Shift Towards an Increase in Female Readership

Ever since literacy advocacy efforts have been concentrated on improving readership among women. Today, I think women read more than men because reading has become consistently marketed towards women as a demographic. The changing primary demographic for the consumption of literature suggests that more women are joining the literary fraternity either as readers or authors. Over the years, the number of women who read in public has been observably increasing. This trend is in contrast to the situation a few decades ago, where reading in public was noticeable mostly among men.

Public perception of what one reads also contributes to the changes in consumption of literature. Depending on how a society has defined gender roles, it would feel awkward for different readers to read certain subjects. For instance, it would appear unusual for a man to read a romance novel while a woman beside him is reading a novel on left-wing politics. Therefore, gender roles contribute immensely to shaping consumption patterns of literature. Trends in the marketing of literature have also greatly contributed to defining the readership landscape.

Since there has been a bias in literacy that has traditionally disfavored women, most marketing efforts have focused on improving literacy among women. These efforts have had a considerable impact in changing how women approach literature. The impact of these efforts have transcended just improving readership – the increasing literacy among women has resulted in a steady rise in the social status of women. In turn, an improving social status of women has bred a sense of equality, where women feel like they can read and write just as much as men do.

Many experiments, including unscientific ones, have affirmed that women are generally read more than men. In one unofficial experiment, British Author Ian McEwan with the assistance of his son walked through the streets of a London park handing out free novels. Unsurprisingly, most of those who picked them were women. Furthermore, according to McEwan, the women who picked them showed greater enthusiasm than the few men who did. Thus, there is no doubt that women are generally more passionate readers than men.

Many theories have emerged to attempt explaining this phenomenon. One such postulation claims that the disparity results from the idea of separate spheres and division of labor in society. The theory of separate spheres dwells on the social phenomenon of private/ public dichotomies in defining social roles. Adherents of the theory believe that women belong to the domestic (private) sphere whereas men belong to the social (public) sphere. The theory is widely accepted in many societies. Domestic life is contrasted with social life in that both have different sets of pass time activities. Domestic life offers relatively more free time than public life. Coincidentally, reading is an activity that typical Nonetheless, to understand this phenomenon, it is important to understand the historical foundations of women education in Western societies. In the early Western society, educating women received disproportionately less attention than it deserved.

In the 1930’s women education focused on equipping them only with practical skills such as dressmaking. The widespread notion was that women should marry, and educating them to college level would increase their chance of getting into marriage. Since women naturally had a disadvantage when it came to accessing education, their literacy levels remained low. These disadvantages have included traditional perceptions of gender roles, early marriage among women than men and poverty. Besides the inherent disadvantages that disfavored women from accessing education, there were also deliberate efforts to discriminate them from learning. For instance, in colonial America, higher education was reserved for men. This is despite women expressing a great desire to pursue higher education. This fact was proven in 1982 when more women than men received bachelor’s degrees. Ever since this record was set, more bachelor’s degrees have been conferred to women than men in American institutions of higher education.