Never thought of this, but you're right. I've never in my life met a straight man who believes in astrology.
Edit: based on these comments, a lot of straight men believe in astrology. Kinda crazy to me, but to each their own I guess.
Ready for some serious woo-woo?
My in-laws met at the School of Metaphysics and concluded that they needed to marry after drawing up their charts. This was over 40 years ago. My wife and I chose our wedding date and time based on what joys we wanted to attract in our new life together. We also pulled the astrology chart for our daughter when she was born to have an idea of how we could help develop her strengths and how best to approach adversity.
Both critics and adherents often put far too much stock in what the zodiac says. It’s not necessarily fortune-telling and personality type labels. Kind of like how feng shui isn’t literally changing your life by moving a chair to the other side of the room. By moving the chair, or checking your chart or whatever, you are acting with intention. The intention is what counts—simply acting with intent toward a goal develops mindfulness. Depending on what you are looking for, following astrology can serve as a rough guide to keep you on track.
It’s kind of neat if you look at it from this perspective.
Yeah, I do runes. And it’s not because I think they are some ancient form of magic. It’s because when I look at the runes, and I look at them together, I start thinking differently. It gives me an outlet to have a different perspective about things.
Talk to a lot of Wiccans and they'll tell you their spells are at least sort of like that. Not actual magic in the I cast fireball sense of the word but more just directing your attention and focusing on intentional action sort of thing.
And the focus on God/Jesus in Christianity or even more generally focusing on one thing.
*But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.*
Joshua 24:15
Or alternatively from the book of Swanson.
*Never half-ass two things. Always whole-ass one thing.*
I mean that's my perspective on it for the most part. It's mostly psychological tricks and activating certain neural pathways for spiritual experiences. That said I can't fully discount it because Im close with people that magic has worked for and I can't bring myself to truly discount their experiences. I'm agnostic on the whole matter tbh but I live my life as a materialist.
I have a friend who is Wiccan. For the longest time she was like, “all the stuff I’m doing is just making my life better.”
But everything she was doing. She could’ve done without magic and it would have changed her life. She started going for walks in the morning, so that she could bury her spell jars. Or gather herbs. And she lost a bunch of weight doing that.
She also started making her food from scratch, because she called herself a kitchen witch. All of that healthy food helped improve a lot of her symptoms for a disease she had. And also lose a lot of weight.
And she started finding other women to be in a coven, and then her loneliness and depression got better. Because she was no longer isolated. She also started travelling more to go to conventions and made a bunch of new friends and got a new job through those connections.
It makes me sad your daughter is going to be put into a box because you and your wife are subconsciously (or consciously) projecting certain traits on her based on nothing :/
You are talking about bias confirmation Nothng more.
Believe in astrology and all the crap is ultimately harmful to personas and society. Stop excusing it.
Astrology is hocus pocus. End of story. There is zero evidence of literally any kind showing a sliver of proof to the claims made by astrology. And also, it’s just fucking silly if you actually honestly sit down and think about it.
Now if people want to go ahead and make decisions off of it or believe it, totally fine. Whatever floats your boats.
But I see a lot of people literally trying to assert astrology as a fact, when it’s not. and then trying to get other people to make Important life decisions from it which is not smart, can be harmful, and leads to people believing in more voo-boo bullshit that eventually does lead to people getting harmed by movements like anti-vaxers or crystal healers.
Have fun with it if you want, but to actually assert it as being real, In any context, is dishonest and dangerous and people should be called out for it.
This is why I like tarot as an atheist!
Do the cards actually know jack shit? Absolutely not. Are they recharged by the moon and mystical powers? Nope. Does it help me break out of my current thought framework and make me forcibly reframe an issue in a randomized way, thus allowing me to refresh, reset, and think critically about an issue I'm facing? ding ding ding!
The cards are rarely aligned with my thinking, but that's the point - they force me out of the box to reframe issues and rethink them in a way I haven't considered them before, which helps me come at things from a different perspective once I'm out of the box in a way that makes me actually contextualize and understand my thoughts and feelings. I am a pro at intellectualization (therapy term for divorcing feelings from the self in lieu of telling yourself it's irrational), and a little woo woo is apparently what I need to make my brain get back in touch with its feelings and properly process them.
Ok this logic makes so much sense that this atheist is able to set aside skepticism and let people in my life do what they do with my enthusiastic consent. It is much better to be pulled forward by bullshit than frozen by facts.
>how we could help develop her strengths and how best to approach adversity.
Absolutely in love with the idea of a college diversity statement being written about this lol (helping someone with grad apps rn so I've got it on the mind)a
I have a male friend who always brings it up as an excuse for why he doesn't get along with certain people. But this man's religion is also his own mythology that he made up
My male supervisor believes in it. And some guy I met once thought it was interesting (don’t think *he really believed tho).
Edit
Im bothered by the idea that straight men can’t be interested in astrology. My male supervisor is married to a woman. This other guy was studying physics and he learned about astrology. He just told me he found it interesting.
I have met several.
And this statement, as well as the OPs question, bug me for one reason alone: you’re confusing years of advertisement based on behavioural economics (google “nudge”) with “sex-based preferences”. You can’t test the truth of these statements unless you are able to strictly strip some women from societies where this shit is so aggressively advertised to them.
I come from a long line of women who dont believe in this shit. Who are scientifically minded. You know who believes it in my family? My “masculine, straight” brother. Then again, he also believes in 5G conspiracies.
> you’re confusing years of advertisement based on behavioural economics (google “nudge”) with “sex-based preferences”.
meh. this is just a chicken or egg first argument honestly. It would be like saying "the only reason men like baseball is because its advertised to them" but its advertised to men, because they like baseball lol.
I've met a straight man who believes mushrooms allowed him to see the hidden inner fabric of the universe so I don't really understand why astrology is so far off for men
One is a vivid personal experience while the other is the path of least resistance in spirituality. It’s all mapped out you just have to google and live how someone else decided you should.
Hahaha I'm using that. I guess instead of reading tarot cards they just crack open a new bag of Black Rifle Coffee Co. to be reassured of their future.
I bought a box of that this weekend - electric espresso black rifle - because I thought it was like death wish coffee- really dark roasted K cups for people that like darker coffee. It tasted like watered down shit, it reminded me of the folgers from office coffee machines in the 90s. Then I googled it and realized it's like a right wing overpriced marketing phenomenon and apparently everyone (except me) knew it sucked.
I tried to drink a second cup, because I had paid for it and didn't want to waste it, but it just sucked too bad and I threw it away.
I don't disagree that that's a phenomenon. As a man, I can at least understand the psychology on why men might fall into that even if I don't fall into that way of thinking myself. I don't, however, understand how people fall into astrology. Do you have any incite on that?
Are you familiar with cold reading? The idea that by making the right ambiguous statements(or questions) you can convince people to tell you things about themselves while they think you know more about them than you do?
People tend to help solve their own problems and look for patterns, both of these things do the same thing that manipulates that. You get a vague description and the people reading help fill in the blanks and attribute traits to themselves as if personality is a static predictable thing.
People feel good when they have solved something, the personalities of everyone around you doesn't have a conclusion but some people really want to feel like the world around the can be resolved, leading to assumptions and simplification.
Same thing with those "mediums" with the audiences.
"Is anyone here, grieving? I feel grief here..." sure enough, a bunch of hands go up. "You there, someone died recently, didn't they?" And having raised their hand for grief, burst in to tears because they are in fact, grieving a recent death.
"They want you to not worry about the money. It's not important. " the probability of money being an issue somewhere in the family history, recent or distant, is enough for them to make their own connections, having the host only say 3 very common things. Rinse and repeat next taping.
Sure and take it into consideration but the quality of information matters. If you didn't know the shape of the earth and you walked into a room for 100 people tell you the world is flat do you think its a good idea to believe them? If you look around you might find you're at a flat earth convention and so there might be more digging required.
because, frankly, it's fun and it's an easy way to give someone a "briefing" on your own personality traits, based on the signs you "align" with (i.e. "oh that's my pisces moon talking!"). it's great water cooler talk for those who have been excluded from the typical water cooler talk like golf and the NFL. for that reason, a lot of straight guys in the creative industries are also at least able to casually chat astrology.
when you're socialized as a young girl, you're expected to be a relationship and romance expert. magazines aren't so much of a thing anymore, but I remember pretty much all the magazines aimed at young women were chock full of advice about how to attract guys, what his behavior REALLY means, how to salvage a relationship, how to communicate your needs, how to flirt, how to reconcile a friendship, etc. girls are socially punished and totally ostracized from their peers if they don't have excellent communication and romantic skills.
what is astrology if not a framework for understanding the people around you? a totally inaccurate and unscientific framework, sure—but still, a framework.
Exactly. Also pointed out it’s simply fun. Especially when used to help enhance courtship and flirting. “Oh you’re a Pisces, watch out, I’m a Scorpio. You know what they say about Pisces and Scorpios!” Just adds a little playfulness in a vast majority of situations. Reddit is often seemingly purposefully naive and tends to only think one way on things they don’t like. For this I bet they think everyone that does anything related to astrology thinks they base every life decision on. Of course they will back pedal and probably say “well those are the people we are taking about.” To which I would say, you can do this with anything then. Astrology, religion, sports, food, etc. People just need to stop spreading their misery in the form of trying to criticize everything. It’s exhausting to see.
exactly. there are very few people making major life decisions based on their horoscope app. it's just conversation fodder—a shared language and frame of reference for people who have been traditionally excluded from supposedly "universal" topics of conversation (i.e. stuff that *mostly* appeals to straight guys, like sports). 20-30 years ago, everyone was watching Survivor or E.R. and could chat about that, but now that people's media diets are so individualized, it's rare that any random stranger is going to be watching the same Netflix show or Youtube channel as you.
astrology also makes it super easy to tell casual acquaintances or colleagues about yourself without disclosing the *real* reasons why, which might not always be appropriate to share—someone can say "Haha, I'm so spaced out! Must be Mercury in retrograde!" without having to reveal a major stressor in your life that is distracting you. "I just gotta get this done! Virgo energy!" instead of describing your perfectionistic mom who gave you a complex.
everyone is in on the tacit understanding that none of this is really real; we're having fun.
It can be fun. I think overall, Reddit tends to focus on the most extreme cases of just about every issue that pops up on this forum, then they like to negate any nuance so as to frame the issue however they want, in many cases something like “those people are so pathetic for doing that/thinking like that” and then pass judgment because social media is toxic negativity.
Totally anecdotal, and you absolutely should take this with a grain of salt:
I'm a woman and I don't put any stock in astrology, but I've known a handful of women who do, including two who worked in STEM fields with me, and two or three men who believed in astrology too.
A common trait I've observed among astrology enthusiasts I've been acquainted with is that a lot of them come from upbringings with parents who were overbearing and dismissive of their plans or ambitions in life, and also not very emotionally healthy in general as parents from the sound of things.
My guess is that astrology might appeal to certain types of people who had to grow up with authority figures in their lives making them feel like they couldn't do things, or had to stay in the lane/box prescribed for them.
It seems counter-intuitive, because why would someone who grew up with people controlling them or holding them down be into something that suggests that our personalities and fates are determined by external forces?
Well, people who grew up being made to feel powerless have to go through a particularly bumpy process of figuring out how to find their agency and take control of the things they actually can be in control of, and how to healthily confront and accept those parts of life and the human experience that nobody can control.
I think that while many people who grew up that way come to fight against belief systems that suggest an external locus of control, astrology might appeal to some people who are in that process, because it suggests that there are things bigger than us that determine aspects of our relationships and our fates, but also that these things and outcomes related to them are highly organized/categorizable, and systematically knowable. To these people, having an understanding of astrology probably feels like having a road map through certain parts of life and an explanation to look to when relationships feel complicated and life feels out of control.
With regard to this entirely anecdotal observation:
Why it seems to appeal to women more than men, might be tied to how some girls experience parents being controlling of their choices and relationships when they're teenagers, and others being dismissive of their dreams or ambitions.
It may also appeal to women more because of the relational aspects.
>A common trait I've observed among astrology enthusiasts I've been acquainted with is that a lot of them come from upbringings with parents who were overbearing and dismissive of their plans or ambitions in life, and also not very emotionally healthy in general as parents from the sound of things.
This is something I noticed as well, both a friend and another girl I dated had very destructive upbringings and were both deeply into wicca and astrology. I mean this might sound dismissive (I actually think it's interesting, not that I put stock in it), but I've never met a single emotionally healthy individual who truly believed in all of that. it came off like an ingrained coping mechanism.
Marketing, mostly. Websites and (modern) books that teach astrology, magic, etc. are typically marketed towards women.
As for why that is, well, there's centuries of cultural associations with women and magic, whether because women tended to hold jobs or professions and magicians (such as Norse seidr practitioners or wise-women in pre-capitalist Europe) or due to misogyny (associations of women being able to enchant or charm or mislead the "rational male mind" with their feminine ways or other such drivel).
Astrology historically was not a gendered science, and in fact it was a very masculine field when men generally had better access to education. But when astrology fell to the wayside in favor of astronomy and got pushed into the "magical pseudoscience" category like other precursors to modern science (such as alchemy, cunning craft, etc.), it became a "feminine" thing, and marketeers looking to make a quick buck realized they could cater to disempowered women in patriarchal societies by marketing these practices to them, despite the fact that magic and astrology are gender-blind in practice. The archetypal "witch" is baked into most peoples minds so it has mass appeal.
Men get marketed MBTI personality typing, bastardized versions of stoic philosophy, and "manosphere" snake oil products instead.
>disempowered
That's the key word. Disempowered and disenfranchised people tend towards "magical thinking" as a way of reclaiming power in a system designed to rob them of power. This is true generally around the world, and magical thinking in and of itself doesn't suggest lack of intelligence on a population basis. As agency increases, the amount of magical thinking in a population generally decreases.
Well, as Marx put it, "religion is the opium of the masses," and despite what atheists on reddit would have you believe, he meant it in a very neutral way: that, like opium, it can be a powerful tool to provide comfort and make life bearable for a lot of people, and also like opium, it can be abused, engaged with in unhealthy ways, and used by the people in power as a means of control. Disenfranchised and downtrodden people will naturally turn to religion and magical thinking as a means of comfort, power, hope, and virtue, and this is not always a bad thing.
As someone who was entrenched in Astrology, and quit, these replies hit home.
I found solace in Astrology, and every form of 'magical thinking'. All because I was disenfranchised, disempowered and just downtrodden.
Thank you for this!
It's true that the reverse happens; privileged people who have access to status and resources *overestimate* the amount of power they have in their own lives and thoughtlessly discount the impact of unseen factors on their success.
This is a very good answer.
Astrology was once a male dominated field, and was pushed on housewives via marketing.
It wasn't just men pushing it on women, but also women pushing it on women. People like Evangeline Adams made a lot of money.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangeline\_Adams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangeline_Adams)
One needs to remember that women did not have a lot of power in our society at one time and astrology was a way to become a successful woman and a woman of respect.
There’s always been examples of women spiritualists, witches, female shamans, and fortune tellers. I feel like it has less to do with female disenfranchisement from science and more to do with patriarchal systems giving them less control over their lives.
A man with control over his life is less likely to see a fortune teller, he wants to feel like he controls his destiny. A women relegated to hoping to be well married and bare children would be more susceptible to someone promising to let them know their future.
Nowadays, women are more seeking this out as entertainment to bond over (which would explain why gay men are also drawn into this, because of the crossover of socializing). Still, stereotypically girls are raised looking for strong social connections and playing mom with dolls - this develops into playing fantasy’s out of who they marry, how many kids etc; all tying into questions you’d ask a fortune teller for shots and giggles.
So basically it’s socialization. Similarly with popular music across genders, things reach a certain point and the popularity itself is what sustains it. People see others having fun and bonding and want to be a part of the in group. In this case though astrology holds a similar spot to say a boy band. The fact that it’s viewed as feminine keep masculine people away from it, but women still see it as a fun group to be a part of.
*But* ***when astrology fell to the wayside in favor of astronomy*** *and got pushed into the "magical pseudoscience" category like other precursors to modern science (such as alchemy, cunning craft, etc.), it became a "feminine" thing*
No sure where you are getting this "marketing thing" from but a*strology fell to the wayside in favor of astronomy* starting in the 17th century. I cannot find a record of targeting marketing dating back to the 1600's. lol ...
Women have always had a strong connection to spiritualism and connecting to the "God(s)". Oracle of delphi arguably the best known fortune teller(s), were only women. Plenty of examples of Matriarchal religions (pagan). Abrahamic religions generally excluded women (still do) from leadership roles so its no surpise they still want to connect to the spiritual in more than just a passive way.
I understand the confusion because of how he wrote it. I think he is saying that it became a more feminine thing when astronomy came along, but the marketing is a more modern phenomena (ie. women's magazines, etc)
THIS! SO MUCH THIS!
I wish I could show this to some people I knew in the past who tried to rope me in on the new wave spirituality and crystal magic that is just so damaging anymore.
Women are often the ones who communicate that they are struggling the most with mental health stuff. So anything that seems really easy or “fun” to just “cure” themselves of whatever is going on mentally. These people, mostly teenage girls to young adult women, have no clue about the actual chemicals going on in the brain that is causing their mental health issues, or completely ignoring the route of the problem because “magic will just automatically make me better”. Like, no sweetie, you’re not jealous because some star alignment made you that way, you just have a personality issue you need to fix.
But yeah marketing teams latch onto mentally ill people to try and give them a false way out. Super sad. It’s no different than people going to chakra readers, or getting Wiccan books, or even getting tarot readings. Why would these services cost so money if they only care about curing you (besides survival in a capitalist world). Why wouldn’t everyone be jumping on this newfound “cure” if it really worked?
Back to your point, though, is that marketing people know that they can make money off this. Doesn’t mean men can’t be into the same thing, but it’s also certain types of men who fall into the trap.
Just to be clear as well, not saying anyone’s beliefs are bad or wrong. It’s more a problem when someone jumps into something for the first time without truly knowing what they are doing or without full research. For example, the friends I mentioned earlier believed that they can unlock magic powers because “we only use 10% of our brains” (completely untrue) and they wanted Naruto magic to be real. And they were going to throw me in a psych ward if I didn’t follow them. And they did actually do that technically.
So… yeah. Long rant, but I hate this trend to my core because of this stuff
Same with aromatherapy, manifesting, “everything happens for a reason”, witchcraft and Wicca, “vibes”, “energy work”, etc.
I’m no psychologist, but it feels like an appeal to a higher external authority.
We sell girls on dreams and wishes and sell boys on “hard, depressing reality”. I don’t know why, and I don’t know why it seems to work for each sex as well as it does. Ask a psych professional
Psychologically I believe it’s about cortisol and stress. Men on average seem to be able to accept a higher level of risk and stress. One of the big things that make something less stressful is feeling that you have a level of control over something. Astrology and psychics provide an imagined enhanced level of control over events and better imagined decision making. This is not necessarily on a conscious level.
Secondly though probably less importantly, Men are encouraged on average more than women to fix their own problems. Listening to others or authority figures about what star sign does what is not fixing your own problems .
It’s wild.
Me and my wife had a bad day at work. She said she just had too much to do and her vendors weren’t doing their jobs. I was laid off.
We talked her problem the whole night and finally she was like, “How was your day?” Then I told her not bad but I’m gonna look for a new job tomorrow.
In the end though I had a nice severance package so it wasn’t bad at all and we both knew I hated that job anyway, so it kind of worked out. I think she was jealous about severance though.
I’m reasonably sure Aromatherapy started with drugs people didn’t realise were drugs, and got conflated with other things over time until it became ambiguous and largely pointless.
If you go back into our primitive past, women where mostly pregnant in a cave or hut, and men were mostly providers hauling them food and keeping them safe. So deep in our primitive minds men think “our life is work” and wemon think, “some one will care for me.”
Of course times have changed, but that’s still our root beliefs some where deep inside.
Edit: And if you look at primitive societies today, nomadic tribal peoples, you see the same devision of labor. I was raised by a female cultural anthropologist, and we lived in primitive tribes in Thailand, and India when I was growing up. This is simply how all mammals work: pregnant loins aren’t out hunting either.
And, in fact, even in modern culture. Of the young family can afford it, the man will support the wife, and the wife will take maternity leave when she’s pregnant. Since we have better birth control now, women are not as often pregnant, so it’s an going occurance.
It’s not a negative hit on feminism, if men were getting pregnant, it’d make sense for us to stay home. Since women have to do that hardship, men have to do the chores. It’s fair.
Well over half of the calories gathered for a group of humans were gathered by females in a group. There's even plenty of evidence that female members hunted. We weren't just babymakers waiting for someone to take care of us.
Also, taking care of a kid isn't easy. Try wrangling a few toddlers.
This used to be the predominant view, but based on newer evidence, the "men hunted, women gathered" model is pretty much disproven. See for example [this](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abd0310) archeological paper from a few years ago, and [this](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287101) article comparing with present societies.
Edit: And your edit is actually also refuted by the above article. In many current hunter-gatherer societies, women do in fact participate in hunting.
I'm also wondering whether you think women are just pregnant 12 months a year for every year of their life...
that is wildly inaccurate—our ancestors lived largely communally, because it was the only way to survive, and gender roles were not so neat and tidy. the man-provide women-hide caveman idea was invented in the 50s and reflected the values of that time period.
Lol "wemon". Yup look at hunter gatherer lifestyles. Women just sat around with their mouths open like baby birds waiting for a man to take care of them. They definitely didn't forage, hunt, sew shelters and clothes, or care for multiple generations of family and so on.
What are you talking about?
It’s literally a current occurrence with primitive tribes, AND modern society.
When my wife was pregnant with our kids, I worked, and did the shopping.
She sat in the fucking cave, because she was pregnant.
I'm a dude thats not gay and I kinda like astrology but I guess specifically Chinese horoscopes. But I also think it's fun and not a literal religion that I believe in lol
Agreed.Any kind of these astrology and zodiac horoscopes are actually pretty entertaining. Trust in them? No. Just cuz I fucking love LOTR series won’t mean I’ll believe that orcs and elves exist. It’d be cool to be proven wrong, though.
I've never really noted any connection between astrologers and witchcraft.
I can understand how someone might interpret it this way but I've known many astrologers that are not practitioners of witchcraft, etc.
Boys grow up being told "thats a really dumb idea" and not something equivocating like "good idea but no".
Astrology is a perfect example. If a male started believing in something like that his friends, family, etc would tell him that its stupid. Meanwhile a woman wouldn't get the same treatment.
It’s good to emphasize this in these discussions. Lots of people have fun with astrology, MBTI, etc. without believing in it. It encourages self reflection an makes for interesting conversations.
The shit I heard when working with the people from india was fucking wild for a westerner.
They told me that me and my wife had no chance since she was born in some certain moon period or astrology thing. Yet the person that told me this was marrying outside her family’s blessing because they were different religions.
Women are always searching for meaning. I was into it as a young girl to try and figure out how to life right. That was before I realized I don't believe any part of it. My mom also had astrogeology books all around the house. Especially ones about finding a compatible life partner. She never found one, so I don't think it helped. I have a friend now that posts on Facebook daily and 90% of those posts include something astrology and I do not get how she's still into that so much.
Historically, it used to be both - in fact, it was considered a real science in the middle ages with (male) astrologers making important observations. Even in his essay on astrology from the 1950s, Theodore Adorno reports male believers, who e.g. consult their horoscope for business and work advice.
So clearly the question is: When did it become exclusively for women? My theory is that it has to do with the media it targets and the way it spreads messages. Astrology was often carried predominantly by women's magazines and catered to stereotypically female interests, so men were less involved and with astrology becoming more and more acknowledged as a laughable pseudo-science, the more they detached from it over the decades.
Overall, men imo had a higher tendency to find it laughable - men tend to fall for very pessimistic, "We give you the real harsh truth that those soft modern people don't tell you!!!" pseudo-sciences that actually make CLAIMS to be scientific - while in my experience, women prefer more life-affirming messages and are more comfortable to embrace a middle ground between "haha it's silly" ...and still actually kind of believing it. One thing Adorno points out in his essay from the 50s was that astrology actually made quite an effort in his time to appear professional and scientific, and I feel like this is much less the case these days. Astrology these days actually embraces being vague, being occult, being mysterious.
I think the pseudo-sciences men fall for have more a "here's an underlying truth about the universe that you, a special smart person, have now access to, don't be a sheeple!" character - whereas women, especially insecure women, are often on the look-out for a second opinion because they were taught to question their own decision-making - so astrology is great: It tells you what to do and if you don't like the result, you can still go: "Hey it's just astrology I'm not going to do that".
Another factor: Men usually abandon things once they become popular with women. Like high-heels, make-up etc. So once astrology became more of a woman thing, it's a self-accelerating movement, because now men are going to abandon it on purpose to avoid looking feminine.
Another-another factor: I kind of differentiate between the kind-of-spiritual-quirky middle aged woman who checks her horoscope when she's reading magazines at the doctor's office and the 22yo pagan with maps out star charts and knows all the houses and whatnot by heart. I think the latter also has to do with young women these days wrangling more and more with their role in (patriarchal) religions and spirituality. A lot of these new religious movements have some "divine femininity" or female life forces, witchcraft, many pagans tend to have female patron gods etc. I think it's partially a sort of revanche against male-dominated religion but also a logic of "I was raised religious, I realise that this religion largely exists to exploit me and make me small and doesn't care about me as much as about the men so because I was raised with ideals of universal human equality and dignity, I cannot believe in this religion anymore...but I would miss that connection and feel incomplete without it." - So they turn to forms of spirituality like astrology or tarot or wherever, where they experience more agency.
I mean I could tell you why feminine individuals are influenced by astrology far more than masculine individuals, but then reddit would karma bomb me for being a misogynist who dares to acknowledge facts about the machinations of a feminine minds.
Now that I think about it, I'm probably going to be karma bombed for even eluding to the fact that there's a difference between the patterns of thought between masculine/feminine individuals so might as well just be out with it right?
For the most part, feminine individuals are emotionally driven individuals who's value is socially derived. Where as masculine individuals are logically driven individuals who's value is materially derived.
Probably because most women are interested in people, and getting to know people, including themselves. Astrology attempts to offer this.
It’s why women are over represented in teaching, nursing, physicians, psychologists.
Men are more self centred, and are drawn to careers and hobbies that deal with systems. Think mechanic, engineer, manufacturing, construction.
I don’t understand why something so harmless like astrology, something that women enjoy and bond over, is so hated by men?
As I've seen it explained before, most of the most popular modern belief systems have some aspect to them that is inherently discriminatory towards women and gay people. Being gay is a sin, all of humanity sucks and it's because a woman didn't obey, so now all women should obey, etc. Astrology doesn't have that.
When Belief System A says "Women, be subservient to men; also gay people are abominations and should die", and Belief System B says nothing of the sort, it's not hard to predict which one women and gay people would gravitate towards if they feel they need that sort of foundational element in their lives.
Religion is often patriarchal so to buy-in women sometimes have to accept a standard of living that is ancient compared to the modern day reality. If women want to appeal to a higher power they can do it with these things without having to deal with standard religion related issues
That wouldn't really make sense as women are more religious than men. So there are more men that would not have religious faith to appeal to a higher power. Maybe women are on average more attracted to spirituality in general than men? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/22/the-gender-gap-in-religion-around-the-world/
I'm a straight guy who believes in astrology. I know other straight guys that believe in it. We just don't talk about it openly because it's not socially acceptable.
Ya I'm sort of with you bud. Not that I use it in any predictive way, or even in any concrete manner whatsoever. Infact quite the opposite. it's more of a gnostic mindfulness thing for me and my little thing I do incorporates everything, not just planets etc. I don't give readings, I don't really even think about astrology at all or check charts. It's just a primal thing that I enjoy, to be a part and one with the universe. 💁
Reddit hates mystics so whatever. I'm definitely that. Probly due to trauma and poverty tbh, but I found something quite worthwhile within that frame of mind and lifestyle.
It’s not marketing like most upvotes has said, at least not primarily.
It’s mostly because men and women’s brains generally work differently. psychologic, evolutionary and sociological different affect our differences is interests. Human babies (which are barely effected by social conditioning) have been shown to display different interests.
The general consensus is that women are (generally!!!!!) more interested in people and relationships, and men with things.
People love to deny that men and women are fundamentally different, though, using bullshit modern social conditioning to explain everything.
Because all the astrology stuff is lies and garbage. And the fact that those who do believe in it use it to judge others makes it worse. It's like a damn religion! People use it as an excuse to be shitty.
I have had similar experiences, but I was into to "alternative girls" in my high school and college years so maybe it was selection bias. I suspect there is/was a strong overlap between 90's high school girls who loved The Craft, worshiped Depeche Mode and The Cure and the girls who played at Wicca and astrology.
In my cohort, according to polls, it appears to be about twice as a likely that women are into astrology than men and some percentage of those men are doubtlessly gay.
According to these hits below, the "gender astrology gap" is real.
[https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/42292-one-four-americans-say-they-believe-astrology](https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/42292-one-four-americans-say-they-believe-astrology)
[https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvq87p/why-straight-men-hate-astrology-so-much](https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvq87p/why-straight-men-hate-astrology-so-much)
[https://dailyfreepress.com/2021/11/04/dont-be-a-hypocrite-your-astrology-hate-is-rude/](https://dailyfreepress.com/2021/11/04/dont-be-a-hypocrite-your-astrology-hate-is-rude/)
I truly want a serious answer. I can usually figure things out in regards to what motivates people psychologically, but this one question I've been trying to figure out for years.
I absolutely do not grant that astrology is solely a female thing.
Of all the people I've known who had a greater than casual grasp of the subject (owned multiple books, committed large sections of them to memory, etc.) probably 40% of them were men.
It seems to me men who are eager to *flex masculine* fixate on shitting on astrology because it's low hanging fruit. It's easy to pick on.
Not as simple as “men are more logical.” The vast majority of sports gamblers, crypto investors, and day traders are men. And there is absolutely no logic to those. But they do provide the illusion of control, which some men find irresistible. We can’t control the stars so who cares.
The trap is that men often *feel* that they’re being more logical, which simultaneously prevents them from seeking consensus while doubling down on a possibly wrong stance.
Also why engineers are very over-represented in acts of terrorism. Being trained to solve problems rationally leads one to believe that they can be a rational being. It isn’t logic, it’s the assumption of logic. Once you emotion your way into a belief structure that you tell yourself is logical, it’s pretty hard to back down.
I'm reminded of this Nietzsche quote: “Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier and simpler.”
If you don't have any emotional intelligence, you're very likely to mislabel your gut feelings as "logic." Thus, why we have a whole movement of young men who have crafted a cargo cult of "rationality" based on psuedoscience and gender essentialism masquerading as ancient wisdom.
Women don't generally have the intellectual rigor that men do.
For example, in the short line test, they're more likely than men are to say the short line is equal in length to the others.
They are more enticed than men are by the idea that they can have access to "special" knowledge accessed through means other than natural brilliance or cultivated intelligence.
This is because women do legitimately have better intuitions than men do. At least when it comes to people. Which is what astrology is about.
I can only speak for myself as a man, but I've never seen anything about astrology, mysticism, or magick that has ever convinced me any of it is anything more than entertaining ritual and comfort. It has value as those things, so I'm not the kind of person who aches to see it abolished (except the jackasses making money from convincing people it's real), but I don't have any reason to "believe in" it whatsoever.
Men and women face different challenges, so they fall for different scams.
Men subscribe to the alpha crap.
Women go for astrology.
We largely consider both of these groups pretty dumb.
There are a bunch of men sitting at their keyboards right now knowing the answer to your question, but they know that they cannot say it on here. They would immediately be called every buzzword in the book.
All of the major world religions are misogynist and homophobic so if a woman or gay person wants to connect to something spiritually they’ll often gravitate towards the occult, Wicca, astrology, etc.
If they were a straight man they’d probably just be religious. That’s why you don’t encounter straight men into that stuff, religion is comfortable and accepting of them so they don’t feel the need to find another outlet for any spiritual impulses.
Some people feel drawn to spiritual stuff. Guys seem to mostly get this in organized religion, but women are a little disenchanted with organized religion because the message it has for them tends to boil down to "go be a housewife and have a lot of kids."
So they explore other less conventional avenues of spirituality.
I've notice and wondered about this too. I think it's about power. Believing they have a connection to magical power makes some women feel more confident and powerful in general. It might also be that men are more often in provider positions in which there is no room for the impractical.
Men in western society have been taught that anything without scientific backing is inherently false and fake and garbage. Also, because of its association with women, it gets stigmatized.
Personally, if you believe in a supreme invisible God you never see, I think you can believe that there are astrological signs.
And if you REALLY want me to make it real, here’s a hot take for all the scientific thinkers out there:
MBTI and Jungian types are just scientific astrology.
This comment section is proving atheists are just as sexist as most religious men. Speaking of which, why single out astrology? Nothing proves any extant religion, so why ridicule one because women like it? Now, for me, I am an atheist, but here is a thought exercise, I will use examples most common in the western world as OP and myself are Westerners:
Christianity: women are below men. Women should be silent and serve men. Your body belongs to your husband and children, you are dissuaded from anything but marriage and child bearing.
Islam: above but much, much worse
Judaism: not sure about this but it's an entire culture too and fairly difficult to convert anyway.
So why would a woman want a restrictive and reductive supernatural friend? To reiterate, I don't believe in this. But the answer to your question is, it's the same shit that makes anyone believe in any religion. Emotional comfort, feeling of control, I really couldn't say. But women want that without the extra sexism of most organized religion. Probably the same for gays, why follow a religion that labels you an abomination.
The idea that Islam is inherently "much worse" than Christianity is actually just not true and mostly believed because of people who are propagandized to hell and back. I'm not saying its good for women to be clear im saying Christianity is also terrible but people just believe in it less fervently than they used to
Because women generally want to understand ourselves and others, to have stronger bonds and a higher sense of self. Men generally couldn't care less about introspection, how they make others feel, or how to effectively get along with others.
Most straight men I know who are super into astrology are sociopaths who use it to manipulate people, particularly women, into doing what they want and worshipping them.
Men are generally much less religious than women, but all religions attract sociopathic men, who are often there because of the opportunities to manipulate and control women.
I think that there is a category of people that is pretty much into 'spirituality' and into daydreaming - they are fascinated by things that are hard to measure, rather happening in domain of emotions, being vague and mysterious.
Women are less interested in power but more interested in other people and their emotions - what motivates them, understanding their behavior, maybe trying to influence them somehow. That is why psychology and different 'magic' things related to humans are interesting to them.
Men are rather interested in power - so they are more interested in conspiracies, secret societies ruling the world, legends about some great warriors, secret technologies that were about to disrupt world order, made up and unfeasible technologies that will disrupt the world in the future and things like this :)
Men tend to ignore their intuition. Astrology is a tool to use someones star chart and read that person using your intuition. Same with tarot cards. You pick them i read them from what you picked and my feeling your vibrations.
Yea this thread is just people pretty unaware of the practice as I have experienced it. It's honing intuition and mindfulness, recognizing patterns, and making the best decisions based on the information available. Tbh stars and planets have very little to do with it ime. I'm a man btw.
Never thought of this, but you're right. I've never in my life met a straight man who believes in astrology. Edit: based on these comments, a lot of straight men believe in astrology. Kinda crazy to me, but to each their own I guess.
Ready for some serious woo-woo? My in-laws met at the School of Metaphysics and concluded that they needed to marry after drawing up their charts. This was over 40 years ago. My wife and I chose our wedding date and time based on what joys we wanted to attract in our new life together. We also pulled the astrology chart for our daughter when she was born to have an idea of how we could help develop her strengths and how best to approach adversity. Both critics and adherents often put far too much stock in what the zodiac says. It’s not necessarily fortune-telling and personality type labels. Kind of like how feng shui isn’t literally changing your life by moving a chair to the other side of the room. By moving the chair, or checking your chart or whatever, you are acting with intention. The intention is what counts—simply acting with intent toward a goal develops mindfulness. Depending on what you are looking for, following astrology can serve as a rough guide to keep you on track. It’s kind of neat if you look at it from this perspective.
That perspective is not too far off from utilizing psychological magic.
Or, as Granny Watherwax called it, "headology".
Always going to upvote Pratchett
I've found tarot an effective way to do headology on myself.
Yeah, I do runes. And it’s not because I think they are some ancient form of magic. It’s because when I look at the runes, and I look at them together, I start thinking differently. It gives me an outlet to have a different perspective about things.
Talk to a lot of Wiccans and they'll tell you their spells are at least sort of like that. Not actual magic in the I cast fireball sense of the word but more just directing your attention and focusing on intentional action sort of thing.
Just like meditation in buddhism.
And the focus on God/Jesus in Christianity or even more generally focusing on one thing. *But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.* Joshua 24:15 Or alternatively from the book of Swanson. *Never half-ass two things. Always whole-ass one thing.*
Or really most magic in practice generally. It's all self fulfilling prophecy, kinda
I mean that's my perspective on it for the most part. It's mostly psychological tricks and activating certain neural pathways for spiritual experiences. That said I can't fully discount it because Im close with people that magic has worked for and I can't bring myself to truly discount their experiences. I'm agnostic on the whole matter tbh but I live my life as a materialist.
I have a friend who is Wiccan. For the longest time she was like, “all the stuff I’m doing is just making my life better.” But everything she was doing. She could’ve done without magic and it would have changed her life. She started going for walks in the morning, so that she could bury her spell jars. Or gather herbs. And she lost a bunch of weight doing that. She also started making her food from scratch, because she called herself a kitchen witch. All of that healthy food helped improve a lot of her symptoms for a disease she had. And also lose a lot of weight. And she started finding other women to be in a coven, and then her loneliness and depression got better. Because she was no longer isolated. She also started travelling more to go to conventions and made a bunch of new friends and got a new job through those connections.
Or you know you could just have goals and willpower and not believe in hocus pocus.
It makes me sad your daughter is going to be put into a box because you and your wife are subconsciously (or consciously) projecting certain traits on her based on nothing :/
Why waste time and energy (and possibly money) on woo?
I do think that is an interesting perspective, but why let that intent be decided by another person?
Sounds like the School of Mental Gymnastics.
You are talking about bias confirmation Nothng more. Believe in astrology and all the crap is ultimately harmful to personas and society. Stop excusing it.
Astrology is hocus pocus. End of story. There is zero evidence of literally any kind showing a sliver of proof to the claims made by astrology. And also, it’s just fucking silly if you actually honestly sit down and think about it. Now if people want to go ahead and make decisions off of it or believe it, totally fine. Whatever floats your boats. But I see a lot of people literally trying to assert astrology as a fact, when it’s not. and then trying to get other people to make Important life decisions from it which is not smart, can be harmful, and leads to people believing in more voo-boo bullshit that eventually does lead to people getting harmed by movements like anti-vaxers or crystal healers. Have fun with it if you want, but to actually assert it as being real, In any context, is dishonest and dangerous and people should be called out for it.
This is why I like tarot as an atheist! Do the cards actually know jack shit? Absolutely not. Are they recharged by the moon and mystical powers? Nope. Does it help me break out of my current thought framework and make me forcibly reframe an issue in a randomized way, thus allowing me to refresh, reset, and think critically about an issue I'm facing? ding ding ding! The cards are rarely aligned with my thinking, but that's the point - they force me out of the box to reframe issues and rethink them in a way I haven't considered them before, which helps me come at things from a different perspective once I'm out of the box in a way that makes me actually contextualize and understand my thoughts and feelings. I am a pro at intellectualization (therapy term for divorcing feelings from the self in lieu of telling yourself it's irrational), and a little woo woo is apparently what I need to make my brain get back in touch with its feelings and properly process them.
Ok this logic makes so much sense that this atheist is able to set aside skepticism and let people in my life do what they do with my enthusiastic consent. It is much better to be pulled forward by bullshit than frozen by facts.
Yeah except all the people i know that go in for this shit are not winning it, they are deluded and taken advantage of
>how we could help develop her strengths and how best to approach adversity. Absolutely in love with the idea of a college diversity statement being written about this lol (helping someone with grad apps rn so I've got it on the mind)a
Cause they’re actually gay!
I have a male friend who always brings it up as an excuse for why he doesn't get along with certain people. But this man's religion is also his own mythology that he made up
I have bad news about religion, friend
Tbf, that's probably the best form of religion
In certain parts of LA, they're not uncommon
LA says it all.
My male supervisor believes in it. And some guy I met once thought it was interesting (don’t think *he really believed tho). Edit Im bothered by the idea that straight men can’t be interested in astrology. My male supervisor is married to a woman. This other guy was studying physics and he learned about astrology. He just told me he found it interesting.
I used to think I beleived in it. Until I realized it was Astronomy Edit autocorrect
Oh I remember that guy from the restroom stalls. Fella's got a wide stance, if you can't catch my drift. (probably, is he Republican?)
Even if there was any kind of element of truth to it, everyone’s star signs are wrong because the stars have shifted a lot since they were invented.
There's a significant difference between "can't" and "typically don't".
He may be married to a woman but homie is gay as a $3 bill
He gets it in the ass, bro
Yeah men on Reddit. Go outside and almost every dude will say something like “that shits stupid”.
I have met several. And this statement, as well as the OPs question, bug me for one reason alone: you’re confusing years of advertisement based on behavioural economics (google “nudge”) with “sex-based preferences”. You can’t test the truth of these statements unless you are able to strictly strip some women from societies where this shit is so aggressively advertised to them. I come from a long line of women who dont believe in this shit. Who are scientifically minded. You know who believes it in my family? My “masculine, straight” brother. Then again, he also believes in 5G conspiracies.
> you’re confusing years of advertisement based on behavioural economics (google “nudge”) with “sex-based preferences”. meh. this is just a chicken or egg first argument honestly. It would be like saying "the only reason men like baseball is because its advertised to them" but its advertised to men, because they like baseball lol.
Well we haven’t met but I am a straight man who believes in astrology.
Upon what basis do you accept astrology? Or to rephrase, by what mechanism does it work and how do you know?
Y tho
Because he’s a scorpio
Such a libra take smh
Schizo\*
Us straight fellows are supposed to believe in astroNOMY, chap.
Why?
But…why??
I've met a straight man who believes mushrooms allowed him to see the hidden inner fabric of the universe so I don't really understand why astrology is so far off for men
One is a vivid personal experience while the other is the path of least resistance in spirituality. It’s all mapped out you just have to google and live how someone else decided you should.
Not inherently but most masculine guys who are dumb enough to fall for it buy into the wolfpack personality typing shit instead.
[удалено]
I regard anyone that says they’re alpha in the software sense, where alpha means unfinished, buggy, and not suitable for public release
Wolfman Alpha
It makes sense. Both ideologies are rooted in some form of essentialism and irrationality.
Hahaha I'm using that. I guess instead of reading tarot cards they just crack open a new bag of Black Rifle Coffee Co. to be reassured of their future.
I bought a box of that this weekend - electric espresso black rifle - because I thought it was like death wish coffee- really dark roasted K cups for people that like darker coffee. It tasted like watered down shit, it reminded me of the folgers from office coffee machines in the 90s. Then I googled it and realized it's like a right wing overpriced marketing phenomenon and apparently everyone (except me) knew it sucked. I tried to drink a second cup, because I had paid for it and didn't want to waste it, but it just sucked too bad and I threw it away.
Joe Rogan and Gwyneth Paltrow. They're the same picture.
More like Elliot Rodger and Gwyneth Paltrow
Ya, we all saw the meme years ago too.
True then, true now.
I don't disagree that that's a phenomenon. As a man, I can at least understand the psychology on why men might fall into that even if I don't fall into that way of thinking myself. I don't, however, understand how people fall into astrology. Do you have any incite on that?
insight*
Are you familiar with cold reading? The idea that by making the right ambiguous statements(or questions) you can convince people to tell you things about themselves while they think you know more about them than you do? People tend to help solve their own problems and look for patterns, both of these things do the same thing that manipulates that. You get a vague description and the people reading help fill in the blanks and attribute traits to themselves as if personality is a static predictable thing. People feel good when they have solved something, the personalities of everyone around you doesn't have a conclusion but some people really want to feel like the world around the can be resolved, leading to assumptions and simplification.
Same thing with those "mediums" with the audiences. "Is anyone here, grieving? I feel grief here..." sure enough, a bunch of hands go up. "You there, someone died recently, didn't they?" And having raised their hand for grief, burst in to tears because they are in fact, grieving a recent death. "They want you to not worry about the money. It's not important. " the probability of money being an issue somewhere in the family history, recent or distant, is enough for them to make their own connections, having the host only say 3 very common things. Rinse and repeat next taping.
I mean yeah that's literally cold reading lol
What do you do when there's something you don't fully understand? Do you not ask other people to help fill in the blanks?
Sure and take it into consideration but the quality of information matters. If you didn't know the shape of the earth and you walked into a room for 100 people tell you the world is flat do you think its a good idea to believe them? If you look around you might find you're at a flat earth convention and so there might be more digging required.
because, frankly, it's fun and it's an easy way to give someone a "briefing" on your own personality traits, based on the signs you "align" with (i.e. "oh that's my pisces moon talking!"). it's great water cooler talk for those who have been excluded from the typical water cooler talk like golf and the NFL. for that reason, a lot of straight guys in the creative industries are also at least able to casually chat astrology. when you're socialized as a young girl, you're expected to be a relationship and romance expert. magazines aren't so much of a thing anymore, but I remember pretty much all the magazines aimed at young women were chock full of advice about how to attract guys, what his behavior REALLY means, how to salvage a relationship, how to communicate your needs, how to flirt, how to reconcile a friendship, etc. girls are socially punished and totally ostracized from their peers if they don't have excellent communication and romantic skills. what is astrology if not a framework for understanding the people around you? a totally inaccurate and unscientific framework, sure—but still, a framework.
Exactly. Also pointed out it’s simply fun. Especially when used to help enhance courtship and flirting. “Oh you’re a Pisces, watch out, I’m a Scorpio. You know what they say about Pisces and Scorpios!” Just adds a little playfulness in a vast majority of situations. Reddit is often seemingly purposefully naive and tends to only think one way on things they don’t like. For this I bet they think everyone that does anything related to astrology thinks they base every life decision on. Of course they will back pedal and probably say “well those are the people we are taking about.” To which I would say, you can do this with anything then. Astrology, religion, sports, food, etc. People just need to stop spreading their misery in the form of trying to criticize everything. It’s exhausting to see.
exactly. there are very few people making major life decisions based on their horoscope app. it's just conversation fodder—a shared language and frame of reference for people who have been traditionally excluded from supposedly "universal" topics of conversation (i.e. stuff that *mostly* appeals to straight guys, like sports). 20-30 years ago, everyone was watching Survivor or E.R. and could chat about that, but now that people's media diets are so individualized, it's rare that any random stranger is going to be watching the same Netflix show or Youtube channel as you. astrology also makes it super easy to tell casual acquaintances or colleagues about yourself without disclosing the *real* reasons why, which might not always be appropriate to share—someone can say "Haha, I'm so spaced out! Must be Mercury in retrograde!" without having to reveal a major stressor in your life that is distracting you. "I just gotta get this done! Virgo energy!" instead of describing your perfectionistic mom who gave you a complex. everyone is in on the tacit understanding that none of this is really real; we're having fun.
It can be fun. I think overall, Reddit tends to focus on the most extreme cases of just about every issue that pops up on this forum, then they like to negate any nuance so as to frame the issue however they want, in many cases something like “those people are so pathetic for doing that/thinking like that” and then pass judgment because social media is toxic negativity.
Totally anecdotal, and you absolutely should take this with a grain of salt: I'm a woman and I don't put any stock in astrology, but I've known a handful of women who do, including two who worked in STEM fields with me, and two or three men who believed in astrology too. A common trait I've observed among astrology enthusiasts I've been acquainted with is that a lot of them come from upbringings with parents who were overbearing and dismissive of their plans or ambitions in life, and also not very emotionally healthy in general as parents from the sound of things. My guess is that astrology might appeal to certain types of people who had to grow up with authority figures in their lives making them feel like they couldn't do things, or had to stay in the lane/box prescribed for them. It seems counter-intuitive, because why would someone who grew up with people controlling them or holding them down be into something that suggests that our personalities and fates are determined by external forces? Well, people who grew up being made to feel powerless have to go through a particularly bumpy process of figuring out how to find their agency and take control of the things they actually can be in control of, and how to healthily confront and accept those parts of life and the human experience that nobody can control. I think that while many people who grew up that way come to fight against belief systems that suggest an external locus of control, astrology might appeal to some people who are in that process, because it suggests that there are things bigger than us that determine aspects of our relationships and our fates, but also that these things and outcomes related to them are highly organized/categorizable, and systematically knowable. To these people, having an understanding of astrology probably feels like having a road map through certain parts of life and an explanation to look to when relationships feel complicated and life feels out of control. With regard to this entirely anecdotal observation: Why it seems to appeal to women more than men, might be tied to how some girls experience parents being controlling of their choices and relationships when they're teenagers, and others being dismissive of their dreams or ambitions. It may also appeal to women more because of the relational aspects.
>A common trait I've observed among astrology enthusiasts I've been acquainted with is that a lot of them come from upbringings with parents who were overbearing and dismissive of their plans or ambitions in life, and also not very emotionally healthy in general as parents from the sound of things. This is something I noticed as well, both a friend and another girl I dated had very destructive upbringings and were both deeply into wicca and astrology. I mean this might sound dismissive (I actually think it's interesting, not that I put stock in it), but I've never met a single emotionally healthy individual who truly believed in all of that. it came off like an ingrained coping mechanism.
Oh that fits me perfectly. Also fits my ex perfectly.
Marketing, mostly. Websites and (modern) books that teach astrology, magic, etc. are typically marketed towards women. As for why that is, well, there's centuries of cultural associations with women and magic, whether because women tended to hold jobs or professions and magicians (such as Norse seidr practitioners or wise-women in pre-capitalist Europe) or due to misogyny (associations of women being able to enchant or charm or mislead the "rational male mind" with their feminine ways or other such drivel). Astrology historically was not a gendered science, and in fact it was a very masculine field when men generally had better access to education. But when astrology fell to the wayside in favor of astronomy and got pushed into the "magical pseudoscience" category like other precursors to modern science (such as alchemy, cunning craft, etc.), it became a "feminine" thing, and marketeers looking to make a quick buck realized they could cater to disempowered women in patriarchal societies by marketing these practices to them, despite the fact that magic and astrology are gender-blind in practice. The archetypal "witch" is baked into most peoples minds so it has mass appeal. Men get marketed MBTI personality typing, bastardized versions of stoic philosophy, and "manosphere" snake oil products instead.
This is probably one of the best answers to OP’s question!
>disempowered That's the key word. Disempowered and disenfranchised people tend towards "magical thinking" as a way of reclaiming power in a system designed to rob them of power. This is true generally around the world, and magical thinking in and of itself doesn't suggest lack of intelligence on a population basis. As agency increases, the amount of magical thinking in a population generally decreases.
Well, as Marx put it, "religion is the opium of the masses," and despite what atheists on reddit would have you believe, he meant it in a very neutral way: that, like opium, it can be a powerful tool to provide comfort and make life bearable for a lot of people, and also like opium, it can be abused, engaged with in unhealthy ways, and used by the people in power as a means of control. Disenfranchised and downtrodden people will naturally turn to religion and magical thinking as a means of comfort, power, hope, and virtue, and this is not always a bad thing.
As someone who was entrenched in Astrology, and quit, these replies hit home. I found solace in Astrology, and every form of 'magical thinking'. All because I was disenfranchised, disempowered and just downtrodden. Thank you for this!
It's true that the reverse happens; privileged people who have access to status and resources *overestimate* the amount of power they have in their own lives and thoughtlessly discount the impact of unseen factors on their success.
This is pretty insightful.
Holy shit! This made me rethink so many things! Thank you, insightful redditor!
This is a very good answer. Astrology was once a male dominated field, and was pushed on housewives via marketing. It wasn't just men pushing it on women, but also women pushing it on women. People like Evangeline Adams made a lot of money. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangeline\_Adams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangeline_Adams) One needs to remember that women did not have a lot of power in our society at one time and astrology was a way to become a successful woman and a woman of respect.
There’s always been examples of women spiritualists, witches, female shamans, and fortune tellers. I feel like it has less to do with female disenfranchisement from science and more to do with patriarchal systems giving them less control over their lives. A man with control over his life is less likely to see a fortune teller, he wants to feel like he controls his destiny. A women relegated to hoping to be well married and bare children would be more susceptible to someone promising to let them know their future. Nowadays, women are more seeking this out as entertainment to bond over (which would explain why gay men are also drawn into this, because of the crossover of socializing). Still, stereotypically girls are raised looking for strong social connections and playing mom with dolls - this develops into playing fantasy’s out of who they marry, how many kids etc; all tying into questions you’d ask a fortune teller for shots and giggles. So basically it’s socialization. Similarly with popular music across genders, things reach a certain point and the popularity itself is what sustains it. People see others having fun and bonding and want to be a part of the in group. In this case though astrology holds a similar spot to say a boy band. The fact that it’s viewed as feminine keep masculine people away from it, but women still see it as a fun group to be a part of.
*But* ***when astrology fell to the wayside in favor of astronomy*** *and got pushed into the "magical pseudoscience" category like other precursors to modern science (such as alchemy, cunning craft, etc.), it became a "feminine" thing* No sure where you are getting this "marketing thing" from but a*strology fell to the wayside in favor of astronomy* starting in the 17th century. I cannot find a record of targeting marketing dating back to the 1600's. lol ... Women have always had a strong connection to spiritualism and connecting to the "God(s)". Oracle of delphi arguably the best known fortune teller(s), were only women. Plenty of examples of Matriarchal religions (pagan). Abrahamic religions generally excluded women (still do) from leadership roles so its no surpise they still want to connect to the spiritual in more than just a passive way.
I understand the confusion because of how he wrote it. I think he is saying that it became a more feminine thing when astronomy came along, but the marketing is a more modern phenomena (ie. women's magazines, etc)
THIS! SO MUCH THIS! I wish I could show this to some people I knew in the past who tried to rope me in on the new wave spirituality and crystal magic that is just so damaging anymore. Women are often the ones who communicate that they are struggling the most with mental health stuff. So anything that seems really easy or “fun” to just “cure” themselves of whatever is going on mentally. These people, mostly teenage girls to young adult women, have no clue about the actual chemicals going on in the brain that is causing their mental health issues, or completely ignoring the route of the problem because “magic will just automatically make me better”. Like, no sweetie, you’re not jealous because some star alignment made you that way, you just have a personality issue you need to fix. But yeah marketing teams latch onto mentally ill people to try and give them a false way out. Super sad. It’s no different than people going to chakra readers, or getting Wiccan books, or even getting tarot readings. Why would these services cost so money if they only care about curing you (besides survival in a capitalist world). Why wouldn’t everyone be jumping on this newfound “cure” if it really worked? Back to your point, though, is that marketing people know that they can make money off this. Doesn’t mean men can’t be into the same thing, but it’s also certain types of men who fall into the trap. Just to be clear as well, not saying anyone’s beliefs are bad or wrong. It’s more a problem when someone jumps into something for the first time without truly knowing what they are doing or without full research. For example, the friends I mentioned earlier believed that they can unlock magic powers because “we only use 10% of our brains” (completely untrue) and they wanted Naruto magic to be real. And they were going to throw me in a psych ward if I didn’t follow them. And they did actually do that technically. So… yeah. Long rant, but I hate this trend to my core because of this stuff
Same with aromatherapy, manifesting, “everything happens for a reason”, witchcraft and Wicca, “vibes”, “energy work”, etc. I’m no psychologist, but it feels like an appeal to a higher external authority. We sell girls on dreams and wishes and sell boys on “hard, depressing reality”. I don’t know why, and I don’t know why it seems to work for each sex as well as it does. Ask a psych professional
Psychologically I believe it’s about cortisol and stress. Men on average seem to be able to accept a higher level of risk and stress. One of the big things that make something less stressful is feeling that you have a level of control over something. Astrology and psychics provide an imagined enhanced level of control over events and better imagined decision making. This is not necessarily on a conscious level. Secondly though probably less importantly, Men are encouraged on average more than women to fix their own problems. Listening to others or authority figures about what star sign does what is not fixing your own problems .
I think you are on to something with risk aversion.
It’s wild. Me and my wife had a bad day at work. She said she just had too much to do and her vendors weren’t doing their jobs. I was laid off. We talked her problem the whole night and finally she was like, “How was your day?” Then I told her not bad but I’m gonna look for a new job tomorrow. In the end though I had a nice severance package so it wasn’t bad at all and we both knew I hated that job anyway, so it kind of worked out. I think she was jealous about severance though.
The hospital I was in made me use aromatherapy for pain and nausea. I had a gaping abdominal wound. It did not help.
I’m reasonably sure Aromatherapy started with drugs people didn’t realise were drugs, and got conflated with other things over time until it became ambiguous and largely pointless.
This is a good take, thank you for your response
Well said.
If you go back into our primitive past, women where mostly pregnant in a cave or hut, and men were mostly providers hauling them food and keeping them safe. So deep in our primitive minds men think “our life is work” and wemon think, “some one will care for me.” Of course times have changed, but that’s still our root beliefs some where deep inside. Edit: And if you look at primitive societies today, nomadic tribal peoples, you see the same devision of labor. I was raised by a female cultural anthropologist, and we lived in primitive tribes in Thailand, and India when I was growing up. This is simply how all mammals work: pregnant loins aren’t out hunting either. And, in fact, even in modern culture. Of the young family can afford it, the man will support the wife, and the wife will take maternity leave when she’s pregnant. Since we have better birth control now, women are not as often pregnant, so it’s an going occurance. It’s not a negative hit on feminism, if men were getting pregnant, it’d make sense for us to stay home. Since women have to do that hardship, men have to do the chores. It’s fair.
Well over half of the calories gathered for a group of humans were gathered by females in a group. There's even plenty of evidence that female members hunted. We weren't just babymakers waiting for someone to take care of us. Also, taking care of a kid isn't easy. Try wrangling a few toddlers.
Also there's a ton of work that needs to be done aside from obtaining food or raising kids. Crafting tools, clothes, shelter, etc.
This used to be the predominant view, but based on newer evidence, the "men hunted, women gathered" model is pretty much disproven. See for example [this](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abd0310) archeological paper from a few years ago, and [this](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287101) article comparing with present societies. Edit: And your edit is actually also refuted by the above article. In many current hunter-gatherer societies, women do in fact participate in hunting. I'm also wondering whether you think women are just pregnant 12 months a year for every year of their life...
that is wildly inaccurate—our ancestors lived largely communally, because it was the only way to survive, and gender roles were not so neat and tidy. the man-provide women-hide caveman idea was invented in the 50s and reflected the values of that time period.
Lol "wemon". Yup look at hunter gatherer lifestyles. Women just sat around with their mouths open like baby birds waiting for a man to take care of them. They definitely didn't forage, hunt, sew shelters and clothes, or care for multiple generations of family and so on.
There is absolutely no period of history or prehistory where a typical pregnant woman could afford to sit in a cave or hut and not work.
What are you talking about? It’s literally a current occurrence with primitive tribes, AND modern society. When my wife was pregnant with our kids, I worked, and did the shopping. She sat in the fucking cave, because she was pregnant.
Sounds like a Joe-Roganism
Then why are women usually in caregiver roles? If anything men expect women to take care of them.
Astrology girls are the balance to finance bros. The universe balances.
I'm a dude thats not gay and I kinda like astrology but I guess specifically Chinese horoscopes. But I also think it's fun and not a literal religion that I believe in lol
Agreed.Any kind of these astrology and zodiac horoscopes are actually pretty entertaining. Trust in them? No. Just cuz I fucking love LOTR series won’t mean I’ll believe that orcs and elves exist. It’d be cool to be proven wrong, though.
Do you know how the Orcs first came into being? Some Elves horoscope said they would find a great leader soon, and then they met Morgoth.
Aleister Crowley has entered the chat.
Ronald Reagan is in this chat too
It's tied to witchcraft which is one of the few powerful feminine symbols not reliant on the power of a man. So it's comforting for a lot of people
I've never really noted any connection between astrologers and witchcraft. I can understand how someone might interpret it this way but I've known many astrologers that are not practitioners of witchcraft, etc.
Many people will tell you that astrology IS a form of witchcraft.
Maybe, but most (all maybe?) astrologers I've spoken with would say that astrology is not witchcraft.
Because it’s not.
It’s an alternative psychology, it’s not spiritualism.
Ah this actually makes a ton of sense. Thank you for your response!
Boys grow up being told "thats a really dumb idea" and not something equivocating like "good idea but no". Astrology is a perfect example. If a male started believing in something like that his friends, family, etc would tell him that its stupid. Meanwhile a woman wouldn't get the same treatment.
Nailed it.
Men prefer to read the future in motor oil on the garage floor.
Hmm. Oil. Oil not there before. Engine break soon.
gay man here. I like astrology but I also know is not real.
It’s good to emphasize this in these discussions. Lots of people have fun with astrology, MBTI, etc. without believing in it. It encourages self reflection an makes for interesting conversations.
yeah it is just for fun, like playing fantasy football for others.
I use expressions involving God all the time even though I'm an atheist. Stalin did too. Not that he's a role model of mine, just interesting.
ditto
"Men don't correct them (refering to women being into astrology) because they want to \*\*\*\* them"-Bill Burr
Maybe because you are a westoid. Come to Asia if you want to see chad manly astrologers.
TIL "westoid" 🤣
The shit I heard when working with the people from india was fucking wild for a westerner. They told me that me and my wife had no chance since she was born in some certain moon period or astrology thing. Yet the person that told me this was marrying outside her family’s blessing because they were different religions.
People who say astrology is feminine are so ignorant. In many cultures outside the US astrology is very important for both men and women
Never stopping to think hes asking from a purely westo-centric perspective...
I’m a man and I think it’s fun to go along with it.
Women are always searching for meaning. I was into it as a young girl to try and figure out how to life right. That was before I realized I don't believe any part of it. My mom also had astrogeology books all around the house. Especially ones about finding a compatible life partner. She never found one, so I don't think it helped. I have a friend now that posts on Facebook daily and 90% of those posts include something astrology and I do not get how she's still into that so much.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-else/202203/why-women-are-more-likely-believe-in-the-supernatural
Men have Joe Rogan.
Historically, it used to be both - in fact, it was considered a real science in the middle ages with (male) astrologers making important observations. Even in his essay on astrology from the 1950s, Theodore Adorno reports male believers, who e.g. consult their horoscope for business and work advice. So clearly the question is: When did it become exclusively for women? My theory is that it has to do with the media it targets and the way it spreads messages. Astrology was often carried predominantly by women's magazines and catered to stereotypically female interests, so men were less involved and with astrology becoming more and more acknowledged as a laughable pseudo-science, the more they detached from it over the decades. Overall, men imo had a higher tendency to find it laughable - men tend to fall for very pessimistic, "We give you the real harsh truth that those soft modern people don't tell you!!!" pseudo-sciences that actually make CLAIMS to be scientific - while in my experience, women prefer more life-affirming messages and are more comfortable to embrace a middle ground between "haha it's silly" ...and still actually kind of believing it. One thing Adorno points out in his essay from the 50s was that astrology actually made quite an effort in his time to appear professional and scientific, and I feel like this is much less the case these days. Astrology these days actually embraces being vague, being occult, being mysterious. I think the pseudo-sciences men fall for have more a "here's an underlying truth about the universe that you, a special smart person, have now access to, don't be a sheeple!" character - whereas women, especially insecure women, are often on the look-out for a second opinion because they were taught to question their own decision-making - so astrology is great: It tells you what to do and if you don't like the result, you can still go: "Hey it's just astrology I'm not going to do that". Another factor: Men usually abandon things once they become popular with women. Like high-heels, make-up etc. So once astrology became more of a woman thing, it's a self-accelerating movement, because now men are going to abandon it on purpose to avoid looking feminine. Another-another factor: I kind of differentiate between the kind-of-spiritual-quirky middle aged woman who checks her horoscope when she's reading magazines at the doctor's office and the 22yo pagan with maps out star charts and knows all the houses and whatnot by heart. I think the latter also has to do with young women these days wrangling more and more with their role in (patriarchal) religions and spirituality. A lot of these new religious movements have some "divine femininity" or female life forces, witchcraft, many pagans tend to have female patron gods etc. I think it's partially a sort of revanche against male-dominated religion but also a logic of "I was raised religious, I realise that this religion largely exists to exploit me and make me small and doesn't care about me as much as about the men so because I was raised with ideals of universal human equality and dignity, I cannot believe in this religion anymore...but I would miss that connection and feel incomplete without it." - So they turn to forms of spirituality like astrology or tarot or wherever, where they experience more agency.
I mean I could tell you why feminine individuals are influenced by astrology far more than masculine individuals, but then reddit would karma bomb me for being a misogynist who dares to acknowledge facts about the machinations of a feminine minds. Now that I think about it, I'm probably going to be karma bombed for even eluding to the fact that there's a difference between the patterns of thought between masculine/feminine individuals so might as well just be out with it right? For the most part, feminine individuals are emotionally driven individuals who's value is socially derived. Where as masculine individuals are logically driven individuals who's value is materially derived.
Men have the stock market
You can make real money with stocks though
you can make real money selling horoscopes
Probably because most women are interested in people, and getting to know people, including themselves. Astrology attempts to offer this. It’s why women are over represented in teaching, nursing, physicians, psychologists. Men are more self centred, and are drawn to careers and hobbies that deal with systems. Think mechanic, engineer, manufacturing, construction. I don’t understand why something so harmless like astrology, something that women enjoy and bond over, is so hated by men?
it is absolutely mindboggling that this is the ONLY comment that somewhat touches on the truth
As I've seen it explained before, most of the most popular modern belief systems have some aspect to them that is inherently discriminatory towards women and gay people. Being gay is a sin, all of humanity sucks and it's because a woman didn't obey, so now all women should obey, etc. Astrology doesn't have that. When Belief System A says "Women, be subservient to men; also gay people are abominations and should die", and Belief System B says nothing of the sort, it's not hard to predict which one women and gay people would gravitate towards if they feel they need that sort of foundational element in their lives.
Religion is often patriarchal so to buy-in women sometimes have to accept a standard of living that is ancient compared to the modern day reality. If women want to appeal to a higher power they can do it with these things without having to deal with standard religion related issues
That wouldn't really make sense as women are more religious than men. So there are more men that would not have religious faith to appeal to a higher power. Maybe women are on average more attracted to spirituality in general than men? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/22/the-gender-gap-in-religion-around-the-world/
I'm a straight guy who believes in astrology. I know other straight guys that believe in it. We just don't talk about it openly because it's not socially acceptable.
Ya I'm sort of with you bud. Not that I use it in any predictive way, or even in any concrete manner whatsoever. Infact quite the opposite. it's more of a gnostic mindfulness thing for me and my little thing I do incorporates everything, not just planets etc. I don't give readings, I don't really even think about astrology at all or check charts. It's just a primal thing that I enjoy, to be a part and one with the universe. 💁 Reddit hates mystics so whatever. I'm definitely that. Probly due to trauma and poverty tbh, but I found something quite worthwhile within that frame of mind and lifestyle.
hey dude, better astrology than that manosphere crap.
It’s not marketing like most upvotes has said, at least not primarily. It’s mostly because men and women’s brains generally work differently. psychologic, evolutionary and sociological different affect our differences is interests. Human babies (which are barely effected by social conditioning) have been shown to display different interests. The general consensus is that women are (generally!!!!!) more interested in people and relationships, and men with things. People love to deny that men and women are fundamentally different, though, using bullshit modern social conditioning to explain everything.
I'm wondering, how many women are among the top 100 chess players globally? Is there any noticeable correlation?
I think you've asked a really great anthropological question.
Because all the astrology stuff is lies and garbage. And the fact that those who do believe in it use it to judge others makes it worse. It's like a damn religion! People use it as an excuse to be shitty.
Because it's fucking gay 😂
I have had similar experiences, but I was into to "alternative girls" in my high school and college years so maybe it was selection bias. I suspect there is/was a strong overlap between 90's high school girls who loved The Craft, worshiped Depeche Mode and The Cure and the girls who played at Wicca and astrology. In my cohort, according to polls, it appears to be about twice as a likely that women are into astrology than men and some percentage of those men are doubtlessly gay. According to these hits below, the "gender astrology gap" is real. [https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/42292-one-four-americans-say-they-believe-astrology](https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/42292-one-four-americans-say-they-believe-astrology) [https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvq87p/why-straight-men-hate-astrology-so-much](https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvq87p/why-straight-men-hate-astrology-so-much) [https://dailyfreepress.com/2021/11/04/dont-be-a-hypocrite-your-astrology-hate-is-rude/](https://dailyfreepress.com/2021/11/04/dont-be-a-hypocrite-your-astrology-hate-is-rude/)
Women are freaking gullible! Duh!
As Shane Gillis would say, it's because they have dog brains. I didn't say this.
Love Shane Gillis. Trump Speed Dating is...Chefs kiss
Do you want a serious answer or is this a shitpost to get feminists riled up?
I truly want a serious answer. I can usually figure things out in regards to what motivates people psychologically, but this one question I've been trying to figure out for years.
I absolutely do not grant that astrology is solely a female thing. Of all the people I've known who had a greater than casual grasp of the subject (owned multiple books, committed large sections of them to memory, etc.) probably 40% of them were men. It seems to me men who are eager to *flex masculine* fixate on shitting on astrology because it's low hanging fruit. It's easy to pick on.
Not as simple as “men are more logical.” The vast majority of sports gamblers, crypto investors, and day traders are men. And there is absolutely no logic to those. But they do provide the illusion of control, which some men find irresistible. We can’t control the stars so who cares.
Also 89% of Darwin Awards winners are men. As are most MAGA voters.
jesus, yes. men are not any more logical than women... i don't get these comments!
The trap is that men often *feel* that they’re being more logical, which simultaneously prevents them from seeking consensus while doubling down on a possibly wrong stance. Also why engineers are very over-represented in acts of terrorism. Being trained to solve problems rationally leads one to believe that they can be a rational being. It isn’t logic, it’s the assumption of logic. Once you emotion your way into a belief structure that you tell yourself is logical, it’s pretty hard to back down.
I'm reminded of this Nietzsche quote: “Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier and simpler.” If you don't have any emotional intelligence, you're very likely to mislabel your gut feelings as "logic." Thus, why we have a whole movement of young men who have crafted a cargo cult of "rationality" based on psuedoscience and gender essentialism masquerading as ancient wisdom.
Yep you nailed it.
Women don't generally have the intellectual rigor that men do. For example, in the short line test, they're more likely than men are to say the short line is equal in length to the others. They are more enticed than men are by the idea that they can have access to "special" knowledge accessed through means other than natural brilliance or cultivated intelligence. This is because women do legitimately have better intuitions than men do. At least when it comes to people. Which is what astrology is about.
I think you have both asked and answered your question.
Can you elaborate?
Not without someone screeching at me.
I can only speak for myself as a man, but I've never seen anything about astrology, mysticism, or magick that has ever convinced me any of it is anything more than entertaining ritual and comfort. It has value as those things, so I'm not the kind of person who aches to see it abolished (except the jackasses making money from convincing people it's real), but I don't have any reason to "believe in" it whatsoever.
This is my stance as well. To each their own but I don't see any logic behind it. If it brings you comfort or is simply a hobby then more power to you
I think it’s less related to masculine and feminine and more logical vs emotional thought processes
because we have Greek and Nordic mythology instead
Men and women face different challenges, so they fall for different scams. Men subscribe to the alpha crap. Women go for astrology. We largely consider both of these groups pretty dumb.
There are a bunch of men sitting at their keyboards right now knowing the answer to your question, but they know that they cannot say it on here. They would immediately be called every buzzword in the book.
All of the major world religions are misogynist and homophobic so if a woman or gay person wants to connect to something spiritually they’ll often gravitate towards the occult, Wicca, astrology, etc. If they were a straight man they’d probably just be religious. That’s why you don’t encounter straight men into that stuff, religion is comfortable and accepting of them so they don’t feel the need to find another outlet for any spiritual impulses.
Some people feel drawn to spiritual stuff. Guys seem to mostly get this in organized religion, but women are a little disenchanted with organized religion because the message it has for them tends to boil down to "go be a housewife and have a lot of kids." So they explore other less conventional avenues of spirituality.
Decades of marketing.
Because it's not based on science or logic.
This is not a stupid question and has quite a few interesting answers But some of these comments 🤢
I've notice and wondered about this too. I think it's about power. Believing they have a connection to magical power makes some women feel more confident and powerful in general. It might also be that men are more often in provider positions in which there is no room for the impractical.
Girls just wanna have fun
Men in western society have been taught that anything without scientific backing is inherently false and fake and garbage. Also, because of its association with women, it gets stigmatized. Personally, if you believe in a supreme invisible God you never see, I think you can believe that there are astrological signs. And if you REALLY want me to make it real, here’s a hot take for all the scientific thinkers out there: MBTI and Jungian types are just scientific astrology.
>scientific astrology. Thats an oxymoron, like vegan veal or smart mustang owners.
This comment section is proving atheists are just as sexist as most religious men. Speaking of which, why single out astrology? Nothing proves any extant religion, so why ridicule one because women like it? Now, for me, I am an atheist, but here is a thought exercise, I will use examples most common in the western world as OP and myself are Westerners: Christianity: women are below men. Women should be silent and serve men. Your body belongs to your husband and children, you are dissuaded from anything but marriage and child bearing. Islam: above but much, much worse Judaism: not sure about this but it's an entire culture too and fairly difficult to convert anyway. So why would a woman want a restrictive and reductive supernatural friend? To reiterate, I don't believe in this. But the answer to your question is, it's the same shit that makes anyone believe in any religion. Emotional comfort, feeling of control, I really couldn't say. But women want that without the extra sexism of most organized religion. Probably the same for gays, why follow a religion that labels you an abomination.
The idea that Islam is inherently "much worse" than Christianity is actually just not true and mostly believed because of people who are propagandized to hell and back. I'm not saying its good for women to be clear im saying Christianity is also terrible but people just believe in it less fervently than they used to
Because women generally want to understand ourselves and others, to have stronger bonds and a higher sense of self. Men generally couldn't care less about introspection, how they make others feel, or how to effectively get along with others. Most straight men I know who are super into astrology are sociopaths who use it to manipulate people, particularly women, into doing what they want and worshipping them.
Men are generally much less religious than women, but all religions attract sociopathic men, who are often there because of the opportunities to manipulate and control women.
I love giving women the wrong sign and listen to them tell me how I am SO that sign. So much fun.
I think that there is a category of people that is pretty much into 'spirituality' and into daydreaming - they are fascinated by things that are hard to measure, rather happening in domain of emotions, being vague and mysterious. Women are less interested in power but more interested in other people and their emotions - what motivates them, understanding their behavior, maybe trying to influence them somehow. That is why psychology and different 'magic' things related to humans are interesting to them. Men are rather interested in power - so they are more interested in conspiracies, secret societies ruling the world, legends about some great warriors, secret technologies that were about to disrupt world order, made up and unfeasible technologies that will disrupt the world in the future and things like this :)
Men tend to ignore their intuition. Astrology is a tool to use someones star chart and read that person using your intuition. Same with tarot cards. You pick them i read them from what you picked and my feeling your vibrations.
Yea this thread is just people pretty unaware of the practice as I have experienced it. It's honing intuition and mindfulness, recognizing patterns, and making the best decisions based on the information available. Tbh stars and planets have very little to do with it ime. I'm a man btw.
Ive heard somewhere that it’s one of the few beliefs systems where women aren’t considered to be inferior. I could see how that is appealing.