In a Scienceblogs.com article titled “The Woman Problem,” a male atheist outlines some of the problems facing male atheists, the main one being, in his opinion, that women are not interested. His attempts to attract women, however, may provide us with at least a partial answer as to to why this “problem” exists.

Here author PZ Myers suggests a solution:

I think the right answer is for us males to shut up now and then and listen. It’s not for us men to tell women how to fix our (both men and women) problems, but if we’re to have a lasting and equitable representation at the tables of atheism and skepticism, the guys who currently dominate need to step back and stop pushing.

He may think it is the pushiness and that the atheist men simply have to be nice, but I would beg to differ, and suggest to Mr. Myers that the problem is actually that women have little interest in either Atheism or Atheists. Why would they, after all? What is it about Atheism that contains anything of interest to women?

Myers also writes with a style that could be considered anything but alluring to females:

I know there are some great blogs out there run by women — Skepchicks and Greta and Ophelia and more — so share more wealth. Skepchicon 2010 is happening this weekend, so people can nag me there, too. I shall be a passive receptacle for your ideas.

“Passive receptacle?” He seems to be calling himself a douche, here.

He goes on to recommend taking a back seat to the women, promoting them and getting out of their way, and taking other submissive measures to encourage them. I’m pretty sure this won’t work all that well with women in general, although it may draw a few dominatrix types.

Predictably, the women Atheists who have responded have sensed weakness and are going in for the kill. One female commenter has already demanded scholarships and childcare from Atheists:

Here’s my suggestion: Set up a fund to help women be part of the mix. Offer child-friendly activites, day care, or some other way that they don’t have to leave the little ones behind with an expensive babysitter (or a fundamentalist grandma). Offer scholarships for working women to enable them to attend.

Another woman suggests that many Atheist men are “creeps” (code for beta):

Here’s an idea – creepy guys can fucking stop hitting on every woman who walks by instead. And when non-creepy guys see other guys doing it, they can tell them to fucking stop it so that it’s not always up to every woman in attendance to do so.

Although I’m not an atheist, I’ll give Mr. Myers a bit of advice: don’t give them anything. Act like they don’t matter, and then they’ll want in. They’ll even offer to bake cookies and make coffee. More women than men volunteer for “patriarchal” Christian churches and Jewish synagogues. Do priests, ministers and rabbis seek to gain female followers by putting women in charge? No, they do the opposite, and claim authority over women, and the women flock to services in far greater numbers than men.

But perhaps Atheism – at least the organized type – is a different kind of faith. If that’s the case, I imagine it will always be a fringe religion, and never gain all that many adherents. Communist nations may have had some success with their atheist faith, but they backed that up with very male personality cults that portrayed leaders – all men – as godlike figures. And the Christian and other mainstream religions that have gone “equal” have failed miserably in the numbers game — witness the precipitous decline of the Episcopalian Church.

The thing is, when you put women in charge of something and subordinate the men, it kind of turns women off. It’s just human nature.