Is woo belief more prevalent among women?

unrelated to the OP, but kind of what you guys are talking about.. it irritates me that people don't see baking as science. Of course it is.

Sorry, am I being really harsh? I am Christian, which is woo to a lot of people, so I'm not quite as judgy as I might come across.

almond - that sounds good.

not since about 1997 LRd

I think the rise of modern technology has helped kids to see that more now LRD. There are many more animations of various models, and we can anthropomorphise (not sure about spelling there, and maybe I really mean personification anyway!) electrons, bacteria, molecules, sperm cells and so on. I think it makes it easier for people learning Science now to see it as imaginative and to make that leap.

I don't know if the same applies to computing, but DS learns coding soon, and if I can anthropomorphise those codes I will.

Yeah, but do you have ginger for an upset stomach because you're a rational human being who knows it works, or do you steep ginger-root in your mystical healing bowl and pour boiled springwater collected in moonlight over it while chanting softly about woman power?

(I may be harbouring memories of a mate at university, bless her.)

True, I meant more ginger for an upset stomach though :)

I think you have a point about the STEM issue.. IME the woo/non-woo divide matches the STEM/non-STEM divide. I'd never thought about how that then skews the gender divide though. very interesting!
I am including religion in the definition of woo here as well.

Absolutely.

Though some herbal stuff edges over into similarly nonsense territory, doesn't it?

I guess someone who believes they're a witch because they brew sage tea is marginally more rational than someone who believes they can cure themselves with water-with-a-memory, but it's a close run thing. I get more angry with homeopathy because more people are tricked into believing it.

Herbal therapies and homeopathy are different though aren't they

I think its true of all religion/superstition though that you are most susceptible when life is shit.

This is possibly tangential, but it's really interesting you put it that way, in terms of imagination, almond, because it makes perfect sense to me, yet I don't think anyone ever suggested science was 'imaginative' to me when I was at school.

WA, but it isn't all down to imagination is it? I would consider myself to be imaginative, but that doesn't mean I can't distinguish between fantasy and reality or understand rational explanations.

If anything, believing in homeopathy is a failure in imagination, because people who believe in such things don't understand the rather abstract concepts required for molecular biology and similar, which (if you have done some science at school) is largely a failure to imagine and picture in your head what molecules, atoms etc are doing.

Quite what has being a sahm got to do with views on being woo?

How fucking rude are you?! And in the feminism section?!?!

I know quite a few women who believe in some form of woo quite quietly and secretly. My sister truly believes that her old house has a ghost, so do both my aunts. One aunt is very into natural medicines and she believes in fairies and angels even though she is a Pagan and the angels she believes in are from the Christian tradition. My other aunt believes in spiritual healing and goes along to all sorts of spiritualist meetings. She used to be the biggest sceptic I knew, but when her husband left her after 25 years of marriage she suddenly became very into woo of all kinds, as a way of coping with the shittiness of having her planned future ripped out from under her.

I was a teenager in the 90s too and grew up watching Sabrina, Buffy, etc. and yes I was a bit woo as a teenager. I had my palm read by a 'proper' palm reader, and had my cards done. Rationally I know that it's all done by reading my body language and other tricks, as well as the fact that I only remember the bits that have come true, but even now I sometimes find myself remembering bits of the palm reading and wondering how he knew that (he didn't - I assume he guessed based on probabilities)

I do think woo is a way of coping with difficult things, so it makes sense that women are more into the caring side of woo, because they have more difficult things to deal with than men. I know the times I've been more tempted to believe in woo have been when I've been having big problems and needed to feel like there was something I could do to be in control of them.

I really find that hard to believe, wondering. We might be socialised to see ourselves that way, but it's only socialisation.

There are plenty of societies (past and present) where there's no stigma about men crying, so men cry.

Could it be that women in general are a bit more feeling, intuitive and deep thinking than men? Bit more able to feel emotions than men? Is that biological do you think as we are in the main, the ones who raise our young and we need to have that? After all until recently 'real men' don't cry was common thinking.

I also agree that women may be more prone to this after experiencing adversity in life. I know I have. I could choose to believe that life is dark,full of suffering, an endurance basically but I prefer to think that magic and miracles might just exist which makes life that bit brighter.

Mind you as a DC, I was massively into fairies, angels and magic and that has never left me really. Perhaps it's all down to imagination. Some people have one, some don't.

As an atheist, the biggest 'woo' belief to my mind is that of God (any god) though. It is a mainstream belief that has been perpetuated through the ages and is acceptable even though there is absolutely no evidence of it's existence similarly to fairies. I prefer to believe in fairies flying butterfly chariots myself .

Watching 'Maleficent' recently, I was in my element!

The people I know into woo are blokes who are into ghost hunting. Though I did share a house with a girl who would go for card readings every now and then.

Given how much babies change over their first year, I'm prepared to believe that that can have an effect on you - if you get a lot of warmth and sunlight or if your first 6 months are in the depths of a grey, damp winter or whatever, but I don't know how you'd prove that at all, because there are so many other factors which will affect people as they grow. And even if there is anything in that, it's bog all to do with the sort of astrology you see in the media.

I don't think of herbalism as woo, either - there's quite a bit of pharma money in researching plant properties, and it's important to know that some plants can kill you, as well a knowing others are safe to eat. I suppose though that if it's stuff like taking mistletoe with a golden sickle at new moon, then that is woo. (Or an Asterix plot...)

Really: Mid twenties, so yes I grew up watching Sabrina, Buffy etc! I am sure that this definately had an impact.

really - no, it's me. As I say, not running on 100%.

Oh, sorry. I am really not running on 100% this morning.

I think there would be reasons in specific societies. In terms of the history of Western Christianity, we move from an idea of God as relatively distant (which is still the image in the Eastern Church), then people start getting into the idea of Jesus's humanity, and wanting to relate to that. I think as that becomes more normal, being more into the emotional/spiritual kind of expression of faith becomes more acceptable to men, too. It's not seen as 'extreme' or niche, therefore it's not left for women to do.

But I think this is a circular argument really. I must go away and think properly (which I'm unlikely to do because this thread is too interesting! ).

Oh sorry, I was kind of agreeing with you LRD although looking at it, I didn't actually phrase it that way

terraria I spent loads of time at the library too, using the crap dial up internet to look at spells online.... from the weird and wonderful and really crap websites that were on offer in the mid 90s

We weren't cool were we?

LRD, I did mean a reason stemming from socially constructs, as in changes with the social roles of men and women at different times.

Just thinking about societies, I know of people in very patriarchial, evangelical Christian or Christian-type sects, where it's definitely quite normal for men to have visions or get very emotional about their personal closeness to God. I suspect maybe it's because those cultures are relatively lacking in ways for men to express emotion otherwise - I'm really only speculating from the little I know. But I guess if you live in the sort of culture where men are seen as the rule-makers and aren't even encouraged to be that caring towards their children, maybe getting terribly emotional about God is a nice, safe, masculine channel for emotion?

almond - I don't know the reason. I'd like to think there isn't one, because it would fit with my sense that gender is entirely socially constructed.

You're spot on with me, RFFU, I turned 13 in 1994 and I spent loads of time looking up Wicca in the library. Not to mention books on aliens, bigfoot, anything supernatural. And the reasons were definitely the same as squishys.

I'm a lazy atheist sahm too btw.