If you believe reading is emasculating, guess what? You’re right.
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I was quite surprised the first time someone told me reading was for girls. I was in 2nd grade, enrolled in a new school, and a boy asked what I liked doing. I told him and he scoffed, “Reading’s for girls. What do you really like to do?”
Later, I asked my grandfather why the kid spoke this way. My grandfather would read me stories before bed each Saturday night when I went over to stay at his home, and some of my favorite childhood memories are linked to the feeling of warmth I experienced listening to him read. He was a war refugee and didn’t mince words. “That kid is an idiot,” he said. “Unfortunately, he’s learned from fools, and fools will learn from him.”
Soon enough, I learned I was strange among boys, at least in my neighborhood and the schools I attended. The nerds who enjoyed reading were, like me, interested in things like role-playing games and other flights of the imagination, but there weren’t very many of us, and we didn’t really participate in reality.
There is no book in the world that will castrate us.
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Reality was for athletic, popular boys. People know how things break down in junior high and high school: popular boys don’t read. Neither do boys who aspire to popularity. What about the boys interested in floundering around? They don’t read either. It’s not a stereotype, and there’s nothing controversial about saying it.
In fact, it’s only part of the story because the boys who don’t read end up becoming men, and right now we belong to a culture where men account for about 20% of the fiction market. When they do read, they choose “thrillers”.
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I’m an educator and I notice it constantly here at the community college where I work. Because the vast majority of young men don’t read—it is damn near impossible to get them to read even about subjects they claim to like—their reading skills are poor. And with poor reading skills come poor information gathering skills, poorer thinking skills. The consequences are vast, not merely centered on the individual. There are also cultural consequences, few of them good.
It’s easy to dismiss me as the nerd English teacher who thinks everyone should be interested in Tom Sawyer and Holden Caulfield. But perhaps you’ll be persuaded by voices in the publishing industry.
Agent Nat Sobel, speaking to Jofie Ferrari-Adler of Poets and Writers magazine, discussed (among other things) the plight of the male writer in a now famous 2008 interview. The whole thing is worth reading for anyone with an interest in publishing. It illuminates a consequence of a culture whose men don’t read very much: a publishing industry that largely ignores them.
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Ferrari-Adler asks Sobel if—in an environment where the majority of readers are women—it’s more difficult for a man to get published. “I certainly think it’s very difficult for male writers who are not writing thrillers,” says Sobel. “They have a much tougher road. We’ve read a number of pretty good novels by male writers that we know just won’t [sell]. Male coming-of-age novels are impossible to sell.”
I interviewed author Stuart Dybek about these comments, and his (rather sarcastic) suggestion was simply for men to write memoirs. But why should an author have to settle for a form he’s not interested in? The reason, of course, is because he wants to be read, and if he wants to be read, he has to find a way to appeal to the reader. In this culture that reader, the one who’ll actually buy the book, is more often than not a woman.
Here’s Sobel, making it crystal clear:
…if a male writer can write from the female point of view, or has a story that will interest a woman’s audience, I think he has a better chance than somebody who’s writing the kind of Hemingway-esque stuff we read in school.
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Now, here I am writing an article suggesting more men should read books of quality. It’s immediately layered with unfortunate problems. The person who needs this message the most is probably not reading it. Then there’s the issue of wondering who among my readers understands the term Hemingway-esque. Hemingway was an important 20th century writer. But now he’s generally regarded as a buffoon. He has been removed from schools for several decades, and the young men I teach here at the community college—our campus is only several miles from Hemingway’s birthplace—have never heard of him. When I was studying writing, Hemingway was derided by various parties, including prestigious academics, for being a macho drunk.
Ernest Hemingway told stories about boys going on adventures with dad and contemplating mortality. He told ironic accounts of getting wartime decorations for eating cheese while a bomb goes off nearby. In one of his short stories, we meet an old farmer who, having fled a battle, is expressing worry and sympathy for the animals who most likely perished. All of these stories express the depth of what it is to be male.
There are young men alive right now, veterans struggling to fit into society, boys who feel a school system is isolating them, businessmen battling some corruption or inequity who have vital stories to tell and the talent to tell them. Should their goal be to share their experience and perspective exactly as it is, or should they be worrying how to appeal to women?
We can look at this as a Catch-22 scenario where men do not find reading content interesting because the publishing industry doesn’t offer them anything (besides thrillers) or actively market to them. To flip it, the publishing industry does not think they are interested because men express little interest. There’s another way of thinking about it, however, and this is what I believe: by failing to read and take an interest in the business of books, men are actively participating in their own silencing. Isn’t that, and not the act of reading a book, what’s truly emasculating?
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So many reasons have been presented for why boys don’t read. Authors like Richard Whitmire and Leonard Sax have explored the reasons, the culture that’s toxic to their education, and they’ve offered tangible solutions. I’m not a social scientist or a psychologist, so I don’t feel I can join them in their study. However, I’m a writer and I work with at risk youth, so I have the liberty to rant:
When a man reads, reading is fucking masculine. And when a man writes, he’s taking action, releasing energy, sharing his soul, contributing to society, being himself: a man. He does not need a man-card, a cheap beer or anybody’s damn permission to do it. Yes, it takes courage, guts and discipline to write. Writing and reading both require and build wisdom and patience, virtues of the mature. Maturity is fucking masculine, okay, just as wisdom and patience are masculine.
It is also perfectly acceptable, as I told a young man in my office one time, to pick up The Diary of Anne Frank and read it in public. I use this book in one of my classes and the boy wasn’t sure if he should be carrying it around. “It’s like a girl’s diary. She gets all bitchy in there with her sister. It’s for girls.”
There is nothing emasculating about reading, and there is no book in the world that will castrate us. On the contrary, a book written by a girl (one killed in a stupid, tragic war) offers something few sources can: the capacity for us to see the world from someone else’s point of view. Books offer us—in fact, they require—the capacity to develop empathy. Perhaps empathy isn’t “thrilling”. But it is barbaric to consider empathy emasculating.
It’s also a massive indictment that we need to be having this conversation in the first place.
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True Community runs each Wednesday. Gint Aras explores his experiences as an instructor in a community college that serves a lower-middle to lower class district in Chicagoland.
Previous True Community articles:
I Had To Kill A Guy At Work Yesterday
This Was the Hardest Thing Anybody Ever Made Me Do
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This post is republished on Medium.
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At the moment I work at a cinema, where I make money while I am working hard on getting a job in my field. I know all too well that you are right. It seems that the teenagers that make up the majority of my coworkers haven’t had the experience of curling up with Hemingway, London, Shelly, or any of the other great writers that I absorbed as a kid. As far as writing goes. I feel that it is much more frightening to see what has been happening for women writers: gone are the days of Margaret Atwood and… Read more »
Men do read to their kids. I read to my son even before he was born and right after till he started reading on his own at a very young age. I also read a lot and kids do as we do and not as we say, and he loves books. Dad’s should do it as should mom’s, uncles, friends etc. Reading expands the mind, broadens and develops the imagination, teaches critical thinking, introduces us to new ideas, cultures, people and ways of looking at and being in the world as well as stimulating our intellect and senses. We also… Read more »
It is true that some men read to their children. Mine did. But I think it’s true that mothers are more likely to do so and that households with girls are more likely to have books compared to households with boys. So that is a problem that needs to be looked at with boy’s literacy problems. (I can’t remember where I read those stats, but that’s my recollection.) It surprises me to hear that male stories have a hard time getting published. It doesn’t fit with my experience reading and talking to other readers, male authors quite often predominate a… Read more »
I must live in another world because in highschool we read ONE female authored book throughout my English courses. ONE. All other stories worthy of study were written by men. After school just looking through books in general I will come across a good 10 books written by men for every 1 book written by a female. (of course I”m in the sciences and literature section more than I am in the romance or serial fiction section) But of course its more acceptablea for a man to WRITE a book. It’s active. TO READ one though.. to be so passive… Read more »
Well, I don’t know if it’s a completely different world. I said one of my favorites in high school happened to be written by a women not that female author dominated the curriculum because that just wasn’t the case. Most of the book I remember having to read were written by men. The idea of reading as a passive activity doesn’t sit well with me. It requires imagination and empathy to read fiction and your faculty for critical reflection isn’t lost when you pick up a book. I would like to read more about the so-called ‘boy code’ that shuns… Read more »
OP: “On the contrary, a book written by a girl (one killed in a stupid, tragic war) offers something few sources can: the capacity for us to see the world from someone else’s point of view.” Unfortunately, I’ve found it precarious to read a book written by a female author. It didn’t used to be so, but since…well…remembering some really traumatizing experiences at the hands of females in the past, I cringe with dread everytime. Because whenever a female author writes a female lead character who’s independant and strong, they give her leeway to insult and hurt the male support… Read more »
I was reading an interview with Marguerite Duras about her fiction and the interviewer cited a trend in her work that male characters lacked backbone and nerve and always seemed to be incompetently following behind the female lead. She concurred that that was how she saw the world, women as active and men as passive, which to me is terribly chauvinistic.
I still want to get my hands on some of her work mind you, a lot of French feminists have hailed it as a good example of ‘Écriture feminine.’
I weep for the future generations of girls and women out there being fed messages like this on a regular basis.
I don’t get it. Why am I the ONLY ONE who has a problem with this? Why isn’t anyone else speaking out against this trend?
Hang on a minute.
So, on the one hand, you have a problem with how Marguerite portrays male characters in her works and her views on men in general.
But yet, you still want to get your hands on some of her work?
That rings of endorsing her views regardless. Because if it were me, I wouldn’t touch her work with a ten foot pole! Same for any author who finds it in themselves to denigrate men and portray them as doormats and punching bags for the female character.
I don’t know that I have to like everything about an author to find some value in their work. I remember the first time I read Hemingway I ended up flinging A Farewell To Arms across the room after reading one of the scenes in the Hospital. A friend interpreted this as me having a problem with his depiction of women at the time, yet I still read other Hemingway books and appreciate them now. The reasons I want to read Duras is that she’s been hailed as exemplifying a distinctly ‘women’s’ way of writing. I’m terribly skeptically of the… Read more »
Matthew: The reasons I want to read Duras is that she’s been hailed as exemplifying a distinctly ‘women’s’ way of writing.
Again, if her point of view is that men and male characters is negative, it is a dangerous point of view to support with the way boys and men are being treated by society these days.
Perfectly possible to have the works of people you disagree with – it’s how you come to an informed decision on them.
Heck, I’ve got The Female Eunuch on my shelves!
(Also have Mein Kampf but not a Nazi, The Communist Manifesto but not a communist, Atlas Shrugged but not an Objectivist, etc)
Cheers for the edit, GMP 😛
OrishM: Perfectly possible to have the works of people you disagree with – it’s how you come to an informed decision on them.
Not when it comes to presenting female characters as just and good while the men are punching bags and doormats. Forget it.
Too much of that message being passed on down to girls. I will not allow this to give girls the idea (and their moms) that men and boys are viable targets to hurt.
Absolutely OirishM, in the immortal words of Bob Dylan: “you can’t criticise what you don’t understand”.
Don’t worry too much, I don’t think many little girls are reading Marguerite Duras.
Matthew: “Absolutely OirishM, in the immortal words of Bob Dylan: “you can’t criticise what you don’t understand”. No, I understand fully well: Female characters getting away with insulting and treating the male supporting characters like doormats without consequence. I think it’s sexist and harmful to support so I refuse to support it. Matthew: “Don’t worry too much, I don’t think many little girls are reading Marguerite Duras.” That doesn’t mean they’re not picking up the message from other forms of media and their parents. Did you even read what I quoted from “Miss Peregrine”? We’re talking about a bestselling youth… Read more »
I just looked back and read the quote. I agree with you. It’s female chauvinism. I don’t like it. I don’t think it should be socially acceptable to hold those views and they should be criticized just as I would criticize notions that women are inferior.
I was defending my right to read a book that I might not necessarily agree with, or actually, more than that, I was advocating reading books you suspect you don’t agree with so you can know what you’re talking about when you critique them.
Matthew: “I was defending my right to read a book that I might not necessarily agree with, or actually, more than that, I was advocating reading books you suspect you don’t agree with so you can know what you’re talking about when you critique them.”
Been there, done that. Never again. For the sake of my mental health at the moment.
I completely understand that. It’s not worth engaging with something if it’s going to undermine your mental health. Unless, by engaging it, you can overcome it.
Really great article. It’s sad that this rings so true.
thank god JK Rowling took her agent’s advice to publish her books with only her initials or else boys wouldn’t read it because a “girl” wrote it. It’s sad. it says alot about what we are teaching our children to value. definitely not “a bunch of girls bitching” being a description for one of the timeless pieces of historical literature that we have all because it was written by and about a girl. Imagine if women and girls were taught to think this way about boys and men to the point that they avoided anything male. Of course many children… Read more »
great article. here is a thought.. people who don’t read have difficulty in articulating their emotions, unable to express themselves and their feelings and hence, i think, the only way they express their emotions is physically.. i think men who don’t read have higher chances of being violent, since they feel stupid not being to express themselves.. secondly, the very idea of reading being feminine and gay is very western to me as an indian, as do most problems of masculinity… the bestseller in india is a romantic novelist,most of my male friends have read it.. putting emotions into words… Read more »
I am not sure if it is even a thing in Western culture. It looks much like a Dead Horse Trope to me. And anyway, even if true, it only applies to this day and age. When I hear of it I always imagine somebody telling say Cervantes that writing and reading is not a manly thing and getting a rapier between his ribs as a result. 😀
Female here too. I recently read about the importance of reading to kids as a parent, as they then associate the act of reading with love. Maybe if Dads are able to sit and read a book with their sons instead of kicking a football around? It’s got to start somewhere… As an aside, I looked into getting a photo journalism book published and was told if it’s not about politics or sport it won’t sell – not ‘typically’ female interests. This is Australia, though. Also I don’t know of any male authors who have had to use a female… Read more »
I would think it to be the case with erotic novels – would any woman buy erotic fiction written by a man? I don’t think so. It’s considered sleazy and perverted when a man writes it.
Hehe, Dan Brown of Da Vinci Code fame before he became famous published a book 187 Men to Avoid: A Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman under the name Danielle Brown. Same argument applies. People would not buy it they knew it was written by a man.
I am a female and I grew up reading Hemmingway and Kipling and Steinbeck and Twain and all the books for girls as well. It never occurred to me that I shouldn’t read books written by men. And as an adult I am fully aware that Hemmingway was misogynistic and Kipling was racist but that doesn’t make their writing any less great. I still read them and I still enjoy them.
My seven year old grandson is already an obsessive reader and he is encouraged to read anything he wants. And I encourage him to write whatever he wants.