Thank you for this information. It confirms something I only sensed but was brought home to me in the current audio book I am reading. I picked it up because it was a self-help book but in reality it was a woman blogger writing about herself and her myriad issues — e.g. overcoming her “shopping to make myself happy” problem (got her 30K in debt), or her struggle with being overweight, etc.
I have also noticed that generally when I go to poetry reading the subject matter differs by gender, just as you Medium analysis indicated. Women often write about bad breakups, or relationships. Men may write about this, too, but often more issues of broader scope like war, suffering, etc
When you compare the two lists of what people are reading (based on gender) there is a positive takeaway here: People are reading.
I just read a report that said more women are reading than men now, and more enrolled in college. Perhaps all that is in keeping with an ongoing power shift that goes back to women’s suffrage and has continued thru to the present.
Anyways, good food for thought. I have a daughter and a son and both a devoted to reading… Maybe more people would read if they threw their TV into the dumpster?
Thanks for the article and the research.