Reading-for-Men

Yesterday I went to the 3rd Sunday Sale in Bloomington, IL (see yesterday's post on procrastination). The sale was actually a bust so I ended up heading over to an antique mall down the road called "The Golden Giraffe." While I was perusing I came across these gems. They are readers designed specifically for men's taste in the late 1950s. They feature one main story and then include excerpts from other titles in the series.

This semester I've been taking a class on Literacy and Readers. In this class we talk a lot about different reading theories and ideas that have been developed over time. One of these that we have tackled is the idea that men don't read fiction. Certain reading scholars think this is because fiction is a female dominated genre. This theory is something I just can't get behind. When I was little I felt like most of the great books I read like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Gulliver's Travels, and The Red Badge of Courage were all written for boys. Another idea that is contended is that reading is a particularly feminine activity. Only girls can read for fun. Boys have better things to do like play sports, roam outside, and nowadays play video games. This seems like a horrible double standard and a theory that devalues reading.

All of these ideas were floating around in my head and then I found these novels. They confirmed for me that this is more than just a theory. This is something that was acted upon and resulted in these novels being published and explicitly called "Reading-for-Men." Today I am not so sure that this set would go over so well. I think books would never be separated in this way. The idea that one gender is disposed to like a certain type of material while the other likes something different is ludicrous.

This topic is something that I could go on and on about, but I think I'm going to save some of it for class...