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Women are God-fearing and don't challenge institutions. Men, on the other hand, are skeptical and rational, and go out of their way to publicly call bullshit on faith and religion - which is why today's well-known secular thinkers, especially in the ranks of the New Atheism movement, are all male.

Felicity, however, doesn't fully explain female atheists' under-sung presence. Writing on the dearth of visible women in New Atheism in a November 2010 blog post at Ms, Monica Shores found that a "quick [internet] search for female atheists will pull up such depressing fare as 'Dating Atheist Single Women' and 'Top 10 Sexiest Female Atheists' . the loudest complaints about the absence of atheist women [seem] to come from atheist males who want non-believing girlfriends." Though atheist thinkers and bloggers like Ophelia Benson and Jen McCreight summarily stepped up to counter Shores with lists of prominent female atheists - science writer Natalie Angier, author and blogger Greta Christina, comedians Kathy Griffin and Julia Sweeney - the ensuing pileup of names only brought the issues identified by Shores' post into sharper relief. If all these smart, clearly respected women are in the mix of loud-and-proud atheists, why does the face of New Atheism still look like that of a curmudgeonly, sixtysomething white guy?

a white male author with a fancy-pants book contract, the public face of non-belief may begin to look as diverse as atheism's adherents actually are.