I don’t know how this will sound but are most book readers women?
I’m a man and 90% of my Goodreads feed is made out of female readers. The same here – it feels like most readers are of the opposite sex.
I am in a self-development group on Facebook and again, 80 – 90% of the visible demographic (people that post) are women.
I went to a book club, it was mostly women.
Aren’t there more men that read? 🙂
If you’re a man and you’re not reading, why is that?
by Prestigious_Quarter5
8 Comments
Yes, most likely. Popularity of Sarah J Maas and Coleen Hoover said me about it.
>If you’re a man and you’re not reading, why is that?
Blame it on porn sites.
Most novel readers are women. Women are somewhat more likely to read in general, but male readers are more likely to read non-fiction.
If you’re a man and you’re not reading, you’re not reading this sub.
FYI: I suspect the number of non-readers lurking in the “Books” forum is pretty low.
I’d say a larger percentage of women read (say 65% of women and 35% of men), and those women who do read, read a lot and talk about it more. Also, I think women tend to read more fiction (especially romance, which overwhelms all the other genres in sales by a large margin) while men tend to read more non-fiction, which doesn’t generate a lot of conversation.
I’m broadly generalizing here, of course. And there are websites and online communities that lean more heavily toward men vs women. But anyway, women tend to be more chatty about reading and want to discuss the books in depth whereas men might just internalize what they read and not feel the need to go find people to gush over the story with.
Not necessarily readers but amateur reviewers. The type of people that form book clubs and get into amatuer writing contests.
It also depends on genre.
Can’t speak for anything other than France but over here, most readers of literary novels or fiction in general are clearly women. I see the same amount of men and women reading in public transport, and I usually glance at what people read because I’m curious : most guys usually rather read educative stuff like manuals or books about history and stuff, novels not so much. Just a passing impression, not empirical evidence.
Also feminist books are usually big racehorses for prizes and top rankings, and I wanna say is the most common theme in the current literary scene.
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Edit : “If you’re a man and you’re not reading, why is that?” Is this the right sub to ask this question ? Hah
I think you’re assuming the correlation between reading, and sharing one’s reading experience with others, is universal. My alternate hypothesis is that men aren’t as likely to share their reading with others. No real evidence beyond friends and family. Would be interesting to know.
I’m a guy and I read a lot, in a mix of subjects and genres.
I suspect part of it is that guys don’t tend to talk about it very much.