Musing Monday: Is it a gender thing?

THIS week’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about a “reading” survey, and what it had to say…

The article (here) talked of “why women read more than men“. In it, author Ian McEwan is quoted saying: “When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.”

Do you believe this to be true? Why, or why not?

Short answer: no I don't believe that to be true. The very first part of the article irritated me that they came to their conclusion because when they were handing out books at the park, the women "eagerly" took the books while the men eyed them "suspiciously."

That doesn't show women read more than men. It just means the men were more suspicious of why they were giving away free books! To quote the article, "The inevitable conclusion, wrote McEwan in The Guardian newspaper: 'When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.'" How ridiculous to make such a statement from just handing out books at a park! Sure, there were other "surveys" but the ones they mentioned seemed very unscientific.

Personally, I think a lot of men read fiction too...it's just that women like to TALK about it! Men read them and go on. Women like to gather up and find out what others thought about the books they've read and have a discussion. That's just a no-brainer to me. When have you known a great number of men who like to gather up and "chat" about fishing or golf or anything?

Are there a ton of fishing blogs where you can find men saying..."Hey! I tried this fly and it's great! You should check it out!" ... "Oh really, I didn't like that one so much, I just couldn't get into it, but I liked this other fly." They don't talk about it...they just do it! Which is why there are a lot of women book bloggers (and why there are probably more women bloggers period).

That's my 2 cents!

So, what do you think of this article and its claims? Go on over to Musing Mondays and leave a comment or see what others have to say.