Gendered Reading, Again. And the Brontes are not 'Wallpaper'

This article from the Globe and Mail, is disturbing for how many generalisations it makes concerning the reading habits of men and women. It references the poll taken earlier this year of the most influential novels in which the Brontes stood out on the list of the women who were polled, while the men hardly listed any book written by a woman. Of course, there's this brief disclaimer:

Publishers and educators say they don't like to generalize about the tastes of half the population, but they will speculate as to why women prefer fiction, and are ready to debate both the social and the literary implications.

Then follows a lot of such speculation and generalisation, such as:

Reading fiction involves empathizing with the characters, and thus draws on women's traditional emotional strengths. Men, on the other hand, turn to non-fiction to learn about the world around them.

[...]

Literature has veered away from story to be about psychology; male writers are as responsible for that as women . . . but I do think men are interested in things, why things work, why things happen, and men look for more comedy in fiction. We [men] are bored by the earnestness of contemporary fiction.

[...]

Smith finds Canadian fiction particularly earnest and says the typical Canadian novel is one that appeals to women with a story of family, memory and loss. He's concerned that the success of these “women's novels” is limiting the kind of fiction that gets published here.

“Guys look for ideas,” says Smith. “Very intelligent men I talk to, none of them read fiction. It's girl stuff: hundreds and hundreds of pages of feelings. To think that no one perceives fiction as being about ideas is depressing.”

The debate is still alive, but this article goes all over the map, dissecting Canadian book-buying trends which do not prove much. Canadians are very poor book buyers. This past year I worked for a publisher and also heard from many people in the industry. It is a total mess at the moment: no one is buying books. And possibly this is not because we are not reading. When our only book chain refers to books as 'wallpaper' in the industry- material to spead along the walls of the store- is it any wonder that after picking up enough trash hailed as 'a masterpiece!' we Canadians begin to turn away?

To illustrate, we have a bookstore which takes up a corner of the mall. Half of the floor space is taken up with a Starbucks, and what could be an... Ikea store? There are all kinds of useless and unidentifiable household items, stationary, stuffed animals and glassware- nothing, in short, to do with books. Another large section is given to a fake fireplace (full-sized) and chairs for reading what no one is willing to buy. And, did I mention, the full sized children's play castle? In this BOOKstore, you cannot find many of the works of Dickens no matter how you try. Gaskell? Very funny. And the Brontes? Two copies each of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, with a token volume of the juvenilia. And perhaps more shocking and illustrative- I could not find any works by Jane Austen either, but I did find the sexed-up spin-offs.

I last left the store determined never to return when they did away entirely with the 'classics' section. This chain- Chapters Indigo- has 70% of the market, and literally dictates what gets published. In some cases publishers refer to the company before approving a manuscript. Women reading more fiction than men could be explained in so many other ways. Perhaps women are more likely to congregate at the Starbucks? But, believe me, it has nothing to do with how men and women think and read.