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I find it interesting that more women than men consider religion important to them, when religion is partially to blame for them being marginalized in society.

• _delirium 13y ago
  On the differing-demographics question, it would be interesting to have some finer-grained data to look at some of those confounding issues. I can believe that Americans and Western Europeans differ on some values, but they also differ considerably amongst themselves: the values of Brooklyn and suburban Houston are fairly different. Even just regional data could be useful to be a more accurate view.
• jiggy2011 13y ago
  Perhaps it is because they are more religious that they find it easier to accept marginalisation?
  • Tloewald 13y ago
    They probably do not consider themselves marginalized. To understand how people who disagree with you think, start with the assumption they don't think of themselves as stupid hypocrites.
    • newnewnew 13y ago
      A Canadian study found that extremely conservative women reported higher degrees of happiness than average: http://www.moreright.net/oaks-vs-sandboxes/ http://www.moreright.net/oaks-vs-sandboxes/
• maratd 13y ago
  > On the whole, I just look at those figures and feel a deep amount of shame for my country (US). I feel a deep shame for your comment. I can respect someone for believing in a socialist approach, why are you unable to do the same for those who believe in a laissez faire approach?
  • jiggy2011 13y ago
    Most of the questions have nothing to do with laissez faire vs socialism.
    • dnautics 13y ago
      Uh the very first one? "Which is more important, Freedom to pursue one's goals without state interference, or that the state guarantees no one is in need"? Although there are people like myself who think that the state does a very poor job of guaranteeing no one is in need, and that individuals are better at providing 'socialism' than governments.
      • jiggy2011 13y ago
        He doesn't mention that one specifically, more likely he is ashamed by questions on homosexuality etc.
  • iterative 13y ago
    You can respect someone for believing in socialism? What about witchcraft?
    • maratd 13y ago
      I don't believe witchcraft can claim any reasonable success, while socialism can at least make a claim for converting the largest countries in the world from agrarian to industrial economies. Now, I would argue that capitalism can do it better, but there would be an argument at least ... what argument can you have with witchcraft? Hence my respect.
  • vbuterin 13y ago
    I personally found it highly surprising (in a disconcerting way) that so few people answered "don't know" for the question "is individual success under your control". Am I really the only person who is squarely in the "in some ways yes, in some ways no" camp?
• toble 13y ago
  I bet the lack of a national curriculum - that banishes religion from everything except religious classes has something to do with the US results. Here in the UK we are slowly degenerating by allowing schools to have more freedom, so religious groups are having increased influence on standard state schools.
  • Gormo 13y ago
    There's no national curriculum in the US, but religion most certainly is "banished" from state schools. Not even excepting religious classes - there aren't any such classes in state-operated schools, at least not any that I've ever heard of. Treating school systems as the primary mechanism for transmitting cultural memes, and attributing social attitudes to its functions, seems a very bizarre position. In fact, if anything, the exact reverse may be the case: by not permitting religion to have any state-supported expression, it ensures that religion is sustained and advanced by civil society itself, which yields a much more vigorous and energetic religious sphere in American culture than you'd see in countries where religion is mediated and subdued by politics.
• bane 13y ago
  It sometimes can be obvious, the small flock of little old ladies attending Wednesday evening mass for example. If you can manage, check out the crowd shots in a modern televangelist audience. Lots of men, but many many more women: sometimes a shot will show 1 or 2 men, and 8-12 women. Here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwMP2lEUP1E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwMP2lEUP1E It's not terribly surprising that women often assume a very conservative role in society, viewing themselves as keepers of tradition. For example, the man in a western suit and woman in traditional clothes is very common all over the world, while you rarely see the opposite: http://www.squarehe.com/images/0611/korean-wedding.jpg http://www.squarehe.com/images/0611/korean-wedding.jpg http://www.ajewelrystyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/indian-wedding-reception-clothes.jpg http://www.ajewelrystyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/indi... http://www.lassiwithlavina.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/adoption-Garg-1.jpg http://www.lassiwithlavina.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ad... http://hindtoday.com/blogs/images/USA/DEVENDRA_MAKKAR_Family.jpg http://hindtoday.com/blogs/images/USA/DEVENDRA_MAKKAR_Family... http://www.lightfootfilms.org/Peruvian-Family_c.jpg http://www.lightfootfilms.org/Peruvian-Family_c.jpg http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/media/edu/EN/uploads/image/nguyenwedding.jpg http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/media/edu/EN/upload... I'm sure it's some strange human expression having to do with who has which reproductive organs, but it's always seemed to me such a strange, interesting and repeatable pattern.
• iterative 13y ago
  Although we haven't yet achieved the slow rate of economic growth and high rate of unemployment that Europe currently enjoys, don't worry, the current administration is working hard to get us there. And if you're too impatient to wait for the whole country to reach an acceptable level of dysfunction, you can always move to Detroit and get ahead of the curve.
  • bluthru 13y ago
    So much conflation...
• lotharbot 13y ago
  In my experience, religious women are unlikely to agree with the assertion that religion marginalizes them. Instead, they are likely to claim that religion shows them the importance of womanhood (often motherhood in particular).
• Tloewald 13y ago
  The young in the US are more cynical about the superiority of US culture than any other group (are of their own culture). So there is hope.
• speeder 13y ago
  I know a musliam woman that dislike the fashion tastes of Saudi Arabian women. In Saudi Arabia, women must use black clothing covering almost everything. And the reason for that, is that they want to, there are no laws that say that, no religious rule that say that, and men don't enforce that, when a muslim visitor of another country wear muslim clothes but not black for example, Saudi women that will nag you to go change to something black. (or if a woman wear muslim clothing that does not cover the same things, they also get nagged by other women). That said, I disagree with your statement that religion marginalize women. Maybe, because I am religious myself.
  • sillysaurus 13y ago
    I'll admit that I'm apparently a dumb American, because till now I thought those women were forced to wear those black robes that cover everything but their eyes. They really like it, and they aren't coerced with any kind of religious pressure?
    • InclinedPlane 13y ago
      Of course there are laws, I have no idea what the other poster is talking about. Saudi Arabia even has a police force, the mutaween, which enforces things like dress codes for women (officially the name of the organization which runs the religious police in Saudi Arabia is called "The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice"). There is a famous example of an incident in 2002 wherein during a fire in a girls' school in Mecca the mutaween prevented girls from fleeing the school due to being improperly clothed, 15 girls died and 50 others were injured from the fire.
      • eshvk 13y ago
        In other countries where there are no laws proscribing women to wear burkhas (e.g. India), there are plenty who do so.
        • megablast 13y ago
• newnewnew 13y ago
  I am consistently amazed by the profound contempt which modern liberalism holds for the traditional role of the wife and mother. In traditional societies, motherhood is not looked down upon or held in contempt, but mothers are honored. As the managers of families and the people that consistently invest the most in the next generation, they are the backbone of society. Every successful person today owes his success to a chain of hundreds of successful mothers, stretching back into pre-history. It is only as our planning horizon has shrunk from a thousand years to six months that we begin to look on motherhood as a form of slavery. Females are told that they must do anything but a traditional female role to have value in society. We cajole women to act like men. In a way, liberalism is ironically misogynist. It is little surprise then that Western liberals no longer breed above replacement rates. Denigrating motherhood is not the way for a people to last the aeons of time. I believe the future of the West is profoundly more conservative than the present, because Darwin. Liberalism is a suicidal ideology.
  • jamesaguilar 13y ago
    You might be projecting a little. The comment you're replying to makes no mention of the role "wife" or "mother" in a disparaging sense, or otherwise.
  • bluthru 13y ago
    >We cajole women to act like men. There's your problem. Equality means removing old sexist views about the role of men and women in society. "Women to act like men" or "men to act like women" is a farce. Humans should be free to define their role for themselves. Also, I don't know why you're worried about the amount of humans on the planet. It's already overpopulated.
    • goggles99 13y ago
      If OBSERVING that men and women are built and operate differently on a mass and indefinite number of levels (mentally, physically and emotionally) - I guess that I too hold these "sexist views". Then again, maybe I am just honest and choose not to buy into lies and false propaganda. How can there be the kind of equality that you are referring to when there is no equivalence? There are always going to be some women who could have done better than the man that got the job that they both interviewed for. Same for men who were beat out by a women, but the idea that some preconceived notion that a man is going to be a better fighter pilot than a women is going to go away is pure fantasy. When something is true 99+% of the time, people are going to lean toward probability. It is human nature. I guarantee that if anyone in this topic (man or women) was playing a game of deadly roulette and had to choose odds with who was more qualified and would do a better job in a field of men and women with certain careers, everyone here would be a "sexist". So don't call out someone with There's your problem. If you consider it a problem then it is YOUR problem too. Maybe not on the same level, but you yourself are affected by it on some level (like it or not). You are a human - therefore have human nature.
• scotty79 13y ago
  Maybe it's because women put greater value in stability and religion is old so it gives illusion of stability.
• test-it 13y ago
  >> religion is partially to blame for them being marginalized in society Completely not true. It's the nature of work and power in human societies since the Neolithic revolution, that put man in control.
  • willvarfar 13y ago
    Were not the Celts very equal, and it was the Romans who put an end to that?
• rayiner 13y ago
  Women have usually been more strongly religious then men. Religion is historically a major part of family life, and women are historically the ones charged with socializing children and giving structure to families. As an aside, I find your reaction amusing. Why should anyone be ashamed that Americans think it's necessary to use force to preserve order in the world, or that Americans believe our culture to be superior? We are coming off a 60 year run in which: 1) The U.S. subsidized the military defense of Europe through NATO against the Soviet Union; 2) America dominated nearly every major field of technological development; 3) Europe, after economic dysfunction in the 1970's and 1980s, took pages out of the American playbook and enjoyed resurgent economies in the 1990's and 2000's as a result of economic liberalization and deregulation. Over the last 60 years, America has given the world: peace, the transistor, computers, the cell phone, and the internet. People in France watch American media (Hollywood) on an American platform (Youtube), then talk about it all on an American website (Facebook). America has reshaped world culture and technology to a degree that only a few countries can claim: Great Britain and Rome. There is nothing to be ashamed of in taking a little credit for that.
  • moocowduckquack 13y ago
    "that Americans believe our culture to be superior?" Well, for people outside America it does seem both arrogant and amusing in fairly equal parts. By the way, about your list. Peace - bwahahahaha Transistor - The Canadian Julius Edgar Lilienfeld first patented the FET. Computer - The first programmable electronic computer was built by Tommy Flowers in the UK for WWII codebreaking. Cell phone - Yep, american's built the first cell phones. Internet - Certainly a hell of a lot of the initial work was done in the States, but the protocols were knocked out between groups in Stanford and University College London and the bit of it that most people use was designed by Tim Berners-Lee while at CERN.
    • kec 13y ago
      >Peace - bwahahahaha how many global conflicts, or even local conflicts between any two major powers, have there been in the past 60 years? While "Pax Americana" obviously isn't perfect, it's hard to deny that it doesn't exist. >Transistor - The Canadian Julius Edgar Lilienfeld first patented the FET. He was actually Hungarian, (and emigrated to the US shortly afterward) but that's besides the point. He never actually created his design, only patented it. It took another 20 years for a design to actually be implemented by Shockley and others at Bell labs. >Computer - The first programmable electronic computer was built by Tommy Flowers in the UK for WWII code breaking. Fair... Although it was IBM, Intel, RCA, DEC and eventually Apple which made computing what it is today. >Internet - Certainly a hell of a lot of the initial work was done in the States, but the protocols were knocked out between groups in Stanford and University College London and the bit of it that most people use was designed by Tim Berners-Lee while at CERN. Fair
• pionar 13y ago
  What is there to feel shame about? Opinions are just that - opinions. You shouldn't feel ashamed for people that have different opinions than yourself. That seems overly judgmental and elitist, especially the "relatively rural" nonsense. I for one am glad that we don't share the same views on the whole as Western Europe, especially the self-reliance and choose-your-own-adventure. It's the over-reliance on the government that has Western Europe in the terrible economic shape that it is. While we have gone a bit overboard in letting corporations dictate so much of our rules and regulations, all in all, the capitalist system we have gives people more opportunities than our European counterparts. Our culture may not be superior (how could it be when we've only been around for ~250 years), but our economics most certainly are. I think the Europeans' smugness and looking down their noses at the "upstarts" in the colonies has gotten to you.
  • omd 13y ago
    Talk about smugness. >Opinions are just that - opinions. Except when they're not in line with yours apparently. wow.
  • EiZei 13y ago
    "I think the Europeans' smugness and looking down their noses at the "upstarts" in the colonies has gotten to you." That's kind of funny when you consider this graph: http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2011/11/2011-VALUES0010.png http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2011/11/2011-VALUES0010.png
• sigkill 13y ago
  There was a post on reddit where abused women have higher levels of oxytocin. Maybe that has something to do with it. Abused/brainwashed is pretty much similar, except one might have physical traces.
  • lifeformed 13y ago
    That's a pretty wild claim. Being religious is not similar at all to being abused. Growing up with a certain worldview doesn't affect that. Your body doesn't know you are learning the "wrong" worldview. "Brainwashing" is a term too lightly used - although it can happen, the average religious person is not brainwashed. They simply just grow up with a certain cultural mindset.
    • sigkill 13y ago
      You're probably right that 'brainwashed' is a term used lightly, yet with some people if you challenge their views, they go flat out into denial so that their world doesn't shatter. I probably should call them brainwashed even though it's just simply the way they grew up.
      • lifeformed 13y ago
        Well, you could say the same about a non-religious person. Tell them about God, and they would flat out deny it. Why? Because they believe their own worldview to be correct, and that God is incompatible with it. It's fair for them, so it should be fair for religious people to do the same. To them, religious reality is as axiomatic as scientific fact is to non-religious people. It doesn't matter which side is technically correct - they both believe their own point to be true, based on the very complex cultural and social factors in their upbringing. I don't think a religious and non-religious person are physiologically any different, they just make different choices about their beliefs. I'm not saying science is equivalent to a religion, but rather that a religious worldview is just as unshakable as a non-religious worldview.
        • sigkill 13y ago
• Sharlin 13y ago
  AFAIK, it's the community aspect of religion women are often attracted to.
• arethuza 13y ago
  "the US is relatively rural" Not really - 82.4% of the US population lives in urban areas, which is a bit higher than the UK (79.6%) and quite a bit higher than Germany (73.9%), Italy (68.4%) or Ireland (62.2%): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_country [NB France, Sweden and Finland are even more urban that the US]
• qw 13y ago
  In local news media where I live (Oslo, Norway), there have been stories about the "muslem morality police". These are people who use social control to make sure girls dress properly and don't have too much contact with outsiders. Although a family may be relatively liberal, they feel pressured by neighbors to control their daughters. In some cases they even are shamed by neighbors calling their more conservative families back home. The interesting fact is that this "morality police" is driven by more women than men.
• agilebyte 13y ago
  A couple years back I have heard an idea in a psychology class that this has to do with risk assessment. If women are less likely to take risks, they are less likely to "take their chances" in an afterlife.
• davidw 13y ago
  > feel a deep amount of shame for my country (US) Get over it. As an American living in Western Europe, there are plenty of things to be ashamed about everywhere. And there is a lot of good stuff in the US, too. Forget about this so quickly? http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html The important thing is to try and identify things that your country doesn't do so well, and try and import the good stuff from elsewhere. This is a long and slow process that requires lots of hard work. And it's also complicated, because sometimes the good things are mixed up with the bad things.
  • bluthru 13y ago
    We're talking about culture as a whole, not outlying tasks performed by few. Part of the delusion is people believing they have anything to do with the success of NASA.
• gadders 13y ago
  I look at those answers and find a deep amount of shame for my country, the UK. Especially on the role of the state and the fact that many people feel their life is outside of their control. It's no wonder that the U.S. is a more successful country.
• goggles99 13y ago
  I know that you are all about equality but I think you missed the idea. All people are treated differently because drum roll... They are different. Men, women, musicians, mathematicians, authors, doctors. Humans are not evil because when people are different, they tend to group them all together. This is human nature. This affects everyone's decision making (including yours). If you were in a game of deadly roulette where you had to pick the outcome of certain peoples lives, how certain people would react to certain challenges or situations, how well certain people would do in certain jobs - you would go with the numbers too. You would not treat these people equally. Therefore you yourself are sexist, bigoted, and stereotype people just as those you criticize. Just knowing this this fact means that these probabilities do have an affect on you. I am not condoning the mistreatment of anyone - I am merely saying that blindly ignoring peoples strengths and weaknesses is foolishness. Also, giving resources or opportunity which was not earned or deserved to someone will not usually result in a better outcome. Negative side effects create more problems to this scenario than the original solution was meant to solve (and it too fails).