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178 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES
Survey data for Ireland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland found no evi-
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dence for a relationship between the two. Simplistic recipes that immoral
behavior should be countered by a return to religion are thus proved false.
On the contrary, it turns out that femininity, which as we saw correlates
with secularization, relates positively to civil morality. In 1996 the results
were published of an experiment by Reader’s Digest magazine. Some two
hundred wallets, each containing about $50 worth of cash, as well as fam-
ily snapshots and contact numbers of the putative owners, were “acciden-
tally” dropped in public places in big and small cities in the United States
and in fourteen European countries. From ten wallets dropped, all ten
were returned in Oslo, Norway; and in Odense, Denmark; but only two in
Lausanne, Switzerland (one of them found by an Albanian!); in Ravenna,
Italy; and in Weimar, Germany. The number returned was signifi cantly
correlated with the countries’ femininity, with an additional infl uence of
small power distance. 80
A similar result was produced by another experiment, this one carried
out by international students of U.S. psychology professor Robert Levine.
These students in their twenty-three home cities “accidentally” dropped a
pen in full view of a solitary pedestrian walking in the opposite direction.
The score was the percentage of times the pedestrian warned the experi-
menter or picked up the pen and returned it to him or her. Percentages of
helping pedestrians in twenty-three countries were signifi cantly correlated
with the countries’ femininity score. 81
All religions specify different religious roles for men and for women.
In Christianity many Protestant churches now practice equality between
men and women in their leadership and clergy, while the Roman Catholic
Church strongly maintains the male prerogative to the priesthood. At the
same time, in all Christian churches women are more religious than men.
“God is apparently not an equal opportunity employer: He has a bias to the
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women.” The European Values Study showed that this difference applied
in particular for women without paid jobs. Where the role of the woman
changed from a housekeeper to a wage earner, her attitude toward religion
moved closer to the attitude of men. 83
It should be no surprise that the same dimension, masculinity ver-
sus femininity, relates to both sexual and religious behavior. Religion is a
way for humankind to influence the supernatural—to provide certainties
beyond the unpredictable risks of human existence. Birth, marital fertility,
and death figure foremost among these unpredictables. All religions accen-
tuate and celebrate the events of procreation: births, weddings, and deaths.