Are men turned off by modern literature?

OR ARE WE LOSING PERSPECTIVE?

I’ve spoken repeatedly about my admiration for author R.F. Kuang. She’s 28 and if you listen to readers online, she’s already pushing iconic status. I’m currently reading Salley Rooney, the 33-year-old Irish writer whose books have been adapted to popular TV series. Then there’s Emily Henry, Sarah J. Maas, Rupi Kaur, and these are just the female authors under the age of 40. 

Back in the 1970s, women only accounted for 20% of hardback titles. By 2020, that number had risen to 50%. Amen to equality! But those numbers made me curious. What caused that increase? And were there cultural and societal shifts over that same time period that contributed to women becoming so much more prolific? And did any of those factors impact the attitude and actions of men towards reading and writing books? 

I’m starting with readers because as an author, I know that it takes first falling in love with books and reading before you turn to writing. The most popular genre of literature right now (and for a while now) is romance. As far as readership goes, it’s about 80% female. Whereas for literary fiction—often thought of as the most sophisticated “genre” (we can argue about whether it’s really a genre another time) — recent studies have shown that only 20% of the readership is male. Actually, statistics show that about 80% of books sold are sold to women. 

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The first book I remember reading was a picture book called The Orphan Boy by Tololwa M. Mollel. It was a fantastical story about a heavenly visitor coming down from the stars to save an old man’s farm (at least that’s how I remember it). 

That book ignited my imagination and showed me how writing could take me to other worlds. But the book that made me fall in love with the idea of writing was Charlotte’s Web. I can’t begin to explain how that story captured my heart. When I think about it today, I still remember the emotions I felt when reading it. 

It was a game changer. 

Today, I can’t help but wonder how many elementary school boys are having that type of experience. Are they finding and reading books that fill them with an appreciation for storytelling and authorship? Or are there cultural and societal pressures that are steering them away from reading? Let me explain what I mean: 

During World War 2, American soldiers read pocket books to pass the time between the trenches. When they returned home, they continued that habit and there was a boom in the paperback market largely because of this development. 

A century before that, the Romantic era was coming to an end in Europe. Hawthorne, Melville, Coleridge, Blake and Lord Byron were among the leaders of that period, along with Poe, Shelley and Keats. Emily Dickenson and Charlotte Bronte also added valuable contributions, but the era was clearly dominated by the male voice. 

Obviously patriarchy was in full swing during both the Romantic era and World War 2, but stay with me on this. Writing during those periods was thought of as something that men do. Being a great writer was a badge men wore proudly. And not just narrative writing; deep, thoughtful poetry was just as sacred. But as I scan the publishing and cultural landscape today, I don’t believe I, or any one of us, can make that same assertion. 

I’ll use myself as an example. I’ve been writing books since I was eight years old, yet I kept that part of my life largely hidden until I got to university. That’s where I finally discovered other writers who were equally as passionate and not afraid to express that passion, but I still have to admit that many of my classmates were female. From middle school up until university, I was an exceptional basketball player. At no point did I ever feel ashamed to be an athlete, yet there was a lot of fear and even some shame in how my friends before university would react if I identified too strongly with being a writer.  

Somewhere along the line, reading and writing became associated with femininity. Part of that statement is my opinion, but as we’ll discuss shortly, that opinion is based on historical analysis and observations. And to be clear, I’m not saying that the shift to femininity is necessarily a bad thing. I’m saying it’s something worth exploring because of the impact it’s had on our boys and men. 

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There have been many theories about this, but the one that caught my attention most points to the 1970s. It was the era of women’s liberation which is often labelled as the second wave of feminism (the first wave was the just after the turn of the twentieth century when women were eventually granted the right to vote in 1920). During this second wave of feminism, women continued their ascent into the workforce, which was already building from the 60s. 

This is also the era where many women writers from the West wrote their way into prominence. In Britain, authors like Fay Weldon and Angela Carter wrote significant works, along with Sara Maitland and Emma Tennant. 

In the U.S., Ursula K. Le Guin, Sue Kaufman, Lisa Alther, Judy Bloom, and, of course, Toni Morrison were paving the way. These authors, from both sides of the ocean, weren’t just writing books, they were challenging societal norms and pushing political agendas. They all wrote fiction, yes, but fiction that made statements. 

This must have been such an exciting time in literature. 

Female authors were writing female protagonists in ways that had not been written previously, at least not at scale. None of this should sound threatening to young male writers or to male readers. The stories were certainly no less interesting and were just as adventurous or complex as the stories men were writing. And it’s worth mentioning that women writers of that period were also writing novels with male protagonists. Readers really should’ve been leaping up and down with this new influx of literature. 

But for whatever reason — a reason that I still can’t figure out — young boys are not as keen to read books with girls or women as the lead character. And older men are more open, but still less likely to read stories with female protagonists. I really don’t know why. 

Let’s stick with writing being seen as a feminine thing. Part of that can be attributed to culture, particularly in public education. Currently, in the UK, about two-thirds of high school teachers are women and that number increases when you focus on English teachers. I even read a stat that in a quarter of UK secondary schools, there are no male teachers at all. 

Is it possible that because young girls are seeing themselves in these teachers that they are more apt to take to writing? And contrarily, does that mean that because young boys are not seeing themselves in these teachers that they are less apt to take to writing? I can’t say either way, but it’s an interesting possibility. 

In my four semesters teaching Professional Writing at a local college here in Canada, I must say that these numbers are reflective of my situation. Myself and another professor are the only males, and in my classrooms, the overwhelming majority of the students identify as female, at least 3-1.  

The publishing industry is also largely female, about 70-80%. That includes editors, marketing and publicity staff. In the U.K, specifically, 78% of editorial staff, 83% of marketing and 92% of publicity staff are female. Could it also be possible that women are more naturally drawn to publishing women writers? 

I could see that possibility also. 

I also think about money. The zeitgeist of the last two decades has pushed the entrepreneurial mindset into popular culture. Men have grabbed onto that messaging and are running more startups than at any other time in history. 

In America, there are over 31 million entrepreneurs, a figure that has been rising since 2005. At last check in 2021, there were 840,000 businesses in America under one year old. That’s a massive number of people willing to take a chance. Worldwide, 582 million people identify as entrepreneurs and a recent study showed that in all countries, male entrepreneurs far outnumber the women. 

Being an author is a lot of things, but it is not a road to riches. It’s art, which means it’s subjective, which also means it’s unpredictable. You aren’t creating products to solve problems like entrepreneurs do, especially if you’re writing fiction. And with writing not being viewed as a viable means to riches, maybe men are opting to turn their attention elsewhere. 

Patriarchy is still at play here. Men are still conditioned today to be breadwinners and the chances of being a breadwinner selling books is slim. Most authors sell less than a thousand books a year and earn less than $20,000 annually. That’s not the tax bracket men are striving for (or anyone, really, not in capitalism). 

On the flip side of things, maybe more women are becoming writers because there’s less barriers to entry. There’s no “boys club” preventing them from sitting down in front of their laptops and writing to their heart’s content. It takes a curious mind and developing your writing skills to become an author. 

I only bring this up because we haven’t seen the jump in female participation in other creative fields that we have in publishing. Take film for example. Of the top 250 films released in 2022, women still accounted for less than 10% of the cinematographers and less than 20% of the directors. 

When we look at advertising, I’ve done copywriting for over a decade and most of the people and teams I’ve worked with are largely made up of men. There’s actually a heavy ‘boys club’ culture in advertising that likely contributes to women maybe not feeling unwelcome, but unsafe. That’s just an opinion; I haven’t found studies to back up the last part of that statement. 

Okay, that’s a lot to take in. Let’s just step back for a minute and look at which authors are being championed the most. On the 2023 Granta’s list, which celebrates the top authors in the U.K., I counted four men out of the 20 recipients. That’s the lowest percentage in the 40 year history of the list.

From a more pop culture perspective, when I observe conversations around the best authors in the world, most of the names in those conversations are women. I think that’s wonderful, especially if the stats hold true at 50% authorship for male and female writers. 

We’re doing a lot of exploring here, but we haven’t come to any conclusions. Here’s my opinion on everything I’ve just laid out: I think it all depends on interest.

Men read thrillers at about the same rate. Men read comics and Manga at a higher rate and the same could be said for non-fiction.

When it comes to writing thrillers, specifically spy novels, 97% are written by men (over the 2010s). Even sci-fi during the same 2010-2020 period, close to 80% of that genre was written by men.

When I read statistics like this, it leads me to believe that men are still reading and writing at a high pace. They’re just reading and writing literature that interests them. My hope is that the cultural shift to more female authored books opens boys and men up to more diverse stories. And as a society, we need to work harder to engage young boys and help steer them to literature they would enjoy, regardless of the author or the gender of the protagonist.

But what do you think? Has writing become too feminine? And if so, is there anything wrong with that? And is it really affecting men and boys in any tangible way?