Newsflash: Men Not Afraid To Read

MediaBistro (via Jezebel) posted this gem of a quote from Details magazine’s Deputy Editor Chris Raymond:

Just look at the features in men’s magazines. They’re often much meatier than the fare you find in women’s magazines. What does that tell you? That guys aren’t afraid to spend an hour reading a great piece of writing.

To be fair this was in response to the stereotype that men don’t read as many books as women (which is of course true if you look at the numbers of books bought per year by each gender).

I’m not one to knock men’s magazines. In fact, we personally like them. It is true that magazines like GQ will often print more substantial articles than a magazine like Cosmopolitan. It is also true that men’s magazines spend more time on printing interesting information and less time preaching how a guy can change so he can “get the girl” (a topic Cosmo revisits in reverse every…single…month). But it’s also true that many women’s mags are NOT Cosmo and DO print meaty fare (Marie Claire, for instance). Oh, and also—magazines aren’t the only things we read!

Let’s not insinuate that the “masses” of sophisticated readers of Details somehow outnumber the many, many women who read interesting and substantial things every day, be it an article on the Web or the latest bestseller. Of all the things you can claim about our gender, being afraid to read something of substance shouldn’t be one of them.

And just in case you had somehow missed it Chris, there seem to be less of those sophisticated, “fearless-in-reading” males around lately.

(By the way, our fave “substantial” cover line from their December 2009 issue (pictured above) is definitely “A Guide to the Gay Douchebag.” Right up there with Dickens, Chaucer, and all the greats!)