A Step in Attracting Women to Your Group August 3, 2011

A Step in Attracting Women to Your Group

By Hemant Mehta
August 3, 2011

This is a guest post by Kelley Freeman. She is a junior at the University of South Carolina and member of the Pastafarians at the University of South Carolina.

As Katie Hartman has shown us, women just love the shit out of ponies. How else are the Four Horsemen going to be appealing to women?

The Four Horsemen (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens) drawn as ponies

I think this is a good start.

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  • Jvarley9001

    This is more likely to attract bronies.

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that. . .

  • Miss Coconut

    What if you’re not into diseased-looking ponies?

  • Anonymous

    That Hitchens Pony looks like he’s going to cut somebody.

  • Ordinaryskeptic

    This made me LOL.

  • This blog is now 20% cooler.

  • philosoraptor

    The Denett pony needs more beard.

    Just sayin’

  • What are the different marks on the ponies?

  • Dawkins’ looks like a double helix and Hitch’s is a flask.  I can’t figure out the other two.

  • Heidi

    Squee! My Little Horsemen!

    Hey, it’s working! LOL.

  • Kelley Freeman

    Sorry! Dennett has a brain, and the logo on Harris is from Project Reason. 🙂

  • FishyFred

    Brony representation right here.

  • … and why did we bash the author of that my little princess pink bible?
    Wouldn’t it be very patronizing if we dressed up our conferences/group meets with pink cute puppy dogs, rainbows and ponies to bring in women?

  • Stephanie Van Dyk

    I think Katie’s vid was satire.

  • Lobar

    My Little Skeptics: Friendship is Naturally Occurring

  • It’s a light hearted comment, which is interesting because the internet ‘brony’, meme, fad, thing going on right now is that men are finding themselves enjoying a show typically aimed at little girls. I think there is something to be said for a popular fad that makes it perfectly ok to like ‘girly’ things without them being demeaned simply for being girly. 

  • It’s a light hearted comment, which is interesting because the internet ‘brony’, meme, fad, thing going on right now is that men are finding themselves enjoying a show typically aimed at little girls. I think there is something to be said for a popular fad that makes it perfectly ok to like ‘girly’ things without them being demeaned simply for being girly. 

  • Walker Bristol

    In our student group, we do that anyway, and it’s a great success. We call it “Pony And Rainbows Night” and invite all the feminist groups on campus. It’s a wonderful time; we cook in our Easy Bake Ovens and talk about our feelings. I’ve spoken personally to women who say they’re out-atheists and huge fans of the Four Horsemen, but are just turned off by the general lack of cuddly things in the movement. I think the author’s proposal is a fantastic strategy for encouraging ladies to join our ranks.

    (That was satire, since apparently it’s really difficult to spot.)

  • Women like bronies, too, right?

  • Have you heard about the bronies?  http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/06/bronies-my-little-ponys/
    This might appeal to dudes as much as chicks.

  • Have you heard about the bronies?  http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/06/bronies-my-little-ponys/
    This might appeal to dudes as much as chicks.

  • I might be (read: I am) looking too much into this, but perhaps these appeal to women because those are female ponies? Obviously in a show aimed at little kids, they don’t show much variation in the crotches, so they draw the heads differently between males and females. You can see it in the nose, males have a distinct head shape.

    Also Dennett has no ears?

  • joethedouchebag

    I think we all need more beard! Bronies forever!

  • Kelley Freeman

    Yeah… someone pointed that out on reddit… I didn’t mean for that to happen. And I’ve honestly never seen the show, so I didn’t realize the difference. Sorry. :c

  • Anonymous

    I love the shit out of feminine things. Rainbows for everybody!

    P.S. This is not satire. I really just love being a girly princess, and I like laughing at myself.

  • Managed to get the perfect Hermione eyes on Dawkins.

  • Ben

    I would buy this shirt in a second.

  • heironymous

    I think the stills are nice. But we definitely require video – with a little audio soundtrack: (Not quite SFW – language)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGI6mhfJyA

  • Anonymous

    Since we have the four horsemen, even though it might seem a little degrading, why not have the four little ponies be the four leading women of atheism?

  • Want!!

  • Adviser Moppet

    I want them all!

  • It’s all good. We’ll just say they butted heads with theists enough to concave their heads.

  • Hdslkfah

    ehhhhhhhhh…  how about no scott…. ohhkay.

  • Twilight Sparkle

    YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!

  • Wendy Diamond

    OMFSM WANT WANT WANT the Hitchens one.  I’m crying over here in laughter.  I totally agree with the “looks like he’s gonna cut someone comment”

    Please tell me there’s a t-shirt.  And why wasn’t Hemant a pony?

  • Eeeee! I love My Little Pony! Adorable, and I am greatly amused by the development of Bronies — I even read a sociology paper on the phenomena.

  • Rebecca Sparks

    I would go to this.

    /I know it’s satire.  I wouldn’t want an event done because they think that’s all that girls do.  BUT.  For a fun meet and greet I would love a group that could unselfconciously and seriously engage in both traditional girl and boy funtime activities for meet & greet events or icebreakers.

  • For my tee-shirt order, I”ll take a large, two mediums, and one small.  That should take care of everybody in my family.

  • rdbhcx

    The Four Horses of the Apocalypse.

  • Anonymous

    Disgruntled pony smoking a cigarette with a drinking problem? Yep, that’s Hitchens alright! This picture made my day!

  • Anonymous

    In addition to the rest, there’s the fact that a bible intended for young children is rather wrong to begin with. It was in part the dissonance between the cover design for girls, and the typical biblical content (rape, murder, etc.).

  • Littewoodimp

    Because you could put a hell of a lot of us off honey! I’m a working dog and chainsaw kinda gal.  I am partial to wings though, so maybe skeptical angels to balance out those wishy washy ones that the christians set so much store in.

  • Littlewoodimp

    Yeah, a smiling mexigay pony!!

  • jqb

    Don’t invite RW, who will brand them gender traitors.

  • How about putting Ayan Hirsi Ali, Ann Druyan, Rebecca Goldstein, Meera Nanda and Greta Christina up there instead?  You know, attract women with women?  What’s the need to make the “Four Horsemen” appealing to women, when there are so many awesome women atheists to chose from?

     (Dawkins and Hitchens, in particular, have pissed me off with things they’ve said about women.)

  • I thought our meeting on the 24th was good. We had 6 guys and 6 gals! Woot!

  • Rieux

    You actually want to rehash that mess here? Seriously?

    Adding more bile to the mass of invective, much of it brutally misogynist, that has been piled on Rebecca Watson is not cool. Cut it out.

  • Nena

    I think the point is that it’s funny. “Four Horsemen.” Ponies. Get it?

  • pureone

    I thought cute Unicorn Ponies were one step better…

  • Nena

    I can’t believe that some people took offense to this in the comments. Honestly, I don’t understand why people can’t just laugh AT FUNNY AND CUTE THINGS.

  • Coyotenose

    *squinches an eye* All that enthusiasm? The skeptic in me thinks you sound more like Pinkie Pie in a Twilight Sparkle mask…

  • Coyotenose

    Part of the joke here is that MLP is also very popular with men, to the point that Brony Backlash has started.

  • It’s called a “Cutie Mark”

    duh…

    j/k

  • I happily watch this show with my 3yo daughter…she loves it…and it is cute…can’t help it…it is.

  • Reginald Selkirk

    You need to think your metaphors through before implementation. So then – the  horsemen would be “riding” the ponies….? Is that the message you’re trying to send?

  • Reginald Selkirk

    Do they come in 5XL?

  • Reginald Selkirk

    The appaloosapocalypse.

  • Anonymous

    Thhat could be problematic…

  • Perhaps not my kind of humour…but didn’t mean it to sound like I was offended or anything.  I’m sick and need sleep and am shorter in tone than I mean.

    Simply thought I’d use it to piggy back to a point: which is that even the silly stuff involves the big four men of atheism. we need to come up with a big four of female atheists.  perhaps less horsemen than valkyries?

  • Ottomaniac

    WHERE THE HELL IS RANDI?

    I demand more Randi.

  • Anonymous

    Would the cutie mark be a sombrero with a rainbow pattern?  Please say yes.

  • dwasifar karalahishipoor

    Is that what that is on Harris?  It looked like a condom to me.

  • Reginald Selkirk

    I was going to invent the term Alpha Brony, but Google tells me someone beat me to it.

  • Nena

    I am all for coming up with a big four of female atheists. 🙂

  • This has seriously been the most interesting and amusing post on this website for a while now. Good job.

  • Littlewoodimp

    OOOO, Valkyries, I like that image. Coming down during the rapture on great winged horses, grabbing hold of floating fundamentalists and bellowing “We’ve got some bad news for you!” and then dropping them off in some forsaken spot, wrecked by war and drought. Where the prayers of the starving and the traumatised have gone unheard for decades while the fundies have shouted “Halleluja!” and “Cure the gays, kill the unbelievers!”

    Oh dear, I think I should maybe go and have a nice cup of tea and lay down somewhere quiet…..

  • alex

    THANK YOU.
    Incredibly patronizing. I’m often shocked at how atheism and feminism, which in my opinion have so much in common, tend to snipe at one another. If anything I hear a lot of ridiculous sexism on this blog, and from feminist blogs I hear that atheists aren’t “tolerant” enough of other people’s beliefs.
    Frankly I think everyone is at a loss because of it.

  • Heidi

    Hemant must be in the expansion pack.

  • lol!

  • then let’s do it:)

  • Reginald Selkirk

  • Not as good a step as Unicron Ponies