As people were stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant portion of people got into new hobbies at home. A significant number of people turned to reading books. More money was spent by Americans on pleasure reading than before the pandemic. No doubt these numbers are different now, but the book industry seems to have remained stronger than its pre-pandemic levels. All of this is positive, but trends indicate that reading rates might be divided by gender, the socially learned expectations and behaviors associated with being a man or woman.
Today, research suggests that women are reading more than men. In 2022, Pew Research Center found that the portion of women who had read a book in the last year was 5 percent higher than the portion of men who had. The National Endowment for the Arts found that in 2022, just shy of half of all women read a fiction title, while just above a quarter of all men read a fiction title. In addition to women reading more, a 2015 survey finds that 80 percent of revenue of revenue in the publishing industry comes from women.
Sociological Insights
What can we learn from these statistics? Examining this specific issue can help inform questions about how we view our leisure time, priorities as a culture and gender norms, behaviors or traits that society attributes to a particular sex. The current state of this issue cannot be explained without making reference to multiple factors, the fine details of which are going to be difficult to pin down.
For a long time, men (who were of a high social class, educated enough and financially capable of doing so) took pride in reading. Similarly to the other arts, reading was an activity for the elite and signified superiority over the “illiterate masses.” Not only was reading for academic pursuit valuable, but so was fiction. Previous statistics, as well as everyday contact with our culture, would suggest that attitudes have changed. The previous social hierarchy which created such attitudes has morphed into something else. Women are encouraged to read, and rather than reading being a skill which is strictly tied to being of a high social class (though class correlations to reading haven’t vanished), it is expected as a necessary skill in order to navigate our modern world.
Since the Victorian era, with the rise of mass literacy, reading novels has been seen as a more feminine activity. Rather than being concerned with the real world, these novels were fictitious and thus not worth the time. This long-standing cultural legacy might help explain why men seem to be reading less even today. Alone though, it doesn’t seem satisfactory; the previously mentioned National Endowment for the Arts survey had male fiction readership dropping from each subsequent time it was conducted.
Perhaps cultural attitudes have shifted to further disprove of men reading in recent years, particularly fiction. With the recent rise of internet machismo and “manosphere” content, we can make a case for this. One of the most well-known figures of this movement, Andrew Tate, has spoken publicly, calling books “a waste of time“ and “for losers who are afraid to learn from life.” At the same time, Tate has also promoted books like, The 48 Laws of Power and The Millionaire Fastlane to his followers. While Tate isn’t consistent, the values which he has gained his popularity promoting are clear to see. Basically, don’t bother reading things which won’t confer a material benefit; “life is about action, take what you want, or get it taken from you.”
Other people have tried to find an explanation in education. In the U.S. and across the world, girls have generally outperformed boys in reading and writing ability. One particular study from Chile found that in addition to girls outperforming boys, they also exhibited higher motivation to read and placed a higher value on the activity. This demonstrates “that social constructions of gender can play a significant role in the reading motivation of adolescents.”
Unfortunately, attributing what aspect about that social construct that makes men less interested in reading is difficult. Nevertheless, it does seem that some of the ideas tied into the male gender role, the public expression of one’s gender identity, discourages men from reading to some extent. If this is the case, then finding a quick, deliberate fix to this issue might not be possible. Shifts in education policy and the way we teach reading and writing are unlikely to fundamentally alter how we view manliness. The same goes for the previously mentioned “manosphere,” when it inevitably fizzles out, it is not like a significant portion of men are going to be suddenly lining up to buy out bookshelves.
However, while this is concerning, within the scope of wider inequalities related to reading, it is relatively minor. The previously mentioned Pew Research Center study also provided figures for the rates or reading along lines of income and geography, which were much more jarring than the gender divide mentioned here. It wasn’t so long ago that women were barred from education and discouraged from reading in the Western world.
Unfortunately, addressing gaps in readership are not going to be a simple fix that we can just get rid of in isolation. The previous gaps based upon income and geography are highly related to class issues, that if not addressed, will continue to manifest these gaps in readership between affluent and non-affluent communities as a symptom of the wider problem of wealth inequality. In a similar way, it seems that the gap in readership between men and women is a symptom of our wider social outlook on gender roles and expression. Until social outlooks shift, it is likely that a singular effort just to bridge this gap would be mistaken.
Images used in this room:
- “Books, Literature, Knowledge
