Is woo belief more prevalent among women?

[CrotchMaven]

Ya know, faeries, ghosts, feathers and inner essence, soul stuff.

And, if so, is that a STEM problem?

And are woo-men (hahaha) more interested in in hard-core conspiracy theory, libertarianism rocks, government is evil, battle of the cocks stuff?

Or have I been reading too much weird stuff on the net, extrapolating and should go to bed?

And whither, witches. I love witches threads. Am I being witch - finder on woo-ers, of whatever genitalia/born-chromosome configuration?

I'd have to agree, although I'm not woo myself and dh isn't conspiracy'ist.

I definitely had a woo phase in my teens and early twenties and do think it is very much about power. Very often the only strong female characters we have are that way due to magical mystical reasons, like Buffy. It is very hard to find female characters that have that strength within themselves and whilst being impressed by characters like Buffy it also reinforces that I'm weak as I don't have super slayer powers.

Don't know if I am explaining this well but it is like the fear we can feel when walking alone a night. I once had an argument over this as my male friend claimed the fear was illogical as stranger rape is thankfully rare, to me it is not illogical and if I am out alone at night and a man is also walking down the street it brings it home to me how exposed and vulnerable I actually am, I have no power and am dependent on not meeting a rapist. Believing in woo is a twisted way of trying to claim some power for ourselves.

I'm totally non-woo now but I can still see the attraction.

There is a genetic link to whether people believe in God and these others things. I don't think it breaks down on gender lines although women may have a bit more time than some men to go to church or go to their "healing" classes.

Really?

I'm surprised the topic of freemasonry hasn't come up re: patriarchy yet.

Dervel, it's funny how men's clubs go all odd really like the one you suggest! Funny handshakes / passwords / robes. Near as women's groups get I think is Jerusalem at WI.

Jane, genetic links? Presently sceptical. Interested if any works on that though!

How can there be a genetic link to believing in God? A couple of generations ago most people in the UK believed and now they don't.

I despair of the pseudo-science of the scoffers. I'm afraid homeopathy does work and I know that for a fact. Ok so present sciencific methods can't verify it but since the early twentieth century many changes have happened in scientific discoveries, including quantum physics which turns newtonian science on its head. Who knows what changes the 21st century will bring.

Any cure brought about by homeopathy the scoffers put down to the placebo effect. But surely that placebo effect would be even more effective with alopathic doctors, who have many more believers. Maybe we could write Big Pharma totally out of the equation and every doctor could cure with the placebo effect which would be a lot cheaper all round and have none of those harmful side effects.

I do hope you're claiming that big prize eh? You don't know it for a fact, do you? If it cannot be verified?

I can't say I have found much difference - perhaps the men I am drawn to.
My ex husband was a member of a coven, i have been a hedgewitch for 30 years.
My current OH ( we have been together 18 years) does not practice, but is very supportive and encouraging. He has seen the results of what I do first hand.

Are you talking about the VMAT2 gene? The so called God gene? I am deeply skeptical about that, and so are the majority of scientists I've read.

As a straw poll, I asked people I work with this afternoon if they believed in woo/conspiracy theory stuff. Most of the women said they didn't, apart from the ones who had had life threatening illness or had children, they tended to believe in spiritual stuff. There was one woman who believes in, from what I can tell, everything, she has always struck me as a bit of a ninny though, so I might be being biased.

The bog shock for me was the men. Quite a few had religious beliefs, but a fair number of them started bleating on about eh bloody Illuminati. They were deeply serious about it and got quite stroppy when I giggled a bit.

Interesting afternoon, however, there's a list of people now who may never speak to me again.

I can't talk though, I'm a Christian!

What did Tim Minchin say about homeopathy? Something about the water magically remembering the 100,000,000 th of a % of healing ingredient, but magically forgetting all the shit that's been in it?

Maybe we could say that it's part of the human personality to we look around for explanations for things that happen, and we want support when we feel weak. But perhaps (as always, maybe on the basis of our life experiences) women look for those things in different places from men.

So because men are more encouraged to be involved in politics or science (or the male personality is more attuned that way, and those things were invented by men to satisfy men) men make up rubbish that's pseudo-scientific, or involves imaginary political conspiraciesor a great big male God in the sky having unbeatable power. Whereas women prefer fairies and spirits and angels, or the magical power of crystalseverything personal and on a small scale.

We might not agree with the male fantasies, and in the case of religions, they tend to be enduring ones which makes them respectable and we're inclined to criticise, but it's the female ones that get called "woo". Maybe there is a class of superstition like that, but I'd call the urge to follow superstition more or less equal for everyone.

And is it "woo" as in woolly or "woo" as in woo-man?

Some careless writing there but hopefully it's intelligible.

He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!

Homeopathy also uses a poisonous plants doesn't it? How does the water forget the fact that Belladonna should kill you?

Gawd knows, but Belladonna is also used in various pharmaceuticals and has been used in herbal medicine for centuries. It's a brilliant pain killer and is an ingredient in cures for motion sickness. There's a fine line though.

Ahem.... sorry for the slight derail, I have an interest in medieval herbal medicine. Especially that used by women. One day I shall build my time machine and go back and slap the men who decided that they would disregard all women's knowledge in favour of theirs. Medicine then was imperfect no doubt about it, people died of the most ridiculous things because they didn't understand about transmission of disease. But, going from a well used trial and error/evidence based system of herbal remedies to Galen's humours and bleeding people at the drop of a hat, was throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Take honey. Honey was used as an aid to healing wounds. It worked. They didn't know that it worked because it has antibiotic properties, but it worked. Men take over medical things and honey is pooh poohed as being a silly thing to put on wounds. Now we have come full circle and are looking again at the antimicrobial properties of honey.....

Anyway, back to the woo.....

Is wanting to build a time machine woo?

Thank you for running with my slightly tonally flippant and more than a bit wine induced OP.

It's a theme that fascinates me and you have all given me food for thought. Let me digest and add my musings...

^Anyway, back to the woo.....

Is wanting to build a time machine woo?^

I think that's male-style woo. Technology and pseudo-science aimed at conquering the laws of nature, not trying to do some good by making use of a little observation and knowledge of what's around us. So even if your potion doesn't work, at least it's made from natural substances by human hands. And hopefully, not with poisonous mushrooms etc.

My fantasy is not building a time machine, but having one. I am lucky enough to often find myself in places that have had great historical import in the dim and distant past or were places of strategic importance, but are now faded. I often long to be able to go back in time to when they were at their height. Just as an observer, mind.

I wrote my op on the back of the thread in site stuff, but also because it touched a nerve a bit. I have friends who have one foot in woo-land and I sometimes struggle with them. I don't want to fight (still working on dealing with disagreement), but when I don't engage positively (and def not negatively), tensions rise in a way that doesn't seem to happen with men. To be fair, it's not just woo topics with which that happens. Lots of strawman-ing and immediate leaps to defensiveness and a ramping up of the personalisation of the topic in hand.

In fact, that's another fascinating topic in itself. Nothing to do with sex, but everything to do with gender socialisation. I love my friends, don't get me wrong. Interactions intrigue me, especially as I've worked in a male dominated field for a few years. I watch the guys interact like David Attenborough!

That was another ramble and nothing to do with my op and your fab posts. Tomorrow...

More men into role play dressing as wizards etc.

Woo liking is no respector of Sahm / wohm when I worked in the city a significant minority of senior women into woo, about same proportion of sahms I met in the provinces.

Mexican - re "I'm afraid homeopathy does work and I know that for a fact."

No you don't. Study after study after Cochrane review after meta-analysis has shown that homeopathy works no better than placebo - i.e. it doesn't work.

"Ok so present sciencific methods can't verify it"

It isn't that present methods are deficient. It is that there is no difference in effect between homeopathic "remedies" and sugar pills (placebo). You take two groups of people, give sugar pills to one group and homeopathic remedies to the other, and the homeopathy group does no better than the sugar pill group. (Probably because homeopathic pills are sugar pills with perhaps one molecule of active substance in them). This is not a problem of our scientific method.

"but since the early twentieth century many changes have happened in scientific discoveries, including quantum physics which turns newtonian science on its head."

Quantum Physics does NOT turn Newtonian "science" on its head, or even contradict it! Newton's perfectly valid and correct mechanics deals with large bodies (planets etc) while Quantum Physics is about sub-atomic particles that obey some very different rules.

This sort of "Oh but there's Quantum Physics, so all science is wrong, tralala" argument from people who don't know a thing about QP really presses my buttons

"Any cure brought about by homeopathy the scoffers put down to the placebo effect.

Because large-scale, controlled, double-blind, randomised tests show that homeopathy works no better than placebo.

"But surely that placebo effect would be even more effective with alopathic doctors, who have many more believers."

Placebo effect works with real medicine, too. However, those perform much better than placebo in large scale, controlled, double-blind, randomised tests - i.e. their effect = biochemical effect + placebo effect.

I am fascinated with this conspiracy theory stuff( largely because I believe much of it is based on drug induced paranoia... Yes ... I'm talking about weed.) I'm just wondering why more men believe in conspiracy theories? Maybe more men smoke weed.
IMO , even if said conspiracies are true. Worrying about them is no way to live. I do think woo can be good but it needs to be balanced with science etc. I think that women are more psychic. Then again, whilst I do believe in ghosts and witches( I used to live with both of them) I don't believe in fairies, unicorns and elves.

Based on personal experience I would say I know more women who are into woo than men, but I do know men who are into some woo things. For example my old (male) flatmate was very into New Age woo and eco-woo where it's mostly focused on healing or improving yourself or having spiritual experiences for yourself.

Female friends who are into it are more into things like healing crystals, angels and what I'd consider extreme Catholic woo (e.g. such and such a holy medal totally cured X's sciatica). So I do think woo is gendered and that for women it can be about escapism from all the shit we deal with.

Back when Christianity was considered ultra woo by most of society (I'm talking in its very early history) it did attract a lot of women (and other oppressed groups like slaves), but that I think had more to do with its liberation message. But I guess as a Christian I would say that!

Right, now I found out what woo means (I looked it up on woogle I can have an opinion...

I agree with the posters who have pointed out how welcoming it is to women, compared to the institutions of science and religion. Whether true or not we associate its history with women having some kind of power whereas throughout the history of science and Abrahamic religions women have been firmly excluded.

The "pagan" religions in Britain had a selection of women deities before patriarchal christianity invaded and villified figures like Morgan la Fay.

Isaac Newton was deeply into woo IIRC but people try to brush that part of him aside as it's not perceived as being that rational.

I remember this guy (who I pissed off by not wanting to sleep with him) ripping into me for my then woo beliefs, saying I was irrational amongst other things. He was a christian!