Last year, I wrote a paper for one of my last classes in library school examining issues related to men, reading, and genre. In completing this paper, I conducted an online survey relating to various questions raised by my topic. Since then, numerous people who were kind enough to take the survey have asked what my findings were. Due to issues related to ethical and privacy concerns with student research, I am not allowed to make the full paper available to the public. However, I am going to take this opportunity to summarize my findings, without releasing any information that could lead to the identification of anyone who took the survey, which should hopefully eliminate the privacy concerns. However, if you took the survey and have problems with me publicizing the general results, please feel free to contact me and let me know.

The paper examined the apparent contradiction between two stereotypes: the idea that men do not read for pleasure, and the idea that certain genres of fiction are perceived as masculine genres (i.e. genres traditionally written by and for men). My question was, how can there be a market for masculine fiction genres if men do not read? This brought up several subquestions: Is it true that men do not read for pleasure? Are certain fiction genres are perceived as masculine? What genres are considered masculine?

A survey of the literature made it pretty clear that statistically, men are still far less likely than women to read fiction for pleasure (or at least, admit to a researcher that they read for pleasure. In addition, researchers have found that the “gender gap” in fiction reading is almost entirely due to cultural norms and socialization issues, rather than cognitive differences. This seems to support the notion that reading fiction is perceived as a feminine, not a masculine, activity.

I was unable to find any substantive research on perceptions of masculinity and femininity within fiction genres, so I decided to run an informal online survey to get at least some data on the subject. The survey was exclusively distributed online, through email, Facebook, and social and academic message boards. I did not collect demographic information beyond gender and age, but based on the survey distribution method, it is unlikely that the survey respondents were representative of U.S. society as a whole. As such, this was not a scientifically rigorous survey and the data should not be viewed as definitive. However, I think the results of the informal survey are still interesting and worthy of discussion.

The survey was answered by 284 people, with a fairly even gender split of 53.9 percent female respondents and 46.1 percent male respondents. Ages of the respondents ranged from 20 years old to 62 years old, but the vast majority were in their 20s or 30s. Nearly every respondent said that they read for pleasure or recreation, with a 98.9 percent positive response rate. Of those who said they read for pleasure or recreation, 93.5 percent said they read fiction at least occasionally.

In examining the respondents’ attitudes towards gender and fiction reading, 60.6 percent said they think adult women are more likely than adult men to read fiction for pleasure, while only 1.1 percent said they think men are more likely than women to read fiction for pleasure and 38.4 percent said both genders are equally likely to read fiction for pleasure. Even 59.5 percent of male respondents said they thought women were more likely to read fiction for fun than men. Of the 131 men who answered the survey, only three, or 2.3 percent, said that they never read for pleasure or recreation. Of the men who said they do read for pleasure or recreation, only two, or 1.6 percent, said they never read fiction, and only nine, or 7.1 percent, said they rarely read fiction.

The final question asked survey-takers to indicate whether they think several fiction genres are read more by adult men, by adult women, or are read approximately equally by both genders. Respondents were instructed to define each genre based on their own personal interpretation. The most heavily gendered genres were romance, with 99.3 percent of respondents indicating that women would be more likely to read this genre than men, and science fiction, with 79.4 percent of respondents indicating that men would be more likely to read this genre than women. Westerns were thought more likely to be read by men according to 83 percent of respondents, but several comments indicated that this was based more on guesswork than observation, as many respondents had never seen anyone read Westerns. Genres with a less dominant masculine image were horror (55.9 percent said men were more likely to read than women) and fantasy (44.3 percent said men were more likely to read than women, though 40.4 percent of respondents perceived this genre as neutrally gendered). Genres with a less dominant feminine image were young adult (67.5 percent said women were more likely to read than men) and children’s books (50.7 percent said women were more likely to read than men). The genres seen as neither masculine nor feminine were thriller/suspense (59.6 percent equal), literary fiction (51.3 percent), and mystery/detective (51.1 percent).

(To be continued later this week … stay tuned for data interpretation!)