Gender imbalance in American atheism, as discussed by two foreigners

I went to brunch at Hickory Street Bar and Grille with friends from the Atheist Community of Austin and Center for Inquiry last Sunday. One of my table neighbors was from Sweden. He pointed out the glaring gender imbalance in the room. Out of 25 people at brunch, only 3 were women. He asked me if I had thoughts why there are so few women at atheist events in the U.S. In Sweden, he said, the balance was much closer to 50%/50%.

In my opinion -- and this is really just my personal opinion, for which I know I'm going to catch flak -- it has to do with the tone of discourse at atheist meetings. Freethought communities tend to attract people with radical socio-economic views, that are also quite loud about expressing those views. It takes only a few of such personalities to set a confrontational, even combative tone for the discussion. When a meeting turns into one-upmanship between a handful of individuals, most women (though not necessarily men) are put off.

The Swedish guy evidently didn't expect this answer. In his opinion, the reason women are underrepresented in freethought groups in the US is because of "family cult", which demands perfectionism from American mothers. He wonders that maybe most women don't find atheism compatible with the standard of a selfless, devoted mother. In Sweden, he said, the concept of a family is more loose and flexible; Sweden is far less obsessed with the idea of nuclear family. He even went so far as to say -- but maybe I just didn't hear him right across the noisy table -- that Swedish language does not have a word for family, or that it has a different, looser shade of meaning than the English word. An absence of such a word would seem mighty strange to me, so I'll assume, for now, that I misunderstood. I'll have to ask my friend who lives in Sweden, to what extent this is true.

Thus the Swedish guy thought gender imbalance in the US freethought groups merely reflects gender imbalance in the population of nonbelievers. I, however, doubt it. I think there are many more nonbelieving women than come to meetings. My case in point is the Ethical Society. They don't self-identify as atheist, though most of their members probably are. I didn't meet anyone in it who believed in gods. But they built their society not around nonbelief, but around finding a moral way of living based on secular principles. And guess what -- at least two thirds of the society (at least here in Austin) are women. Their discussions revolve not around atheism, but around topics of ethical living, learning, and meaning of life in general. The tone is very different -- cooperative, non-combative, with the whole group making sure all individuals are being heard. It makes a huge difference, though these two groups come from very similar premises.

Once in a while I get drawn into those debates...

As I said on Facebook and Twitter, I had an argument about atheism at the Ethical Society gathering. The other person said every atheist will experience God during their lifetime, just like everybody experiences love, even the people who say they don't believe in it.

Contrary to what some people said on Facebook, this guy was not at all an idiot; he seemed quite smart. But his argument was not very well thought out, even if it was superficially based on the latest neurological discoveries. Basically he said that God, like love, is one of those things human brains are hardwired to experience. I know God belief is not hardwired into everybody's brains, and I'm not even sure love is. There is a minority of people who never fall in love, much as they would like to. The same way, even as neuroscientists have found some evidence that many (if not most) people's brain have a "God module", there is a sizeable minority who do not "experience" God. It's possible that it comes down to differences in brain wiring, though I don't know how that would explain all the deconverted former theists (of which I met many). Maybe their former religious beliefs came from social conditioning, not from a direct, mystical experience of the ineffable. :-)

So I asked the guy to clarify in what sense does everyone "experiences God". Maybe he meant it in a primarily secular sense, such as "awe at the beauty and mystery of the natural world". Most people, including atheists, get that feeling that at some point. Some choose to call that God, but in reality that's a perfectly secular experience. But the guy declined to clarify. He said, how would you explain to a deaf person what music is? It's something that you know when you find it. I said, if you start from a position that experience of God can't be explained in rational words, then this argument is meaningless. If we don't have the language to talk about it, you can't present any arguments supporting your opinion, nor can I present arguments supporting mine. And so the topic was exhausted. We were too nice to ruin the afternoon going at each other's throats. :-)

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Ecovillages

A few weeks ago I went to a meeting of the Ethical Society of Austin. This was part of my search for a secular community. While I've been involved with a few of those, and frequently mention them in my blog, it doesn't mean I have found my "community-home". But that's not what this post is about. The folks at the Ethical Society were warm and welcoming. The presentation of the guest speaker, Kate Lovelady, was titled "A Sustainable Community -- Eco-Village Life and Ethical Culture". She spoke about the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, which she visited not long ago. I've heard about ecovillages, cohousing, and intentional communities before, but not in much detail. There is a range of communities that are variations on cohousing theme. Some of them are in big cities, and truly green living is not any more possible to them than it is to most of us, so they don't even set it as a goal. And then there are communities like Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, located in remote corners of the world, and their members take radical (by our standards) measures to live sustainably.

What do people in ecovillages live on?

When you imagine a community located far from a city, and you learn they share 3 cars among 50 people (a deliberately chosen restriction), you realize those people aren't just living out in the country and commuting to city jobs. That would be the opposite of sustainable. So you've got to ask yourself, what do they live on? The speaker, Kate, addressed that question, and the answer was not very inspiring. Most live on a patchwork of precarious sources of income. Such a lifestyle is easier in an ecovillage than in the mainstream world. The folks here don't need very much, and they get most of what they need from the inside economy. They grow their own food and do jobs for one another (such as building houses). Many do random jobs here and there. Some live off retirement funds. They have been entertaining an idea of opening a bed-and-breakfast. Not everyone agrees, though, because some people feel it would restrict them from gardening in the nude. But an increasing number of members have home-based, or web-based, businesses.

And yes, they have internet access.

Freedom from some of society's regulations is what prompted them to choose this unlikely location in Missouri, instead of someplace in California, as one might expect. This place does not have building codes for private residences, so they could build any kind of houses they wanted. One woman turned an old bus into a house. She insulated it and made it otherwise livable. However, at the time of Kate's visit, she had a big mouse problem.

To be a successful hippie, you have to have a lot of structure

This, however, does not mean everyone is free to live any way they want without any restrictions or regulations. Quite the contrary. Policies and procedures govern their everyday life. Kate quoted one resident saying: "When I joined the Dancing Rabbit, I thought I was going to have to throw my watch away. Instead I got a day planner!" They have lots of meetings to discuss issues that come up. "To be successfully hippy-dippy, you have to have a lot of structure," says Kate. They have co-ops for everything. I guess those are formal structures for exchange of goods and services. There's even an co-op for internet access, and, of course, car co-op. Sharing 3 cars among 50 or so members means lots of carpooling, thus, lots of coordinating.

Some of the biggest sore points among members are dogs and children. Those are two kinds of creatures that don't necessarily obey rules, and it does not help that many ecovillagers are opposed to population growth. So there are constant boundary negotiations going on, some people's freedoms pushing against other people's rights.

What do they do for healthcare?

Since they are outside of the corporate world and don't have health insurance, what do they do for healthcare? Most people, unfortunately, go without. Some visit local rural clinics, staffed by nurses. Some are negotiating with health insurance companies to create special plans for intentional communities, though they don't seem to have made a lot of headway. Some justify their opting out of healthcare with an argument "if something happened to me, I'd rather die at home than be hooked up to life support machines in a hospital for weeks". That's an understandable sentiment, but, as Kate Lovelady pointed out, there are many shades of gray between good health and life support machines, and many times a doctor is invaluable.

Living one's values to the maximum

What specific ways of sustainable living have they adopted? They heat houses using waste woods from local small factories, and solar arrays. This does not mean entire houses are covered with them. Solar arrays, Kate says, don't have to be big to power VCRs, refrigerators and power tools. The bathrooms in the ecovillage -- one of the more "exotic" manifestations of sustainable living -- use "humanure" system. That's pretty much what it sounds like. The villagers use human waste for compost. Instead of flushing the toilet, you cover up waste with sawdust. Kate said she was more than a bit uneasy about using them at first, but in reality there's nothing gross or weird about them. The bathrooms mostly just smell like sawdust.

Similarly, the folks who live in ecovillages are not weird. They are mostly just ordinary people; what's different about them, Kate thinks, is dedication they put into living their values. Kate herself practices environmentalism -- she's a vegan, rides a scooter, and wears second-hand clothes. She's considered an extremist even in the Ethical Society. But in the Dancing Rabbit she was perceived as a bourgeois!

As one may expect, living your values to the maximum comes at a cost. Apart from lack of healthcare, there are more personal costs as well. In private conversations with Kate some people expressed their apprehensions regarding loneliness. Someone being one of only three singles in the community, if they don't hit it off with one of the other two people, they'll probably move on in half a year.