Who reads more: women or men?
You might remember a post I wrote not too long ago about a recent survey that found Americans, in general, didn’t read a lot of books. But now, according to an article on NPR’s website, those figures can be broken down even further to say that woman read more than men:
Among avid readers surveyed by the AP, the typical woman read nine books in a year, compared with only five for men. Women read more than men in all categories except for history and biography.
I’m actually not very surprised. Most reading groups and book clubs I’ve heard of are dominated by women. However, in the English department at the college I went to had a fairly even mix of men and women. Maybe the younger generation of literary buffs is spread more evenly among the sexes.
Yet surveys tend to suggest otherwise, especially for fiction:
When it comes to fiction, the gender gap is at its widest. Men account for only 20 percent of the fiction market, according to surveys conducted in the U.S., Canada and Britain.
Only 20%? I knew it was low, but come on, that’s not even a quarter of the fiction market!
The bigger question remains why? Why is reading (especially fiction) dominated so much by women? Of course, theories abound and the article briefly runs through some of those theories. Most are based on psychology and even the chemistry of the brain.
Personally, I don’t think the answer to this gender gap is even that complicated. In American society it’s very common for young boys to be "taught" that anything to do with sports, muscles, competing, etc. is good, and everything else, including reading, should be shunned. Whether this is intentional or not, it’s the message our society sends to our youth.
The results of such "macho grooming" can be seen throughout much of corporate America. I’ve heard about, and seen for myself, offices where sports dominates water cooler talk among the men in an office. And if a man doesn’t participate in such talk, he’s deemed "weird" and "different". You don’t hear a lot of men talking about the significance of the forest in Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter (for example).
In my mind, nothing will really change regarding this gender gap until the educational system in America is overhauled so all students are taught that reading isn’t just something you do for school, but it’s actually fun! I can’t imagine not reading for fun. Books open up an entire different world that, sadly, a lot people are missing out on.
Read the NPR article here:
Why women read more than men
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