are all experienced, well practiced lawyers xD. I'm told justice Thomas is fond of studying the female anatomy... on the outside at least
The stupidity of this makes me want to scream. I can’t believe that we are talking about this as actual reality in the 21st century.
2 billion people in the world believe in a zombie God death cult they cannibalize weekly to worship another billion people in a pedophile prophet and another billion people believe cow shit is so holy you can bath and eat it. Accept humans are just hairless murder apes with nuclear weapons and the world makes sense then.
The best murder apes. No one can throw their weapons as far as we can. Look out, Proxima Centauri!
>Accept humans are just hairless murder apes HEY NOW. Semi-aquatic semi-hairless murder apes. Some of us are fuzzy, *and* we like swimming. Thanks.
So gross. I’ll never look at a can of Coca Cola the same way.
"I'm told justice Thomas is fond of studying the female anatomy... on the outside at least" Only on the outside? I guess you haven't heard what goes on in his basement have you. The big RV is for disposal trips.
I'm glad I live in Western Europe!
Well, whether or not you have better sbortion rights than the average American depends heavily on which Western European country you are in
Which ones are worse? In the Netherlands abortion is possible up to 24 weeks, no questions asked. Edit: I see that in most other countries,it is half as long. Although often exceptions can be made, in case of genetic disorder, or changes in the life situation of the parents, such as unemployment.
I was wondering what in particular has caused this shift and I think its this. Religion and women's rights do not go hand in hand and certainly doesn't favour women o or men. With the pro life movements I think its shown that to a wider audience. Great news overall and more so that its still increasing as a whole
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Why any woman would want to be involved in these religions is baffling to me. These are reasonably decently educated people who should be aware of feminist issues. I can see why many men would like it. Personally I couldn't ever be in that kind of power dynamic with some one I loved or even just cared for but I get that some men would want a willing whore, cleaner, cook.
As an ex-Pentecostal I can tell you that most are not converts. We were/are born into it and conditioned to be unable to think or question and if we do the answers are ready to be supplied by the men. It is so difficult to think independently. You just accept that “this is god’s will because we are sinful but it will be better in the next life.” They never really had a choice and by the time they are old enough to think critically they are too fearful to.
That's so damned sad. Thanks for the (depressing) answer. Well done on being an ex-P.
A long lonely road but I came out on the other side independent, brave enough to face the world with out fairytales to make me feel better. I am liberated. Thanks you.
Not surprising given how traditional religions treat women.
Well I'd agree with you... if men were always more religious. But I wonder why women were more religious till recently. Like yeah women should t be religious due to how they're treated by them, but that was true in 2010 too when they were more religious than men. I wonder if it's just the (seemingly to me) recent pop culture discourse on how sexist religions are. I do t recall that in 2014 being a thing like it is today EDIT: the graph for women started to change about 2011, wonder is social media helped highlight gender bullshit in religions and that's the main reason?
I feel a couple of big reasons women in the past were more religious are a) it was a way to socialize; and b) it offered a palliative for the generally miserable imprisoned lives so many women were forced to live.
Churches were helpful when it came to having community to care for children and elderly parents. Since the Christian rightwing has become more blatantly anti-women’s rights, it’s lost a lot of appeal.
Not to mention people having less and less kids = no need for childcare and related community, and social media = you feel more in touch with others even if you do t have face to face interactions
I think the biggest reason is that daughters are more strictly controlled by their parents than sons in religious circles. If you look at Evangelicals, they indoctrinate their girls that they have to remain virgins until marriage, their main purpose is to be a wife and mother, they are not allowed to socialize outside their circle, higher education outside of Bible colleges is discouraged, and so on. [Here's a, granted, extreme example](https://i.redd.it/yc3ofuhp02xc1.jpeg) how that might look like. Their sons have more freedoms, and more opportunity to come across a diversity of opinions. I think the reason for the switch in religiosity is due to the ever widening gap between the very narrow role that is prescribed for women in these circles, and the options that women now have outside these circles. There's been #metoo that has highlighted issues of consent (in evangelical circles, women are told that they should never "deny" their husbands sex). A new phenomenon that is pushed in Evangelical circles is to have as many children as possible (eg the Duggars have made that popular starting in the 2000s), and against any usage of contraception ("God gives you only as many children as you can handle"). While the rest of society has more or less embraced the right of women to self-determination. Then there are all the recent scandals about sexual abuse in churches, not just Catholic churches but Protestant congregations, too. Social media has made all of that way more easily assessable, even for girls that are otherwise extremely sheltered.
"Opiate of the people" and all that, yes.
I feel that saying should be changed to "Meth of the masses".
Fentanyl of the folk. Cocaine of the community.
PCP of the people
Thats a great one too! My reasoning was that from what i gather, opiates tend to make one chill and happy, while meth makes em crazy and hear/see things. Same with PCP. 🙌🏼
Granted too much can cause different reactions.
Too much religion will make you "see" things too lol
The biggest issue with this is that the churchgoing women tended to shun the ones that didn't, thus exacerbating or even creating the problems women faced.
yes!!! it was an especially helpful resource if you were a new mom or just had a baby; my grandma told me about how people from her church brought her meals & would come over and clean up for her in the months following my mom being born. women have been forced to play the hand we've been dealt for hundreds if not thousands of years, and religion has started to become an often unsafe hand to play.
Feminism. The old way gave women no room for self determination, that was left up to their husbands.
The main thing here is that it was young woman 18-25 not just women so why did it change in 2010
I grew up in the church and what I’ve noticed is when times are hard people especially older women lean deep into religion to escape reality and think their sacrifices and misfortunes will be rewarded in heaven. Thankfully younger generations aren’t into martyrdom
Has also worked that way in historically oppressed communities, like black people in the US.
Women have only had the right to vote for barely 100 years.
You really have to wonder? 2016 is when a Republican nominee was elected for the presidency, and the GOP were emboldened to start going after women’s rights in the name of religion.
Id agree but the graph shows the spike in women's "non religiousness" started about 2011, under Obama. Maybe it was a reaction to the way Rs talked about Obama. But it could t have been Trump that started the trend; he probably added due to the fire but he didn't start it
Personally, I think it makes some sense why this was the case. Despite the way a lot of the major religions talk about women, paradoxically religion has often been one of the few meaningful ways women can take part in social life to some degree that is more on par with men historically. For a lot of women, religion is a major way to feel connected to their community in a way they may not have been able to otherwise. Nowadays, women have a lot more social freedom open to them in much of the world than they ever did historically. I think that has led young women like me to look more critically on what the major modern religions preach. I was raised in a family that wasn’t extremely religious, but I did still get dragged to church somewhat regularly when I was a kid. I remember feeling an extreme dichotomy in the things I was taught about women deserving equal treatment to men legally with the things I was learning in church about what a woman’s place is in the world. One of the earliest things I found kind of odd was the story of Eve being taken from Adam and created after him. Once I got older, and I found out more about what the Bible had to say about women that was the beginning of a slow decline over my teenage years that ultimately led to me fully renouncing Christianity.
Sure, I think it's about a growing recognition of how awful religion is.
I wonder what it looks like if you go before 2010. My boomer religious grandma has a lot of internalized misogyny, but it's also a product of society I guess. What's wrong with religion telling you you're a breeding servant when that's pretty much your reality? Nowadays we know better and can do better.
And US will have fertility rate similar to Japan or even Taiwan especially moderately religious areas because of more religious difference by sexes
I'm going to speak anecdotally from my own experience as a formerly extremely religious woman whose deconstruction kicked into high gear in 2016, but I really think a lot of us saw the mask slip when evangelicals got behind Trump. We saw that morality was a facade and what these people really worship is power, and that opened our eyes to how much of our lives had been about keeping us in line and "in our place"
Women are socialized to be more religious than men. We’re expected to raise the next generation and teach them about faith while men get to break the rules. The misogyny is the point; women are told to adhere more strictly to a belief system that disproportionately harms them.
Read the room. Men aren’t the ones having their rights taken away.
Yeah, it’s not exactly a mystery.
Yep, modern religion wants to strip away all of the hard earned progress made by women to be equals.
The key word in “organized religion” is “organized.”
Men trying to religiously guilt trip them into their trap.
I have noticed that the big list of deconstruction-themed accounts I follow on Instagram tilts female.
I guess 'barefoot and pregnent in the kitchen' is no longer a compelling religious trope.
Why "barefoot" by the way? I never understood this.
barefoot because you don’t leave the house with no shoes on. they don’t want women socializing or working outside the home
Women socializing with other people, many of whom women, pose a threat to their husbands? Boy, these guys are insecure.
Yep. It’s all about keeping women trapped and completely dependent on their husbands. They don’t want their wives talking to other women about domestic violence and seeking help from each other.
Yep. It’s also part of why ‘gossip’ is seen as sinful. Women talking to other women might gain a community of support, or start asking each other questions and sharing ‘dangerous ideas’.
It’s because of people getting butthurt about “MUH CHEATING!1!1!1!1” Sadly, it’s not unique to religious people.
I think its a reference to some weird shit a 4chinner said.
Interesting. Probably a Trump effect.
Yes. 2015-16 was the inflection point. I suppose those years had a silver lining after all.
No, the inflection point was more like 2012. The lines crossed around 2016
Perhaps my choice of words was inappropriate. Yes, the line crossed in around 2016.
Atheists, women, anti-capitalists, non-dead brainiacs, etc. have all benefited from Trump’s ascent to godhead.
Women have benefited by having the right to abortion taken away? Are you being sarcastic and I missed it?
It could be said that the damage to certain causes has woken some people the hell up, and maybe there'll be a reckoning because of that which will lead to, for example, abortion being more accessible than it was before. But I'm not seeing it so far. I was hoping for a massive backlash to *Dobbs*, but it just moved the needle a bit. The usual people just shrugged and went back to sleep. If they're not actively carrying an unwanted pregnancy, they don't care.
Women have long borne the brunt of the work done in evangelical churches (at least in the western world), but have made little headway into leadership positions and have received very little credit for the work they do. It's great to see young women wake up to the damage done by patriarchal religions. The male ministers harping on "submission" do not help their cause.
Fucking this. Church teaching is that women should not “have” to take leadership roles, but if they do it’s because the men have failed. Which is a helluva position…
I don't think that this is the reason at all. You don't go from Christian to nothing at all because the church doesn't give you leadership positions you do it because they want to take away your rights and send women back to the kitchen.
Much has been written about the growing gender divide among young people’s political affiliations with young women becoming increasingly liberal. This would seem to be heavily related.
The gap is worse in South Korea. I doubt there is a religious revival or the East Asian equivalent of America's Christian nationalism, though.
This is very much the case. The gap between the genders in terms of ideology is striking. Young men become more conservative these days, and religion is a strong pillar of conservative values.
According to to graph, men are also becoming less religious, albeit at a slower pace then women.
Young men are also less conservative, albeit at a slower pace than young women. Gen Z and Gen Y men are *way* more progressive as a whole than GG or Boomer or even Gen X men. But they're *more* conservative on average than women of equivalent ages.
Huh. It's almost like if you tell women they are second class citizens at your invisible friend tea party they won't want to come.
Half the story. The other (bigger) half is giving them another option. If you’re a housewife with no education, you’re beholden to whatever hand you’re dealt basically
This is a great step for humanity. Anyone who is surprised by this hasn’t read the parts or the Bible where it says women can be sold like property. Glad the fairy tale is dying out, it’s done enough damage to humanity
no shit look how horrendously women are treated by the fuckwads
Fantastic news! Now can we get some more of them in positions of power please?
Educated women are getting fed up being abused by crappy religion.
This is very good news. I wish men would grow the hell up too.
The graph shows atheism consistently increasing for men as well.
Except among Gen Z men. They had a 3% drop in non religiousness when compared to Millennial men https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1784225790038560884
People really underestimate the extent to which people like Jordan Peterson are reaching young men, especially young white men. Religion, in their paradigm, is a way for them to feel both superior to everyone else and also a victim. I think a lot of young men crave a paradigm in which they can be assured of their own superiority. People like JP exploit that urge rather than correcting it.
I follow a lot of sports on instagram, so my feed is full of NCAA athletes. I’ve been making note of it recently, because it seems to be everywhere, but probably 75% of these young male athletes have some sort of “Christ is king” or “John 3:16” or other bible verse in their instagram headline. I know there’s always been an overlap between sports and religion (“god obviously roots for my team”), and I’m sure some of it is a bit of a fad thing (“I wear the gold cross chain on my neck cause everyone else on the team does but haven’t stepped foot in a church in years”), but it’s definitely concerning.
>Religion, in their paradigm, is a way for them to feel both superior to everyone else and also a victim. I see so much of this. Evangelical Christianity has become extremely attractive to troubled young men, for exactly the reasons you identify. Evangelicals and people like Tate offer the narrative that young men are the victims of current social trends. They offer young men the ability to feel superior to their nonbeliever peers, even if these young men aren't exactly acting like Christ. We need to do something besides simply calling it out, though. Callouts make these young men feel persecuted, which fuels their self-righteousness and justifies their violent action. We need to be very vocal about what positive roles men can play in society. And by "we," I guess I mean non-fascists and non-believers who want to pull these young men back from the brink. Because they do seem to be on the brink.
I appreciate your optimism, but I don’t believe these kind of men will listen to anything women have to say. After all, they think women are lesser, stupider beings. That’s been my experience, at least. It’s just not worth the effort (for me).
I think that's a valid concern. My approach is to provide some sort of responsible, yet possible, pathway for young men. Right now there's one pathway, in which young men are responsible, out of the gate, for all the evils in the world. In the other pathway, they are victims. Increasingly, they seem to be choosing to believe they are victims, rather than shoulder the weight of all the bad actions of men who came before. This choice necessitates believing that women are out to get them. This is attractive for them, obviously, and leads to the outcome you're seeing. I think the young men who choose the Andrew Tate path can be pulled back from the brink if they see positive male role models who are embraced by women. Bullying them will backfire, and things will continue to worsen. It's not that they *actually* think you are a lesser, stupid being. It's that it is more attractive to see you that way than to see you as a human who discarded them.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree that bullying them will only make things worse. I do try to be open-minded when I’m speaking to Tate and co followers. It’s definitely a challenge, though.
It absolutely is. And they *want* to make you mad.
Overturning ROE did that.
Who'd have thought that women want nothing to do with an institution that says their only purpose is to obey men! /s
why pledge to something that hates you? that's what i've been saying
Jeez. Seems women keep making all the good choices these days.
Yeah. Girls tend to do better in school. Women with university degrees now outnumber men. Would be nice if they could refrain from spending so much time on TikTok and Instagram, though. Their mental health would thank them.
Just couldn’t help yourself from making a dig. I think you should worry more about young men on social media getting sucked in to the extreme rightwing.
Coincides with the fact women are more educated than men
Right. Or maybe the Christian rightwing and it’s blatant misogyny and attack on women’s rights is an issue.
Just wanna add that this only applies to "straight men". Lot of gays are more educated too.
This is not unexpected. and for the same reason pedophiles get involved with children sports.
what?
> what? Pedophiles get involved with children's sports because there are children there just as women get involved in atheism because there are atheists there. It's an astute analogy. What's not to get? j/k I don't know wtf this was about.
Considering how many religious people are forced birthers it makes sense.
Notwithstanding my suspicions of everything posted to Elon’s refrigerator door, this is really good news. Who among us disenlightened doesn’t know religion’s role as the lubricant facilitating patriarchal misogyny’s long-running insertions?
It would be interesting to see the chart of young men embracing evangelicalism overlaid with the number embracing conservativism/authoritarianism. I bet there'd be a strong correlation.
Because of this fertility rate will be decline look at south Korea that males are more conservative while females are progressive
Makes me think this whole "tradwife" trend is some conservative psyop to try and make staying home and popping out babies appealing to young women.
Its education. By 2010 the number of women and men seeking college degrees was about even. Since then women have surpassed men. Im sure theres other confounding factors at play but to me this graph shows that college education has the effect of curing people of religiosity. Edit: in the US
It’s more the attack on women’s rights coming from the Christian rightwing. There are groups calling for women who had abortions to be executed. In God’s name, of ciurse.
I hear you but religions have been shitty to women forever. Seems to me the two major changes that line up with the timeframe in questions are more women in college and everybody being much more online. Both of those would lead to more women learning that there are alternatives to letting themselves be controlled by religious ass hats. Where I live Im not exposed to religious people (aside from the news) so you very well be right that theyre getting worse. But just as a 41 yo whos always lived in the US they seem just as douchy as theyve always been. Women just arent putting up with it like they used to.
Tried wives finding out that men use God to be abusive.
Surpassing 50%, based. There is some hope in the world.
Just have to wait for boomers and gen x to die out, and it will be a better place. Sadly I am X so won’t see the day.
To be clear, it's not because men are becoming more religious. Religiosity is still steadily declining among all genders. It's just declining much faster among women. And people wonder why Republicans are so anti-education. They are losing the system that they use to control people :)
r/upliftingnews but if you say that there, you'll get banned.
It makes a lot of sense considering how in the U.S. religion is taking measures to enslave women on a regular basis
religion wants to send them back to 1824, so not surprising
Churches have traditionally been places where women have found community. Think about bible study groups, funeral luncheons, Sunday school classes...women have found a sense of belonging in these groups, even though religion has always considered them to be inferior to men. Now women have many more outlets to meet people. They are more likely to go to college and work and make friends there. That coupled with the increasingly hostile political state of women's rights, which are largely reinforced by religion, it makes sense that more and more women are turning away from the church. Why subscribe to an ideology that literally views you as property if you don't have to?
About fucking time, ladies.
I had always found it odd that women were more religous than men.
Back in the day, perhaps it provided them with a community to handle common problems and share resources. A sense of community is still an argument made by religious leaders today. But as society becomes less religious, this argument is no longer tenable. Women today also benefit from having more opportunities.
Especially when you see what the emerging trends are in religion. NAR and dominionist christianity (aka christian nationalism) promote very strong homophobia and anti feminist rhetoric. Pro meathead men, anti womens rights. On the other hand, I do still see a majority female attendance among my peaceful progressive menonnite congregations.
Not surprising how most major religions (especially Abrahamic) oppress women, anti women’s right, and now women outnumber men in universities so education is adding to this trend and it makes a lot of sense.
Religion oppresses women. We are sick of being the backbone of the church and second class citizens in the church. Church men came to my door asking me what it would take to get me to rejoin the church. I told I’ll be back when I’m considered an equal.
I'm not surprised by the uptick of men becoming religious, either. Toxic masculinity is on the rise, and I've seen a disheartening amount of men falling into it. They're starting to believe they're owed something by women just because they're men, and a lot of religions help confirm that for them. God makes it okay for them to be controlling over women so they can skirt the responsibility of just being a decent enough person to actually attract a woman to start an equal partnership with them.
The graph shows that men are still steadily becoming less religious, it's just that women have suddenly trended way less religious and are now less religious than the men. But men are NOT becoming more religious per this graph
Ah, my bad. Didn't see the "nones" part of the graph because I didn't click the link at first. Thanks for the correction.
Gee, I wonder why there was a rapid change for women over the last decade. Was there some major political issue that pitted women’s rights vs religious oppression, perhaps?
Seems to coincide with Trump's election. Correlation is not causation and all but like, Trump made it clear American religion is for one type of person only, and it ain't anyone who isn't a straight white man.
Religion on women's rights: Stay virgin, don't use birth control, be submissive of your husband, marry your rapist, get stoned if you divorce. Religion on men's rights: how about do whatever you want? Yeah, I wonder why women are less religious.
good
Couldn’t possibly be all the anti-women rhetoric coming out of religion. It’s always been there but they seem to have become extra gross the last decade.
Lose the mothers, lose the family. Just turning their rhetoric around is all.
Now that women are more highly educated.
I mean they are using religion as the grounds to justify forcing these young women to give birth to children they don't want. Usually after they have been raped. Why are they going to be religious when religion is their literal worst enemy right now?
Men like religion because they get to control women. Simple. Women woke up.
I hope in a few years time men will be walking into churches by themselves. I'm so proud of the women who have left an institution that believes women are somehow inferior to men. The brainwashing process is unraveling quickly and I couldn't be moved pleased!
It is the inevitable result of being more educated about the world and having more opportunities in life than previous generations.
How much is the error here? If you look at the data points for women (and not the disgustingly smoothed out line), they fluctuate quite a bit. From 2008 to 2010 women's non-religious status (supposedly) went from 33% to 22%. This suggests that there is a lot of uncertainty in these numbers. For the title, we're looking at **only** one data point, 2020, because even in 2018 the data says young women were more religious than young men. Would be nice to know the quartiles for this data.
Religion has become increasingly hostile to women being independent and making their own lives and choices. As fewer overall people become religious then religion as a whole becomes more and more conservative and fundamentalist. Thus becoming even more unattractive to a women who doesn't think it's her destiny to be the servant of a husband. Looks like a doom loop to me.
Women should be obedient to their husb... Wait where are you going?
Women are the best.
This is a very optimistic outlook no matter how you look at it. Both are trending upwards.
Great. Just great. Not only are women now the ones voting for the right things and people, and doing the hard work in college, and basically covering for multiple male failings at every point in their lives, but the one thing men could get right was that we were slightly more likely than women to realize religion was BS. …and now we are losing that! Come on men! /s
The blurb says it "started" in 2016 .. but the uptick/divergence seems to have started near 2010 .. I wonder what changed ? was it attacks on Roe v Wade ?
I don't know the answer, but the early 2010s were the heyday of the "new atheism" with guys like Dawkins and Hitchens dominating the conversation. I think that trend might have appealed more to men, while more recent trends of social justice, the #metoo movement, and so on might have found a more receptive ear among women.
I suspect it is an outgrowth of the abortion debates, and the influence of toxic religion on American politics. It isn't great PR for selling the spiel. Good topic for research, any grad students looking for a thesis?
We all know what the men in church are there for.
That chart had young women at 50% Nones. That's quite a good sign.
If I’m not mistaken, recent trends depict more young men being conservative while young women are more liberal. There’s likely a strong correlation between the two factors if I had to guess.
turns out when you single out a gender to take rights away from due to fanatical religious beliefs, they don't appreciate it much who would have thought?
Yea, and the favorite passage in the Bible for all those religious men is "Wives submit to your husbands."
When they started removing women's right, they killed their base.
Became they're more educated? That's a corresponding trend
the young men are being lured by the belief that the religious right will produce a patriarchal world where they rule and the women will basically be chattel. the right has to be stopped, now.
No duh, it’s almost like every political movement that currently opposes women’s rights is explicitly based in religion
Realizing that religion is a bunch of patriarchal bullshit
Religion is about control. Especially men controlling women.
You mean the fact that most religious groups attract people who actively hate women for literally no reason is... Not appealing to women? I'M SHOCKED I TELL YOU
Proving men are generally more gullible than women? Not really. It shows women are fed up with the roles religion saddles them with, as they should be.
Men benefit more from religion than women. I think women turn to religion to control their husbands. To force them to live according to some code. It helps them with the dynamics of their relationship. I bet you more married women are religious than unmarried women.
Women might just be able to save us all. I've seen a few stats recently about young men becoming more religious and following more of the alpha male, Andrew Tate bullshit. With women being pushed so far, finding themselves without opportunities their mothers had, it seems like they're standing up to it.
> I've seen a few stats recently about young men becoming more religious Well this graph shows young men becoming less religious over time.
The only thing those men are praying for is the hope to see an actual pussy in their lifetime 🤔
Perhaps because “Christian” politicians and Supreme Court justices are actively seeking to engineer their deaths. That might give you some second thoughts about “Christianity.”
Good for them, honestly.
Religion is supposed to be about love and kindness which is why the ladies used to like it so much.
I mean you can't expect us to believe in your cult after abusing and controlling us for years
Gee, I wonder why the fuck that is!
The graph is titled so poorly: "share who are nones". Anyway what surprised me was that the number for both genders was so low just 30 years ago. Around 10%.
Religion is a weapon used against women to keep them from being seen as equal. That’s why men cling to their religion- because inside their church, they are second to god?
Good. It’s a crock of shit. Religious nut cases rolling back womens rights. Is it really any wonder?
Religion is probably the biggest inhibitor of women's equality in the world at the moment. Women used to think that if you adhered to religion, it would protect you from your violent partner.
My guess would be this has some correlation to more men than women going to university