Men Don't Read Fiction? BULL! - Writing on the Ether | Porter Anderson

Almost anyone you hear chanting men don't read fiction will tell you that he or she wants men to read fiction. The line is normally delivered in tones that run somewhere between sorrow and anger, between regret and derision. Ironically, saying men don't read fiction in any tone is an incredibly bad way to encourage men to read. Each time someone says men don't read fiction, you can almost hear a book snapping shut. This is especially true if you say it around younger men who are still finding their masculinities. They're naturally sensitive to our hyper-sexualized society's fondness of "guys do this and women do that" nonsense. They're eager not to do anything outside "what guys do". Any suggestion that "what guys do" doesn't include reading fiction (or reading at all) makes it much harder for them to get back to that book again.

Books, fiction or nonfiction, are not innately pink. Turning them that color by pushing around such a chestnut as "men do't read fiction" - a line that implies that only women read fiction and that reading is for girls - can profoundly derail what might have been a guy's healthy habit and enjoyment of buying and reading literature.