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We Aren't Big On Reading

bobhikes

Nondetermined
Premium Member
In the news.....
https://www.theguardian.com/educati...-boys-and-books-they-read-less-and-skip-pages
This is no surprise to us.
Girls tend to like readin more.
Why.....ideas?

Dungeons and Dragon's is a reading game 95% male. In fact all your Pokemon type card games are reading games and mostly played by Boys the reason they also have physical activity. Boys are not inclined to sit and concentrate for long periods of time. Boys like to keep active. Look at our sports mostly male but require short attention spans and constantly a changing environment. Have the book try to get away or slap them when there not paying attention and they won't put the books down.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Dungeons and Dragon's is a reading game 95% male. In fact all your Pokemon type card games are reading games and mostly played by Boys the reason they also have physical activity. Boys are not inclined to sit and concentrate for long periods of time. Boys like to keep active. Look at our sports mostly male but require short attention spans and constantly a changing environment. Have the book try to get away or slap them when there not paying attention and they won't put the books down.
There's no real way to take player statistics for D&D but players at events and stores is much more 60/40% men to women these days. I say this as a female 5th edition D&D player who attends said events. My local store's most popular GM/DM is a gal too. Which makes me think it's much less about what women might enjoy about the game and more about the cultural history of the game. And the men who play D&D are, in my experience, more likely to be heavy readers, especially in sci-fi and fantasy. All players at my table, men and women, have read all of A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones), all of Lord of the Rings, various Jon Scalzi, Stephen King, etc. Lots of those are heavy books. Long attention spans required.

Edit: Should also mention that I, as a female, am the most athletic person at the table. Just did a half marathon and already planning a big relay race for June. None of us are particularly into national sports though.
 

bobhikes

Nondetermined
Premium Member
There's no real way to take player statistics for D&D but players at events and stores is much more 60/40% men to women these days. I say this as a female 5th edition D&D player who attends said events. My local store's most popular GM/DM is a gal too. Which makes me think it's much less about what women might enjoy about the game and more about the cultural history of the game. And the men who play D&D are, in my experience, more likely to be heavy readers, especially in sci-fi and fantasy. All players at my table, men and women, have read all of A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones), all of Lord of the Rings, various Jon Scalzi, Stephen King, etc. Lots of those are heavy books. Long attention spans required.

Edit: Should also mention that I, as a female, am the most athletic person at the table. Just did a half marathon and already planning a big relay race for June. None of us are particularly into national sports though.

Do you think it would make you read more if the book tried to get away or my 11 year old suggest that book tries to squirt you for not paying attention. He didn't think he would like the slap but squirting would be fun.
 

Scuba Pete

Le plongeur avec attitude...
I read about a book a week. I'm just a bit ahead of myself this year, as I passed fifty for the year last week. About half would be fiction. I also manage a forum (ScubaBoard.com) and participate in a number of others as well as read a lot of political 'crud'. I probably read/write 6+ hours a day.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Just my experience, but probably symptomatic of something larger, and that is reading is looked down upon by young men. It's unfortunate that reading isn't "rough and tough," and not really suitable for the "masculine" male. I can recall, almost a hostility in school from boys/young men who don't read towards those that did. We really need to start putting an emphasis on how much stronger being a reader makes you, as that will probably be easier than shedding the unrealistic "Cowboy" attributes of masculinity.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
There's no real way to take player statistics for D&D but players at events and stores is much more 60/40% men to women these days. I say this as a female 5th edition D&D player who attends said events. My local store's most popular GM/DM is a gal too. Which makes me think it's much less about what women might enjoy about the game and more about the cultural history of the game. And the men who play D&D are, in my experience, more likely to be heavy readers, especially in sci-fi and fantasy. All players at my table, men and women, have read all of A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones), all of Lord of the Rings, various Jon Scalzi, Stephen King, etc. Lots of those are heavy books. Long attention spans required.

Edit: Should also mention that I, as a female, am the most athletic person at the table. Just did a half marathon and already planning a big relay race for June. None of us are particularly into national sports though.
I've one thing to say......

NERD!
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
Just my experience, but probably symptomatic of something larger, and that is reading is looked down upon by young men. It's unfortunate that reading isn't "rough and tough," and not really suitable for the "masculine" male. I can recall, almost a hostility in school from boys/young men who don't read towards those that did. We really need to start putting an emphasis on how much stronger being a reader makes you, as that will probably be easier than shedding the unrealistic "Cowboy" attributes of masculinity.
^This. It really seems to be just a cultural thing and it's something that needs to change, and something that can be changed.

I love to read. It's a trait I inherited from my mom. I had a library card and was checking out my own books by the time I was 4 or 5. My oldest sister isn't fond of it, though, although her daughter is a big reader like her grandma.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Boys are hunters, girls, gatherers. It's our Pleistocene brains asserting themselves.
The qualities that made a successful hunter are labeled ADHD today.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
The answer is simple. It's guys who are writing the books.
Although that's probably also cultural conditioning and publishing issues (which is why most female authors publish under a gender neutral pen name) rather than strict women's interest issues. After all, the first novelist in history (Murasaki Shikibu) and the most financially successful and globally acclaimed author in history (JK Rowling) are both women.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Boys are hunters, girls, gatherers. It's our Pleistocene brains asserting themselves.
The qualities that made a successful hunter are labeled ADHD today.
I've taken someone with ADHD fishing, though not hunting. It makes then crappy fishermen because they can't sit still and quiet and be patient, and they get distracted when they should be paying attention to fish rising signs.
ADHD symptoms include slow or difficult reading, so the thing that makes them a bad reader would also make them a bad hunter in my experience.
 
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sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
There were many too many words in this thread so I did not read them all. I just saw "NERD" which I liked. What was the rest of this about anyway? And why should I care? Tell me in few words or not at all.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I've taken someone with ADHD fishing, though not hunting. It makes then crappy fishermen because they can't sit still and quiet and be patient, and they get distracted when they should be paying attention to fish rising signs.
ADHD symptoms include slow or difficult reading, so the thing that makes them a bad reader would also make them a bad hunter in my experience.
Their hypervigilance and shifting attention facilitates both the detection of game and detection of the saber-tooth behind the bush.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Their hypervigilance and shifting attention facilitates both the detection of game and detection of the saber-tooth behind the bush.
Yeah but bad at stalking and waiting for the opportune moment to strike, or carefully setting delicate traps.
And most I meet (including my brother) aren't hypervigalent. The hyper behavior is in their thoughts, inner distractions, and their inability to be still and calm and compulsive movement. If anything he's worse at being aware of his surroundings.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
I love to read. It's a trait I inherited from my mom. I had a library card and was checking out my own books by the time I was 4 or 5. My oldest sister isn't fond of it, though, although her daughter is a big reader like her grandma.
I started reading in elementary school because I didn't have any friends to play with during recess. So I sat up around the spot that was shaded and quiet, which also happened to be where the kids in "time out" were sent, probably also starting my easy-going association with outcasts, delinquents, and other social "undesirables."
Boys are hunters, girls, gatherers. It's our Pleistocene brains asserting themselves.
That's not a universal norm though. Very often, especially before our species "settled down," division of labor was not divided by gender as we think of it. It tied into religious practices, and of course spread from there, but this "boys will do this and girls will do this" is highly socially sensitive. There are *some* traits are generally found in one sex over the other due to hormones, but it's not hard to find cultures with about five, or even several more "gender expressions" due to the vast spectrum that our expressions of sex and gender have played out over our history. Our black/white boys/girls even hardly exists outside contemporary-esque (meaning it started many centuries ago but is still present today) Western thought. Before this shift, which occurred as Christianity came to dominate Europe, many cultures had strong, proud women who stood with men as teachers, healers, hunters, and even warriors.
The qualities that made a successful hunter are labeled ADHD today.
ADHD traits are the very anti-thesis of what is required for skilled hunting.
Their hypervigilance and shifting attention facilitates both the detection of game and detection of the saber-tooth behind the bush.
When you hunt, you don't want to look at everything that moves because most of what does move isn't what you're after, and not typical for it anyways. It also makes hiding and ambushing, perhaps two of our greatest survival features, much harder. When you do spend time tracking certain things, you do learn what you need to watch for, and what you can ignore or not. Much like fishing, which I can't imagine being much fun to someone whose constantly back-and-forth on the pole every time it moves. Or duck hunting, where you eventually learn what your intended and legal targets are without having to give it much thought. Not that people with ADHD can't hunt or make good hunters, but patients, staying calm, keen observation, and a steady hand are all required for the skilled hunter.
 
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