Men vs. women reading novels

I've been with my husband for 43 years and have never known him not have a novel on the go.

beautifully done

I suppose the traditional explanation would be that men are more practical and grounded and women are more emotional and empathetic. It’s far too crude and simplistic though.

Most generalisations quickly break down. I was going to say that female novelists tend to be less intellectual and less interested in ideas, but then look at Iris Murdoch - fiercely intellectual (read Proust in French and Plato in Greek etc) and often playing with ideas in her novels. Whereas Dickens is highly emotional and empathetic and far more interested in people. It would also be too simplistic to say that female novelists are more concerned with beauty. After all, the great aesthetes (Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, John Ruskin etc) were all male. Virginia Woolf is the only female aesthete who comes to mind.

Dick lit?

We both read a lot. Unfortunately we both also tend to raid second hand book shops and charity shops buying books so we have lots. One of the tings I noticed on my first visit to his flat was the piles of books.

We have similar tastes in fiction sci fi in both our cases but I also read historical romance.

When he was working he read a lot of non fiction, mainly science related to his work. I do think he tends to read non fiction related to his and his friends hobbies. Is it a male thing, don't know. There's one of his mates downloads lots of Mills&Boon type fiction onto his kindle when he goes away. Says he's spent his life studying, now he's just going to relax and read light stuff. Last time we went around he was watching some Hallmark type film.

Hmmm. My son (23), prefers autobiographies or books about history. He does read fiction but prefers factual (if an autobiography can be factual)! I’m just glad he reads. My DD reads a lot. She has a ton of reading for uni but also likes reading the classics and any other book - history, politics, art whatever. She doesn’t like thrillers though. Her uni was repurposing an old library which still had a ton of books mouldering away and said anyone could take them - she had to borrow a wheelie cart to get them to her house, all scholarly books.
I read fiction, the occasional autobiography. My DH read more history based novels. What I don’t like are those sickly love story ‘girlie’ books - girl breaks up with fiance, moves to small village, some elderly woman takes her in and guides her and the local hunk who owns the café/bar/flower shop falls for her. Your basic Hallmark crap.

My dad is a big fiction reader (mostly thriller/crime type things or whatever you’d call Lee Child etc) and Stephen King. He also loves authors like Mark Twain, James Herriot, Jack London. He will read books written by women if they fall into the genre he likes, but I don’t see as many of them around.

DH reads a lot and it’s probably split 50/50 between novels and other stuff. He does read a lot of poetry too. I think he does read some women authors, especially older sci fi or classic novels, but probably mostly men.

DS1 (19) used to read quite a lot as a child but doesn’t anymore, which I hate. The last book I remember him talking excitedly about was written by a woman, though. I can’t remember what it was, something he had to read for school last year.

DS2 (11) reads all the time and doesn’t seem to notice or care who writes the books. He really likes the How to Train Your Dragon series, written by a woman.

It’s interesting to look at the data!

The ONS says men do 35.3 hours of paid work and 16 hours of unpaid housework and childcare per week (total 51.3h) and women do 27.8 hours of paid work and 26 hours of unpaid housework and childcare (total 53.8h). So while men have an average higher paid hours per year worked, they have a lower average hours worked overall.

Is that a conscious choice that he makes? Does he have a few favourite familiar authors, who happen to all be male, whose books he seeks out; or does he actively reject any title with a woman's name on the cover?

My DH is a big reader but, yes, only books by male authors.

Well, especially as, as you say, there’s no equivalent dismissal of equally disposable popular fiction aimed exclusively at a male readership.

I notice in my own DH that he much prefers non fiction. The occasional novel but mostly nf.

TBH I am the same. I find new releases a bit meh lately although I do give them a try, but maybe it's my advanced age and cynicism but I find a lot of fiction these days is either self indulgent, inaccessible, or daft! Some beauties though, but not as many as when I was an avid fiction reader when a bit younger. Maybe I just don't have the patience to persevere much anymore.

I now read biography and history with the odd novel thrown in. I'm finding non fiction much more engaging, but that might just be my stage in life and one day I'll get back to novels again.

'Chick lit' is such a dismissive, patronising term. I mean, I can possibly see that it may be considered a legitimate specific sub-genre - like the Andy McNabb-style books presumably aimed at 'blokey' men, although I can't think of an equivalent term for those off the top of my head (testo-texts?!); but to automatically dismiss ALL books written by female authors and/or centring a female character(s) as fluffy 'girly' slop that men would certainly never waste their precious time reading is just crass, undisguised misogyny.

There have been studies on this, including one via Nielsen Book Research. They all show the same tendency. Women read books by men or women in approximately equal numbers. Men seldom read books by women. Of the top ten bestselling male authors in the UK (including Tolkien, Dickens, Stephen King and Lee Child) 55% of their readers are male, while 45% are female. But of the top ten bestselling IK female authors (including Margaret Atwood, Austen, Danielle Steele, Jojo Moyes), only 19% of their readership is male.

And it’s not just the casual reader. Men are not just likely to read books by women, they’re far less likely to recommend or review them, or to shortlist or advocate for them when judging a prize. Reviewers for the LRB and the New York RoB skew overwhelmingly male. Again, huge numbers of statistics bear this out. Anne Enright, when she was Fiction Laureate, commissioned someone to go through all fiction reviews and reviewers in the Irish Times for decades, with predictable results. Similar books by men and women are judged differently. David Nicholls or Nick Hornsby, writing books about relationships and family life are taken far more seriously, and more reviewed, than women writing in similar modes, who are sidelined as ‘chick lit’.

Links to some of this here.

https://lithub.com/why-are-so-many-men-still-resistant-to-reading-women/

I can’t access the article ( payeall ) and I
must be an exception as I read a lot of fiction. I’ll attempt to answer your questions though

1. Yes perhaps men prefer solution oriented subject matter . Self /Help books , manuals and biographies of famous ( or infamous ) men .
2. I think scrolling on devices has replaced reading for men and women in many cases as a solitary pursuit
3. I think reading fiction requires patience, focus and empathy ( to the extent of understanding protagonists’ actions and motivations) .

Did you want to offer an opinion on the question posed in the OP? Why do you think the difference exists? You felt the potential explanations given by the OP were reductive, so why not talk us through your non-reductive theory/theories?

OP I've read a few things that suggest this and the lower level of engagement with reading by men generally is related to seeing fewer 'role models' reading as they're growing up.

Lots of men have written fiction, as opposed to reading it. It would be interesting to know whether that's a declining trend too. And whether the fact that so many women do it now means that it no longer has the prestige for men of being mainly a "man thing". Like education.

Somebody, I think it may have been Thackeray, told Charlotte Brontë that literature should not be the business of a woman's life. Some women did write of course, even then, but that sort of attitude was probably quite common.

Edited to add: and quite a lot of men's novels have been specifically about women. Eg Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Diana of the Crossways, The Rainbow, Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

OH = Other half 😄

That's fair. What I will say is that the majority of my male (and female) friends are also pretty big readers and fiction is usually a large component of that. I'm as likely to have a conversation with one of my female friends about a non-fiction book as with one of my male friends, and vice-versa. I've had a number of excellent fiction books recommended to me by men as well as some brilliant recommendations for non-fiction books by women. But of course it could be that this is a bit self-selecting in that it's possible I'm more likely to sustain friendships with other people who are also big readers regardless of stereotypes.

It's also the case that the types of fiction that my male vs female friends tend to read are not identical. More (but by no means all) of my male friends read science fiction and fantasy than my female friends do - Terry Pratchett being a notable exception who's adored by many of my friends regardless of their sex although this is something that probably says more about my friendship groups than anything else. More of my female friends will read Marian Keyes etc than my male friends will but, again, by no means all.