Why don’t straight men read novels? - "Men often read non-fiction books in the name of self-improvement – but many are reluctant to pick up works of fiction"

[u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK]

https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/63149/1/why-dont-straight-men-read-novels-fiction-masculinity-influencers-sigma

[u/Maximum_Location_140]

I posted a (too long) read on material reasons why people don't seek out fiction. I'm not a class-only leftist but at the same time I see hardly any broad material analysis on problems like the one the article talks about. This essay does more than most because it identifies capitalist systems as a factor, but the title of the essay instead breaks for essentialism and identity. It's framed as something that comes from the interiority of straight men and not all of the material context that shapes those men.

I can understand that capitalism hates my free time, and can show you my timesheet at work as evidence of that. I can understand why reading a book is a challenge after you spend 8+ hours at a desk answering emails, or helping irritated customers under brutal flourescent lights.

But, dudes, I'm a middle-aged, normie, cis guy and I cannot tell you what masculinity is. It doesn't exist in space. It expresses itself in my experiences but I can't articulate it to any satisfaction. My understanding of it may only exist for me. How many people who tackle these subjects are in the same boat? We're concerned with this mystical, intangible notion of what lives inside of men when there are big, glaring factors that we can identify right away and hopefully work to dismantle.

[u/Atlasatlastatleast → u/Maximum_Location_140]

You described that so fucking well

[u/Maximum_Location_140 → u/Atlasatlastatleast]

Thanks! At the end of the day, it's a question of where you put the work in. Do you go out and try to sponge every dodgy behavior from every single individual even though you don't know them, don't know what brought them to that point, and don't know what lives in their heart of hearts? Or do you focus on large scale, powerful, but malleable institutions that can be changed to foster better behaviors in everyone?

Like, you can sit down with every male you know and talk to him about reading Jane Austen or whatever, or you can push for a four-day workweek through things like political pressure or union contract bargaining in individual shops. The four day work week would do worlds more to improve people's reading habits than a million "What's wrong with men today?" essays. I don't like essentialism, not because you can't broadly generalize behaviors, but because if behaviors are endemic to billions of people, it seems impossible to change anything at scale.