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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   35082 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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I do take this as a strong indicator of organic interest (or lack thereof). But it still feels wrong to flatly say "men just aren't into reading". The history of literature is dominated almost entirely by men. This was true even up until the mid 20th century - look at the writers who were active during the interwar period, Joyce, Faulkner, Hemingway, Pound, all men, with Woolf being a notable exception. Perhaps the absence of women can be explained by patriarchal oppression, but how do you explain the presence of men; clearly there were a lot of men who were interested in reading and writing.

I think men seek entertainment more than women. Women are happier to sit in a circle and just chat. Men want activities to do. Up to the mid-twentieth century, literature was one of the few sources of entertainment, so men read and wrote it. But now we've got a lot of competitors like movies and video games. And men are very visual creatures, movies and video games devastatingly outcompete books for men's attention.

But I do think there's room for more men in literature. At this point we as a society should be actively encouraging male reading and celebrating male authors the way we currently do female, because males are at the disadvantage now. There was a time women were oppressed and as a society we subsidized them in certain fields to make up for that and bring them to parity, now it's the opposite.

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