This just in! Men like books about isolation and suppressed emotions and women like books about passion and inspiration! Who knew? My favorite graf from the article is this one: "The researchers also found that women preferred old, well-thumbed paperbacks, whereas men had a slight fixation with the stiff covers of hardback books." So many metaphors for life right there in that sentence.
Read the full story here.
2 comments:
Grrrr...I realize the Gaurdian tends to take a cheeky tone about everything, but really, could this article have been written by anyone who didn't hold men in contempt from the start? Would any editor tolerate an article about women's literary preference that included the phrase "a slight fixation"?
On the merits, it's interesting to note that they've self-selected a certain kind of response by limiting their survey to the upper crust of British society; Oxford dons, captains of industry, government mandarins, etc. Is it any wonder that these types have little use or time for fiction...you might find a more varied response if you asked men who weren't in such leadership "alpha male" roles.
The interesting part for me, apart from the raging gender bias, was the fact that "To Kill A Mockingbird" made both lists.
I thought the TKAM connection was interesting as well. And if you go through the whole article, down at the bottom there is a link to the "female" version of the reading list which is equally stereotypical. It is the Guardian, after all.
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