Essay on Why Do Women to Be More Religious than Men?

Introduction

Religious always played an important part in the life of people. Even today religion still remains a part of the socio-cultural life of the contemporary society, regardless of enormous technological leap the mankind has made in the course of the last couple of centuries. At the same time, views of men and women on religion may differ. Therefore, the gender may be an important variable that affects the religiosity of an individual. At this point, it is possible to presuppose that the different position of women in the society and their role as mothers contribute to the higher religiosity of women compared to men because they have to focus on educating moral values to their children. In addition, women tend to be submissive in the majority of societies that naturally contributes to the emergence of religious views because virtually all religions imply the submission as an essential condition of faith. Nevertheless, it is important to conduct the study why women tend to be more religious than men and, for this purpose, it is possible to use Chi-square, t-test and ANOVA. The involvement of these tools can help to conduct the detailed and accurate analysis of the attitude of men and women to religion and to understand why women tend to be more religious than men.

Chi-Square

Chi-square is an effective tool that can help to identify the attitude of men and women to religion. In terms of chi-square, two groups of subjects were selected for the test. Two groups were divided on the ground of the gender of participants of the test. Each group was observed and the attitude of participants to religion was identified. Subjects were exposed to diverse religious materials and their responses were measured. Two deviations were used, religious and atheistic. Participants of the study were shown a religious documentary and they were asked to respond to a serious of questions to define their attitude to the content of the documentary and religion. After that chi-square was calculated:

Calculating Chi-Square

Chi-Square Distribution

In such a way, the test revealed that men tend to be more atheistic and less religious than women. Women in contrast manifested stronger inclination to religious beliefs, as they were exposed to the impact of a religious documentary.

T-test

Furthermore, the t-test was conducted to compare two groups of subjects, men and women. Both groups were analyzed on the ground of their attitude to religion and manifestation of their religious beliefs or atheism. The following graph shows the results of the t-test:

Therefore, the t-test reveals the fact that women have more manifestations of their religious beliefs than men. Women tend to attend churches more frequently than men. More women believe in god and supernatural power than men. At the same time, more men are atheist compared to women. In such a way, women tend to commit religious actions and their faith is stronger, while men are more skeptical than women in relation to religion. They are more realistic in their views compared to women and they are less religious than women.

ANOVA

Furthermore, the ANOVA test was conducted to identify the difference in views of men and women in their religious views. The ANOVA test involved men and women of different age, cultural and ethnic background, different educational level and different occupations. There were five groups of men and five groups of women. They were asked to notice and record any manifestation of their religious inclinations, such as church visits, praying, references to God and appeals to God, and other manifestations of their religious inclinations or their atheism. Four groups of men and four groups of women were test groups, while one group of men and one group of women were control groups. Control groups did not recorded their religious manifestations and inclinations

Before the experiment the religiosity of subjects of the study was tested. 60% of women recognized that they were religious, while only 40% of men recognized they are religious. Consequently, 40% of women and 60% of men considered themselves being atheists.

After the test the religiosity of participants was measured. The four groups of women manifested higher religiosity. To put it more precisely, 70% of women recorded some religious manifestations in their behavior. Instead only 45% of men recorded some religious manifestations. As for both control groups, their views did not change after the ANOVA test.

At this point, the ANOVA test has revealed the fact that both men and women of different ethnic and cultural background as well as difference in education and professional background of subjects of the study are important factors that influence their religious views and attitude to religion and God. This is why the religious beliefs of men and women may differ but they are also vulnerable to the impact of socio-cultural background and ethnicity of individuals.

Conclusion

Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that the development of religious views of individuals depends on their gender. At any rate, women have more manifestations of religious views than men, while men rather tend to be atheist than religious. In this regard, the cultural background, the ethnicity, education and occupation of women and men may affect their religious views. At the same time, women tend to be more religious because of their social roles and views such as submissiveness of women and their inferior position in many cultures. Such a difference in the position of men and women leads to the difference in their religious views and beliefs.