If you spend long enough in the “gender war” sector of the internet, you’re eventually presented with the accusation “men don’t read”.
Obviously, we’re talking about books here, because spending 23.9 hours a day scrolling on your phone on social media is a metric ton of actual reading — many, many books’ worth of reading. But we don’t count that as reading.
The “men don’t read” line is usually tossed out by mean internet women as a barb to argue that women are better than men, because women read piles of books. Women are well-read, literate, educated masters who have passed men up. While men barely touch books and are illiterate oafs who waste time playing video games or other geek hobbies, watching porn, obsessing over sports teams, and grunting at the gym.
Men are quick to argue back that sure, women read a lot, but it’s a lot of smutty romance novels and useless best-seller fiction — time wasting books. While men read non-fiction and useful stuff! And they argue that video games are still good for your brain! And that men work harder at their useful jobs! And so on.
Maybe men really are stupid. Because entertaining the argument at all pretty much grants women the victory.
Having the discussion at all means we are all agreeing that reading is a superior hobby that everyone is supposed to do, and if you don’t read, you need to have some kind of excuse for it, and if a woman does read, you need to have some kind of rationalization why it’s not good enough.
Reading’s great. I read constantly. All kinds of books. Fiction, non. The small number of “man” books out there, a lot of “woman” books. I’m not above reading what book clubs are reading, or any of the pro-woman pop psychology books on the market. Besides being good for understanding women a bit better, occasionally you find an entertaining one.
But there’s nothing inherently good about reading or inherently bad about whatever stupid man hobby a man is into, other than women say so.
Sure, we can argue that reading makes you smart and video games rot your brain. But even if that’s true, worrying about that and feeling as though we need to argue about that fact means we are all accepting that we have an obligation to be self-improving and grinding all the time and not wasting and rotting our lives at our leisure. That we need to have a defense ready for why we’re not maximizing and bettering ourselves all the time.
Are we really “supposed to” be bettering ourselves during our recreational time and not just having fun? Isn’t it our life to waste?
Honestly, a lot of women — and many internet men (examples include men from the “traditional” crowd, the “Christian” crowd, and the “masculinity” crowd) — think men aren’t supposed to have fun at all. That it’s our “duty” as “real men” to be working all the time. Forever grinding, improving, benefitting others and the world. Most of those people would definitely tell you that you’re wrong to waste your life doing fun things instead of things that better yourself and the world.
Being perfectly honest, a lot of men don’t read. Or barely read. Or are at least quite limited in what they like to read.
For example, I’m Archwinger, legendary evil internet misogynist, etc. Back in the good ol’ days of The Red Pill on Reddit, I was regarded as one of the best writers in the space. Smart and funny. Witty, sharp, incisive. Full of useful and helpful information. Someone who had a good grasp of this Red Pill stuff. And most important of all: entertaining to read. People got excited when some new Archwinger essay came out. Thousands of likes, men discussing it for days, many of the men laughing out loud at the fun parts.
Some of the big names today still quote stuff I pissed out of my keyboard over ten years ago. “Every unhappy wife is a rape victim”, “Women are as shitty as you let them be”, “Assume she’s a slut but don’t obsess” — those were me. Many others, too. I probably have a hundred or something old posts on Reddit, and over a hundred here on Substack. I just have to write. If I don’t, all this stuff bouncing around in my head makes it too hard to focus. I have to get it out to make room for other thoughts.
Maybe this is a serious problem, actually.
Recently, I dropped the news that I’ve finished the first draft of a book. But the reaction to books is always pretty muted in the manosphere. All the big names write books. And the occasional little guy like me. And all the men think “Another manosphere book? Yawn.” Because they’re selective about what they read. A ten-minute essay from some witty-sounding guy ranting about women? That’s fun and entertaining. Ten dollars to buy a 50,000+ word book from the same dude trying to sell books? That’s kinda boring and grifty. (Though I skipped the manosphere step and just wrote a regular fiction book.)
It’s not that men don’t like reading. It’s that life is hard, there are only 24 hours in a day, and with the economy in the crapper, a lot of guys are working long hours (plus side-hustles) to get by. They just don’t have time to keep up with the New York Times bestseller list so they can spend Monday nights with the wine moms at book club.
If there were 1000 hours in the day and humans lived forever, sure, men would read a lot more. But with the very limited free time they have, most guys prefer to do other things.
And that’s fine. Even if reading is a “better” hobby than whatever man hobby a guy wants to do, you do not have some kind of obligation to the world to do the “better” thing instead of the things you like and enjoy.
A lot of internet men like to toss out the idea that today’s books suck. They’re all slop written mostly by women, and nearly entirely for women. And if only there were more “man” books, they’d read them. But that doesn’t pan out in the real world. Guys are busy and selective and value their time, even when it comes to “man” books, which is great. But that means the majority of books that get written are going to be written to please people who actually buy books — women. Which means even more men don’t want to read them, then even more books are written for women, which even more men don’t read, and so on.
You can replace reading in the above essay with a lot of other barbs internet women like to throw around. Like interior design. That’s a fun one. Men are accused of being immature children who are fine living on a futon on the floor next to their video game system. Don’t they know that you’re supposed to have end tables you decorate with nick-nacks, and wall hangings?
Or skincare. Or how to dress. Or having the right, non-geeky, hobbies in general.
Whatever women say are the “better”, productive, adult ways to live and things to do, the typical party line is that the majority of men don’t do them because women are better then men while men barely even count as adults.
But what’s really being discussed here is something a bit more sinister.
Women, “traditional” men, society and civilization — not only do these forces not think that your life is yours to waste however you want, in whatever way you enjoy. They think the spoils of you doing the “better” things don’t belong to you, and that you have an obligation to benefit others and the world around you.
Internet men: It’s your life to waste. Or to live well. AT YOUR OPTION. And all of the spoils, or consequences, of how you choose to live, are your own. You are not a slave. And you owe nobody an explanation. Act accordingly.
