The Non-Religious Patriarchy: Why Losing Religion HAS NOT Meant Losing White Male Dominance

Abstract

F rom the beginning, the non-religious movement has had women and African-Americans as prominent members. Women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were non-religious-Stanton so much so that she got written out of history for her outspoken critiques of religion-and African-Americans like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Asa Philip Randolph all spoke out strongly against organized religion and the harm it did to African-Americans. Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and James L. Farmer, Jr. all also identified as freethinkers. Despite being dominated by white men, the non-religious, humanist movement had a strong, vocal minority of women and African-Americans and was strongly involved in political causes like ending slavery and getting women the vote. As time has passed, however, the movement has continued to be dominated by white men who hold traditional privilege and power, in much the same way that they do throughout society.Despite the fact that the non-religious, atheist, and humanist movements began as a backlash against both Christian beliefs, which they considered false, and social injustice, which they believed to be caused by organized religion, the movement is still dominated by white men and white men's concerns. The movement is only 30 percent women and 15 percent people of color and focuses more on Biblical Criticism and debunking the supernatural than on social justice causes.A great deal of research has been done into the patriarchal underpinnings of many of the major world religions; in the United States, this is

From Existential to Social Understandings of Risk: Examining Gender Differences in Nonreligion

“…Atheism, then, is socially risky for women because it violates gendered expectations, while for men such choices are less risky because dominant understandings of masculinity are not intertwined with nurturing and religiosity. As Ashley Miller (2013) explained about atheism, "[M]en do not face the risk of seeming less masculine by embracing what is portrayed as an emotionless, scientific, masculine belief" (p. 217). To be a nonreligious woman in America is to "unsex" oneself (Hutchinson 2011), a risk that is particularly acute for black women, given the historic centrality of religion in the black community (cf.…”

Organized Secularism in the United States

“…Eventually, studies of the nonreligious began diversifying as scholars from subfields like gender/sexualities (Brewster 2013;Fosteretal. 2016;Linneman and Clendenen 2009;Miller 2013;S chnabel et al 2016;S tinson and Goodman 2013), family Merino 2012;Zimmermane ta l. 2015), deviance (Fazzino,B orer,a nd Abdel Haq 2014;, and communications/media S mith and Cimino 2012)c onducted research, expanding what had been an earlyn on-existent bodyo fl iterature.T here is still, however,m uch work to be done.…”

“…The nonbeliever movement has sustainedp roblems with diversity issues (Hassall and Bushfield 2014;Kettell 2013,6 7;Miller 2013;S chnabel et al 2016), includingr acism,s exism, and social justice issues. On this question, we were not able to specify which sorts of social or political opinionsw ei ntended, without leading respondents.I fw eh ad been very specific, these answers mayv ery well have changed, but,t he question as we asked it was meant to be taken by the respondent as meaning whatever they imagined regarding "social" and "political" opinions.…”

The Impact of Religious Commitment on Women’s Sexual Self-Esteem

“…Most of the major world religions are situated within patriarchy, a system linked with the history of oppression of women (Miller 2013). In consideration of this patriarchal structure, religious standards and expectations around sex are typically particularly restrictive for women (Hunt and Jung 2009).…”

“…As religion informs what is considered sexually appropriate and has traditionally been less permissive of sexual behavior for women (Hunt and Jung 2009;Jantzen 2005;Jung 2005;Miller 2013), the purpose of the current study was to explore the relationship between women's religious commitment, religious fundamentalism, sexual self-concept, sexual attitudes, and perception of God's view of sex. As a relationship between religiosity and negative perceptions of sexual behavior has been established previously, we hypothesized that these perceptions would impact how women perceive themselves sexually.…”