The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone - especially in the age of Donald Trump

Over the past two decades, literary fiction has become a largely female pursuit. Novels are increasingly written by women and read by women. In 2004, about half the authors on the New York Times fiction best-seller list were women and about half men; this year, the list looks to be more than three-quarters women. According to multiple reports, women readers now account for about 80 percent of fiction sales.

I see the same pattern in the creative-writing program where I’ve taught for eight years. About 60 percent of our applications come from women, and some cohorts in our program are entirely female. When I was a graduate student in a similar program about 20 years ago, the cohorts were split fairly evenly by gender. As Eamon Dolan, a vice president and executive editor at Simon & Schuster, told me recently, “the young male novelist is a rare species.”

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But if you care about the health of our society — especially in the age of Donald Trump and the distorted conceptions of masculinity he helps to foster — the decline and fall of literary men should worry you.

In recent decades, young men have regressed educationally, emotionally and culturally. Among women matriculating at four-year public colleges, about half will graduate four years later; for men the rate is under 40 percent. This disparity surely translates to a drop-off in the number of novels young men read, as they descend deeper into video games and pornography. Young men who still exhibit curiosity about the world too often seek intellectual stimulation through figures of the “manosphere” such as Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan.

paywall free link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/opinion/men-fiction-novels.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hU4.FWU1.7jDJT2WOTYMx&smid=url-share