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Sex on the Beach
Do women really read more than men?
Check for yourself. The next time you're walking along the shore, discreetly note how many people you see reading books. I bet you'll see a lot more women than men lost in a book while basking in the sun. That simple test goes a long way toward confirming something that book lovers have long accepted as "common knowledge" -- women care more about books, and certainly buy more books, than men.
I've suspected as much, but evidence for women being more connected to books has been merely anecdotal. It's routine, for instance, for women to outnumber men in bookstores and libraries, or at literary readings and festivals. And it's no secret that men's book clubs are few and far between. In Charlotte, you'll find a handful of men's reading groups, while the city probably has more women's book clubs than stoplights.
Anecdotal evidence is often on the mark, but journalistic instincts are hard to override. I wanted to see if book lovers' gut feelings about women, men and books were backed up by any solid facts, so I started looking for research on the subject. Trouble is, precise statistics about the gender of book buyers are hard to come by in the publishing business, which has long been notorious for its scarcity of market research.
What I did find was that book publishers and editors are so sure that women read more books than men, they don't feel the need for research to back it up. They told the New York Times that women read many more books than men, especially fiction -- as much as 70 to 80 percent of all fiction sold in the US. But, they admitted, there's little research to back up their beliefs.
Just to be sure, I asked a few local bookhounds what they think. Sally Brewster, co-owner with husband Frazer Dobson of Park Road Books, said there's no doubt in her mind.
"About 65 percent of our customers are women," Brewster said, "and I'd say 70 to 80 percent of the voracious readers are women."
Why don't men read as many books? "Oh, it's very cultural," Brewster opined, "probably a holdover from childhood when it wasn't considered too cool to be a reader. Girls were underdogs, though, and many grabbed for any advantage they could get, which meant more reading. The fact is, today there's more reading material for women, too -- partly a reaction to the fact that more women read, I'm sure, but it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy, too."
Dobson added, "I do think there's a perception that reading isn't macho. You could say that's a real failure of education."
Author, poet and writing workshop leader Judy Goldman believes the disparity between the number of male and female readers "has something to do with imagination. Women have more, I believe. When you're reading, you have to bring imagination to the page and fill in the things that are implicit in the book but not spelled out. Women are more drawn to the implicit and men are more attracted to the explicit. I think it's hard-wired into us to a certain extent, but then it's culturally reinforced, too."
M. Scott Douglass, book publisher and editor of Main Street Rag literary magazine, said, "Around 60 percent of our book sales are to women. I think more women want to be writers, and they're told that to do that they need to be avid readers. Also, at least in this area, there's a good deal of wealth, and women of means have more time to devote to reading."
To which I would only add that Oprah can't hurt, either.
Whatever the reasons for the gender gap, the book industry has jumped on it by looking for more books by women, and launching the whole chick lit phenomenon. Goodbye Philip Roth, hello Helen Fielding. In addition, that favorite beach-reading genre, the crime novel, is being transformed by a new emphasis on mysteries and thrillers by women, with strong female leading characters. To top it all off, some respected male mystery writers have been asked to include more women in their work in order to appeal to female readers.
The ultimate macho crime novelist, Mickey Spillane, died last week at his home in Murrell's Inlet, SC. He may or may not be spinning in his grave over the new feminization of mysteries, but if his spirit is hovering over his beloved South Carolina coastline, he's less likely to see tourists handling sandy copies of his tough-guy prose than works by Patricia Cornwell or Janet Evanovich.
To comment on this story, go to News at www.charlotte.creativeloafing.com. To contact John Grooms, e-mail him at john.grooms@creativeloafing.com.
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