{"id":52230,"date":"2013-07-22T08:19:39","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T07:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/atheism-has-a-women-problem\/52230\/"},"modified":"2013-07-22T08:19:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T07:19:39","slug":"atheism-has-a-women-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/atheism-has-a-women-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Atheism Has a Women Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo Credit: Roberto Bobrow (cc)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

July 21, 2013<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
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\u201cLet your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.\u201d<\/em>
\u2014I Corinthians xiv. 34-5<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNew Atheism\u201d is old news. Enter \u201cNew, New Atheism\u201d: the next generation, with its more spiritual brand of non-belief, and its ambition to build an atheist church. It is an important moment for the faithless. Will it include women? <\/p>\n

Several years ago, there was discussion of a \u201cwoman problem\u201d within the Atheist movement. New high priests of non-faith announced themselves\u2013Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Peter Singer, A.C. Grayling, Daniel Dennett, etc.\u2013and they were men. And they were angry. Their best-selling works were important and essential. These authors helped reinvigorate the secular cause; they cast off the fog of political correctness to unapologetically lay siege to piety. But before long, these New Atheists were depicted as an old boys\u2019 club\u2013a clique of (white) men, bound by a particularly unyielding brand of disbelief. <\/p>\n

Where were the women? <\/p>\n

Why, they were right there: stolidly leading people away from the fold. They were irreverent<\/a> bloggers<\/a> and institution<\/a> founders<\/a>. And scholars. Around the time that the Dawkins<\/a>–Hitchens<\/a>–Harris<\/a> tripartite published its big wave of Atheist critique, historian Jennifer Michael Hecht published \u201c Doubt<\/a>\u201d and journalist Susan Jacoby published \u201c Freethinkers<\/a>\u201c\u2013both critically acclaimed. And yet, these women, and many<\/a> others<\/a>, failed to emerge as public figures, household names. \u201cNobody talked about [Doubt] as a \u2018phenomenon,\u2019\u201d Hecht has noted<\/a>. \u201cThey just talked about the book.\u201d What gives? <\/p>\n

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The lady Atheist has a troubled history\u2013its European chapter rooted in the French Revolution, which otherwise cleared ground for a bolder irreligion. <\/p>\n

In the 1770s, the French philosopher Baron d\u2019Holbach observed a dearth of \u201cincredulous women or female atheists,\u201d reasoning that women were biologically more \u201cdisposed to credulity.\u201d <\/p>\n

Where they were found, female atheists were considered especially noxious. In his 1738 poem \u201cLondon,\u201d the famed British writer Samuel Johnson cast women as urban leeches: <\/p>\n

Her falling Houses thunder on your Head,<\/em>
And here a female Atheist talks you dead.<\/em><\/p>\n

English poet Edward Young took note, satirically using a \u2018she-atheist\u2019 to herald earthly apocalypse: <\/p>\n

Atheists have been rare, since nature\u2019s birth;<\/em>
Till now, she-atheists ne\u2019er appear\u2019d on earth.<\/em><\/p>\n

In some cases, men simply could not conceive of a female Atheist (just as, for centuries, they rejected the possibility of a female homosexual). In 1806, an issue of London\u2019s La Belle Assembl\u00c3\u00a9e magazine revealed such suspicion, in an essay entitled \u201cCharacter of the Atheist Woman\u201d: <\/p>\n

How is it possible, for example to conceive that a female can be an Atheist? What shall sustain this reed if religion does not support her frailty? For the sake of her beauty alone, women ought to be pious.<\/em> (The author goes on to imagine, in great detail, the <\/em>death of an Atheist wretch, whom nobody would mourn.) <\/p>\n

In a private letter written in the 1760s, the English essayist Bonnell Thornton was overwhelmed by disgust brought on by the \u201cfemale atheist:\u201d <\/p>\n

Good God! A Female Atheist! \u2026 One is not half so shocked at the idea of a Female Murderer; A Female Murderer, in the worse of senses, of her own children, of herself.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1813, the famed doctor Thomas Cogan (founder of the Royal Humane Society) observed: <\/p>\n

Men contemplate a female atheist with more disgust and horror than if she possessed the hardest features embossed with carbuncles.<\/em><\/p>\n

Republished with permission from: AlterNet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo Credit: Roberto Bobrow (cc) July 21, 2013 \u00a0| Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. \u201cLet your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-52230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}