Current Connection: Turning a Page to a New World

     In a recent artical by Curiosty on their site entitled "Gender Gap", they address the question of "Why do women read more fiction than men?" Through out this artical they touch on the points that women read more than more than men and bilogical reasons for why that is and a study conducted by an author.

     Within the artical they address a studdy conducted by the Associated Press stateing "women read nine books a year while men read five," and even went on to say "booksellers say that women make up the clear majority of fiction readers." Considering women read at least fore more books a year than men it's no surprise that they consist of the "majority" when it comes to fiction readers. But shortly after this statement they did go on to say that men "outpaced the women in reading biographies and historical books," so maybe men are not compleatly iliterete compared to men but just different tastes.

     The artical goes on to explain one theroy backing this stating that "women read more fiction than men because they possess greater quantities of mirror neurons." Mirror neurons are signaled when we are in the process of doing something or watching someone do the same thing, basicly they allow us to put ourselfs in others shoes and is pretty much the cause of empathy in our brains. Since women have more mirror neurons it can be considered possible that they are more capable to empathize with fictional characters, which can make them more engulfed in the story and the characters.

     Lastly they address British author Ian McEwen and his own study "by handing out 30 free copies of one of his novels in a London park. Nearly all who took advantage of the free books were women. McEwen said, "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead"" Though this is not a fairly scientific study or even one with a wide baseus of test subjects, it acttuly reflects to be fairly accurate. Women do take the bulk of all readers in the fictional novel market, so if women were to stop reading it would be a heavy blow that portion of the market.

     Personaly I love reading, but looking amoung my fellow male peers, this is not quite the case. Most of them only read because they have to, and sometimes not even then. Very few of them actully just read out of the desire to and for enjoyment. But all of my freinds that happen to be women, love reading, and ofteen it's them that i talk to about books. So it stands to reason that women read more than men.

     In conclusion, in regards to the artical by curiosty and my own personal experince, their are a multiude of reason why but the simple fact is, women read more than men