Are women more religious than men

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RATIONALE

Are women more religious than men?

According to Miller and Hoffmann there is a belief that women are more likely to express greater interest in religion, have a stronger personal commitment and attend church more often.  In my own experiences of church my mother my sister and I attend church regularly whilst my brother and father hardly ever attend church giving some evidence in support of Miller and Hoffmann’s view.

Furthermore having had a debate with a number of people in my sixth form on

attendance levels at religious organisations and religiosity levels of males and females, I found that females viewed religion as more important than males.

I became even more interested when a fellow student commented that she thought that males aren’t as religious as females because by identifying with another male in terms love and superiority is an uncomfortable and foreign concept for them. Some argue that Males also believe attending church is a feminine activity.  It should be clear that I am focusing on Christianity for the purposes of my coursework. My research will be conducted through using detailed interviews of male attitudes to attending church and the concept of God.  

I will ask males in my church and from my sixth form the questions will aim to answer whether they think women are more religious, whether it is hard to be comfortable to be loved by another man; whether they believe church is a feminine activity and finally whether father figures affect whether young boys attend church.  (252)

CONTEXT

Sociologists related to the work of Miller and Hoffman and, related to the question as to whether women are more religious than men are:

Simone De Beauvoir she believed that religion was exploitive and oppressive towards women. She believed religion promoted the idea that if women suffered their reward would be gained in heaven. This is a contextual piece of evidence towards my work because if women have this mindset of a reward in heaven it is likely for them to attend church.

Research by Edward and Elizabeth Nelson suggest that 21% of males attend church in contrast to 30% of females this measured regular attendance. Research also shows that in terms of attending church ‘sometimes’ the percentage for women was 24% in contrast to 20% with males. Lastly the percentages for attending church ‘seldom’ with males and females were 46% for females and 59% for males. This relates to my wok as attendance determines whether someone can be said to be religious.

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 Furthermore Joan Arehart-Treichel has found that in 49 countries women are more likely to be religious and in terms of males the numbers are and with the exception of only one case—Brazil—the differences are significant or highly significant statistically.

Secondly a piece of contextual evidence towards the view of women is that women see God as loving and caring and men view God as controlling and dominant. Patriarchal ideals for different religions (eg Christianity) led to the view of women as not being liable to lead the church. Orthodox churches and Roman Catholic churches exclude women from hierarchy. In ...

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