A survey (n = 2,000) conducted as part of the U.K.'s National Year of Reading (2008) suggests that men are less likely to finish books than women (Telegraph, UK 2009). The Guardian (UK, 2009) reports this as women knowing how to "read properly", while the Telegraph points out that men reported being more likely to lie about their reading habits to impress a member of the opposite sex (46% to 33%). These findings are not entirely surprising nor limited to the U.K.: in a Dutch study (n = 664), Verboord (2005) found that women's book reading was 16% higher than men's. In a smaller U.S. study (n = 115), Scales and Rhee (2001) found that 41% of women vs 16% of men reported reading novels.
It's worth pointing out that these three surveys appear to be asking very different questions: do you finish what you read, how often do you read, and what do you like to read? However, Verboord did report high levels of concordance between reported answers on how often people read, how many books they finish, and when they last finished a book. Perhaps relevant is Rehberg Sedo's (2003) (n = 252) study of book club participants, who were 85% female: however, this probably says more about the social reading environment than with actual volume of reading.
If nothing else, this would seem to be support for the oft-cited female comfort with language-based tasks versus spatial or mathematical tasks. On the other hand, it might also be support for a female tendency to report more socially desirable behaviors: I don't think anyone is likely to argue that women are under social pressure not to read. If anything, women's vocal involvement in social reading (such as book clubs) might cause underreporting of reading in men. There's really no way to know how close the self-report in these (all retrospective) studies is to reality. I was hoping to find a reading diary study, but since diary-keeping tends to improve performance of desired behaviors, that couldn't be applied to the general population anyway.
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About Me
- Dan4th
- ex-activist, ex-pagan, ex-vegetarian, ex-female, post-queer blogging addict. B.S. in theatre, studying for Master's in Psych. Day job in research administration.
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10 comments:
I don't think anyone is likely to argue that women are under social pressure not to read.
Including women in sociocultural groups where being seen as smarter or more intellectually capable than men is undesirable?
Do you think leisure reading in those groups is taken as a sign of intellectualism? I don't feel like it is, or like distinctions are drawn between "women's reading" and "intellectual reading."
I've never really understood why reading is socially acceptable (and considered "good" behavior) and, say, watching TV isn't.
I watch tons of tv and rarely read. I've had people argue with me that I'm lying about this because I seem too intelligent and accomplish too much to be watching tv as much as I say I do (many hours a day).
In general, I think people are very judgemental about reading. I'd think this would make them likely to lie.
Oh...and it's women who always give me shit about reading versus watching tv...never men.
@m_big_mistake:
I am so torn between:
1) being the first man to give you a hard time about watching TV instead of reading.
*or*
2) saying that I have no trouble believing you watch that much TV.
-- is this a time to embrace the power of "and"? I'm more used to catching shit about reading Terry Pratchett instead of Pynchon or non-fiction.
Problem:
Suppose that men and women read equally and consume porn equally.
Now how do we reach 40% of women and 20% of men saying they read novels?
Solution:
Men don't call porn "reading", while even the trashiest book from the supermarket is called a novel.
This is consistent if 1/5 of each gender has reading as their primary pastime and another 1/5 has erotica. Since none of the pervy men get counted as readers and all of the pervy women do, you reach 20% male readers and 40% female readers. :)
.
@fuzzy:
I'd be with you if I knew more guys who read "erotic fiction" (word porn). With words. Pictures are different, and in my experience, more necessary to the male consumption of porn.
@Dan4th, that's exactly my point. If both genders true favorite activities was:
20% consume titillating content
20% watch movies
20% read novels
40% other
and 100% of men "consumed titillating content" as movies while 100% of women "consumed titillating content" as novels, the reported result would be:
Men:
20% read novels
40% watch movies
40% other
Women:
40% read novels
20% watch movies
40% other.
BTW, I don't believe that this is the case. I'm just positing that it could be. (whenever I pull out the % sign you know I'm making a joke, cause that's how I roll.)
(It's so hard not to type \%)
@fuzzy:
Ah, I see - so you're NOT saying that men are reading, but not reporting it because "porn doesn't count".
You're saying that the women's aren't saying "porn doesn't count". But you think they should be. Because if movie porn doesn't count as reading, then why should book porn?
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