We need female-only atheist spaces. Women are affected by patriarchal religions in some really harmful, sex-specific ways that need to be discussed away from obnoxious white male atheists. I’ve had enough Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins quotes for one lifetime.
I want to talk about how being taught that the all powerful God is a man fucks up your sense of self worth and self esteem.
I want to talk about how being raised in a religion where men are the only figures of authority affects women’s self image and belief in their capabilities as leaders.
I want to talk about the fact that in the Catholic Church, priests get a salary and nuns don’t, and how there’s no equivalent of the Pope for nuns.
I want to talk about how the most important and well known woman in Christianity is given value and spiritual importance because of her virginity and acts as a passive vessel in a way that no man in Christianity does.
I want to talk about how Catholic women would have ten or twelve kids because the Church wouldn’t let them use birth control and how this literally killed women.
I want to talk about how Christianity claims to be pro-life, but women can’t get abortions in Catholic hospitals even if they will literally die without one.
I want to talk about the horrors of the Magdalene Laundries and polygamy and honor killings and arranged marriages to men twice or three times their age and all the other shit women are put through in the name of religion.
This isn’t even MENTIONING all the shit that lesbians have to deal with. We need better atheist spaces online, ones that emphasize healing and unlearning harmful shit over posting the same quotes from the same white men and the same memes that boil down to “Lol religious people are stupid”
I feel so incredibly alienated from the atheist community because, and I’m being genuine and fair in saying this, every other atheist I’ve ever met was literally a fedora tipping brony. i would KILL for a group of women who are likeminded in being against organized religion fundamentally.
There’s so many reasons for women to hate religion, even more than men. And yet religious activities are often the only form of social power that women have in their communities. It’s a form of isolation from the outside world, and it doubles as a veiled threat: be religious, or lose all of your closest female friends and especially your older female mentors.
As an atheist in the south, I feel emotionally separated from most of the women I know in real life. I’ll never give up my religious freedom for anything in the world, but I know I’ll never be able to convince any of the women I know that freedom is preferable to the piddly small amount of social mobility that religion allows.
Male atheists, especially those who once followed patriarchal religions are still absolutely insufferable. Their idea of bad religious experiences is feeling guilty while masturbating to porn.
judsonryder