Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

[westwoden]

Not sure about in the real world, but certainly on forums there seem to be many more female pagans then men.

This especially seems the case with Wicca.

do you agree, and why is this?

I know patriarchal religions are hardly appealing so that must be a factor, but what else?

[Caelia]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

I believe there are statistics somewhere that prove there are more Pagan women than men. It probably has to do with the fact there are more women than men in the countries where Neo-Paganism has the strongest prevalence.

A wikipedia source on sex ratio in the world

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

It may also be that women tend to be more public about this kind of thing, or possibly they are more likely to be "joiners" than men. In that case, there would be a relatively silent group of male pagans, somewhere out there, where you'll never find them...

I'm not saying that either of these are true, just that they are variables which might have a bearing on the matter.

[Maria de Luna]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

Yeah, I wouldnt be able to answer the why, I'm not particularly qualified, in more than one way, all I can do is conjecture.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

I did a paper in grad school "Gender Roles In Religion - Pagans vs. Promise-Keepers" and found a lot of interesting stuff. That was in the 90's so the numbers may have changed but there were significantly more female than male Pagans.

[westwoden]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

paganism must be much more liberating for women than mainstream religions surely?

how many of the girls here would be happy having to wear a face covering all day, or not be allowed to drive a car?

not many I reckon

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saying that , it seems that there are many more female Wiccans that Druids - any ideas why?

[Maria de Luna]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

saying that , it seems that there are many more female Wiccans that Druids - any ideas why?

It is possible because it speaks more to men than wicca itself. Alot of druidry is about forging a path, and it could be that this speaks to a man protecting his masculinity more than much of the more feminine aspects of wicca? As a person who does not tidily fit within any "proper" path I can't speak from experience.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

paganism must be much more liberating for women than mainstream religions surely?

how many of the girls here would be happy having to wear a face covering all day, or not be allowed to drive a car?

not many I reckon

I don't know that this is a fair comparison. In most of the countries that have open pagans, laws towards women aren't that strict and tend to be going for equality. In the same vein, religious views that prevent the rights of women aren't -that- prevalent. There are a lot of strains of more traditional, Abrahmic religions (especially Christianity and Judaism, but also Islam) that are quite liberal. For the brief time I went to church growing up (which was, admittedly, brief), we went to the Anglican church (of Canada....which is centrally organized and shares policy), a church that has women ministers, allows gay marriage IN the church, and all that kind of fun liberal jazz.

I see kind of a correlation with education. For whatever reason, people who go to university also seem more likely to break off from traditional religious views. Specifically, they seem more likely to shrug off religion all together (become atheist), or to take on less traditional (for our place and time) and possibly more individualistic beliefs such as paganism or a westernized version of Buddhism. Of course, this isn't universally true (I think most of the hardcore Republican politicians have been to university), but it's more likely. Probably has something to do with university teaching you to think critically, and organized religion doing the opposite. Anyway, universities in most developed countries have a higher percentage of female grads, so....

[westwoden]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

It is possible because it speaks more to men than wicca itself. Alot of druidry is about forging a path, and it could be that this speaks to a man protecting his masculinity more than much of the more feminine aspects of wicca? As a person who does not tidily fit within any "proper" path I can't speak from experience.

interesting comment, that seems to fit in with the general male/female psyche attributes.

so how about female druids and female wiccans - do you think their characters would be noticeably different?

[Threshold]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

I've read statistics and polls, and generally, regardless of the religion, there are more active female participants than there are men.

In my experience the percentages DO seem more extreme in Pagan circles, at least in Wicca, which tend to be the most visible pagan faith in my culture.

In my online communities that include a higher diversity of paths I see less of a skew. Certain paths seem to attract more men, but those paths are not much represented at the local pagan fair.

[Maria de Luna]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

interesting comment, that seems to fit in with the general male/female psyche attributes.

so how about female druids and female wiccans - do you think their characters would be noticeably different?

That is a good question, but I think it would largely depend on what actually drew these women to the different paths... I for instance was never as drawn to wicca as I used to feel for druidry, I always fealt that wiccawas more about wishing for natural harmony, and druidry was more about natureal harmony... I know now that this is not really the case at all. However I have learned that in many of the druid orders, you can be wicca and a druid, it is sort of like they can work together. Modern druidry in most of the american circles anyway does not focus on religion, it is more of a spiritual tradition that lends itself well to being paired with wicca, and many other belief systems, so that is a hard question to answer, especially as I know the british traditions are set up and governed differently.

[Sarkana night]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

Maybe.... But it depends on the path, I think. For example, I know more men who follows the Aztec pantheon than women.

[Pallas]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

I can give you a perspective with other religions. In Asia, Buddhism is referred to as a "woman's religion" because of the teaching of peace and to love all beings. Now you can argue that it's not a woman's concept to just love all beings, but that has been the stereotype for thousands of years with prominent cultures. "Men go off to war and they're tough! Women stay at home with kids and are gentle beings." Most prominent religions teach that women are gentle creatures that are very capable of loving more so than men. I consider Pagan-type religions to possibly have that same stereotype due to its often peaceful intent and nature. To keep hammering in the Buddhist point, I've been in a temple and I can say besides the male monks preaching, it's mostly females. I notice with Pagans, most I meet are female.

[westwoden]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

why are there so few female Buddhist monks though?

seems to be predominantly men.

[spartacandream]

Re: Is it true that there are more Pagan women than men?

how many of the girls here would be happy having to wear a face covering all day?

It's actually not that straightforward. I know of no religion that really required women to cover their faith, that said so before the 1960's. Islam, only after the terrorist groups started pushing their controlfreak agendas yeah, but that's not because of Islam. They did cover their hair, but different cultures are what went a step further.

You should see how they dressed in the 60's and 70's in Iran and Afghanistan, it'd be hard to believe, but they looked quite like we do in the west. And to be honest, its a little boring for everyone to dress the same.

saying that , it seems that there are many more female Wiccans that Druids - any ideas why?

I think that you are onto something though about the more traditional religions being more controlling of women in some aspects, but coming from fundamentalist forms of it. I grew up fundamentalist baptist christian, and women couldn't even be ushers, let alone pastors. Most of the women just lived as housewives their whole life. Not every fundie baptist congregation was probably like this, we certainly didn't talk like westboro, who I think is also Independant Baptist like we were, about homosexuality. At least not often.

I think its possible that more women and homosexuals/bisexuals are pushed away from the abrahamic religions towards paganism because of the teachings of the abrahamic faiths. I will give you that. I know its a politically incorrect position to take. Though I do wonder if in reality, since not every pagan has been counted in any kind of real census, if the disparity is really all that great?