There is a problem with boys and books - and all-female prize panels aren't helping

Heil_Hamster · 2013-07-01T19:12:21+00:00

If you sell a girl reading as something normal, and sell a guy reading as a virgin nerd, what do you expect to happen?

rogersmith25 · 2013-07-01T17:52:51+00:00

The adventure genre has pretty much died. Teenage girls have a whole subsection of literature devoted to them--young adult fiction--but boys do not even have literature more in line with their tastes.

rogersmith25 · 2013-07-01T19:57:43+00:00

It isn't just boys lack of interest in books that is a problem.

The method by which children are taught to read was changed to favor girls:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/boys-do-better-than-girls-when-taught-under-traditional-reading-methods-7184547.html

When taught using the traditional methods, boys do better than girls. When taught using "contemporary" methods, girls outperform boys....

Now here is the most important point: both boys and girls do better when they are taught using the traditional method; so they changed the curricula to make girls do better than boys even though it hurts both groups overall.

kragshot · 2013-07-01T22:50:00+00:00

My wife works in education and we are both avid readers. So I end up helping her suggest the books she picks for the classroom. She more times than not will come to me to help pick out something to get the interest of the boys.

The unfortunate part of this is that in the urban communities, there is an uphill battle with trying to get a book that has a male interest but yet, does not cross too many lines...especially when those lines did not exist ten or fifteen years ago. I tried my best to get the Halo novels into the classrooms as the violence in those books is not graphic but they contain a lot of action; not to mention the video game tie-in as a bonus. No dice.

But there's "Hunger Games" and "Twilight" all over the fucking place. Now considering that "The Hunger Games" novels are far more graphically violent than the Halo novels is a mark of hypocrisy as the only reason that it is being promoted is because of the female lead character. Don't get me wrong; the Hunger Game novels are damn good and I have no problem with the female protagonist. But the fact that they vetoed the Halo novels because of "inappropriate content" was a crock of shit.

And if that wasn't enough; one of the other books that got promoted was "My Bloody Life; The Making Of A Latin King." Don't get me wrong; this is an amazing book and it does what it is meant to do; but this is a book not meant to be read by ten to fourteen year-olds. While it's purpose is meant to educate youth in avoiding gang life; because of the age-based immaturity of the students, more times than not it ends up glorifying it rather than tearing it down.

And the truly sad part is that you hardly even find the athlete biographies in the schools anymore. To keep the boys interested in reading in my wife's class, we contacted the WWE and they sent us a case filled with their youth-focused biographies and "on-the road" true stories. And the CPS representative tried to make a fuss about those for a moment until we gave her a set to take home to her son.

Make of that what you will...but the educational concern for boys in this country can be summed up in two words; little and none.

chavelah · 2013-07-01T18:29:36+00:00

Wow. Thanks for sharing this. I had not realized until now that my husband has never once selected books for the children. I'm sure he'll be happy to do so - but he never thought to do it and I never thought to suggest it.

thescientist8371 · 2013-07-01T20:53:42+00:00

The education system is failing our boys and young men. Because it is primarily run by women, the education system is tilted to benefit typical female learning abilities, while chastising the boys' way of learning. We can see the results of such a system today. Boys are significantly more prone to drop out of high school and college. The female population in most universities is much higher than that of males. Here's the kicker: a lot of universities have programs and departments that are set up to help women go to college and stay in college--but these opportunities do not exist for men.

This book outlines perfectly well the problem and it proposes a few solutions. However, these solutions cannot come into place, unless we as a society get to work together to change the system. http://www.amazon.com/Boys-Adrift-Epidemic-Unmotivated-Underachieving/dp/0465072100

logrusmage · 2013-07-01T20:25:09+00:00

Women aren’t keeping men out of these gatekeeper roles, the imbalance is there because relatively few men are interested in occupying them, but as a consequence picture books tend to reflect female tastes more than male ones.

I love how this stays entirely reasonable and levelheaded throughout. If it was the reverse, there is no way in hell this line would've been included. The opposite probably would have been heavily implied or outright stated as incontrovertible fact.

BeginnerSociologist · 2013-07-01T19:57:35+00:00

Niché fiction seems to be the only male books around today, with the whole of the book industry geared at women.

I have no idea why that is.

MockingDead · 2013-07-01T20:11:52+00:00

The first book I remember really loving was "The Boys King Aurther". Made me want to be a Gallant Knight and an artist.

Irony that it is a story of female Hypergamy.

Also I have noticed that there are fewer male protagonists lately. One series I just set down because it was atrocious has a daughter trying to find her father. it wasn't the female protag that made it bad, it was poorly written. if I could have identified with the protag, i might have given it a pass.

Samurai007_ · 2013-07-02T03:55:10+00:00

When I was young, there were 2 things that I enjoyed reading: comic books and roleplaying games (Dungeons and Dragons). Comic books had that action, adventure, peril, and lots of great artwork that encouraged me to draw as well! And roleplaying games not only had adventures and reading, but also quite a bit of math as well as creative thinking and the chance to put yourself in someone else's shoes and think about things from your character's perspective rather than your own.

My enjoyment of those 2 things meant that I was always reading at 2-3 grades above my own. Comic books and RPGs are still around today in far greater variety than they had when I was a child, and if you have a boy that isn't interested in reading feminized books, I would encourage you to try them.

YetAnotherCommenter · 2013-07-02T08:17:11+00:00

I have to agree to a significant extent here. Reading books is, to a significant extent, a primarily female pasttime (in the world of high literature, things change, but this is a discussion about popular literature).

I was recently inside a bookstore. The "best books of all time" rack included such "classics" as Twilight and Fifty Shades Of Grey. Most avid readers are women.

I think that obviously there is a gender angle here. Young men are pressured away from intellectual activities (because they're "nerdy" and REAL MEN ARE JOCKS GAAAAAAARRRR). It is more socially acceptable for women to be reading hobbyists than it is for men.

As such, with a mostly female demographic, the most popular fictions will be female-oriented. This brings more women into the world of literature, which in turn increases the incentive to cater to a female audience, which reinforces the "reading is not for men" stereotype, and the cycle continues.

That said, books which try to appeal by catering to, I guess, "traditional" notions of masculinity are hardly an optimal solution. We already have tons of narratives in our culture which praise brutishness/jockishness/macho dominance hierarchy/pack mentality, and tons of narratives in our culture which promote male disposability. We don't need any more of this.

nessfalco · 2013-07-01T19:25:24+00:00

This may be part of the issue, but it certainly isn't the only, or even the biggest reason for the dwindling number of boy readers. This is a cultural problem affecting all kids to some degree, though, in my own anecdotal experience (working as a teacher and at a learning center) it does affect boys more than girls.

I think the problem stems from problems much closer to others tackled in this subreddit; namely, boys' lack of drive and passion in a world providing little incentive for them to foster those traits. There are many more immediately gratifying activities that don't require the effort that reading a book does, even reading on the internet, and it's a hard sell convincing young boys otherwise.

The genre issue tackled in this article is definitely worth pursuing, but it is really only a symptom of a much bigger problem.

subzero_600 · 2013-07-01T23:05:32+00:00

The biggest problem I had in trying to read was find the time to sit still and just read. It was something that I did do for a while as a teen but I ended up finding new and more exciting ways to spend my time. Lately the way I have found to fix that is to look at two other ways to read regally. Comics and audio books. Both have different things going for them but I found that I am enjoying reading a lot more again. Also just to note, there is a huge range of comics out there outside of the super hero genre with the sort of compelling stories that young males are looking for.

AceyJuan · 2013-07-02T03:16:07+00:00

I am not feeling this. Biased, feminist panels are a problem. I have no issues with an all female panel if they are normal, non-feminist women.

Title	There is a problem with boys and books - and all-female prize panels aren't helping
Author	blueoak9
Upvotes	98
Comments	55
Date	July 1, 2013 5:07 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1hfpnh/there_is_a_problem_with_boys_and_books_and/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/there-is-a-problem-with-boys-and-books-and-all.1169771 https://theredarchive.com/post/1169771

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