A couple newsletters back I spent a little time talking about a book club for singles and how their book selections sucked within the context of attempting to attract SOME straight men.
Some public libraries have rules against making programs that are exclusionary (especially on racial or gender lines---still others do make some programs explicitly exclusionary). For those where that is against the rules maybe making a Thriller reading or Literary Domination Reading group. Because so many library programs are dominated by women (without any coding---almost like the library itself is coded as a feminine space), with rules like that it can take some cleverness to suggest --- this is a masculine discussion even if women can't be excluded.
I think there is some sense as people suggested with STEM fields that being in a room that is dominated by one sex can be intimidating or even unwelcoming to the other. Like a room full of male science geeks for girls or a room full women literati for most guys.
I feel some of this is parallel to the points that Richard V Reeves makes in his book Of Boys and Men. We don't want to move backwards on feminism (which I think causes the sort of mean spirited response to these articles) but there can be spaces that are more welcoming to men.
If you're doing this in a library, you're totally right, you couldn't make a book club that disallows women as attendees, my understanding is that this is because a government-funded institution has to be super careful about that so as not to create a situation where the government is discriminating. So the realistic, CYA answer is probably to say it's "suited" for men and to make it as appealing to men as possible. You could also not make attendee stipulations, but instead explicitly list the reading list and that the book club won't be reading books by or about women.
I do think, if someone goes down this road, they have to be very prepared to make the case for it as a move towards fairness and equality in attracting men as opposed to anti-feminism. There probably will be complaints, and I think they are fair, and it's good to be ready to explain to the person lodging the complaint how out of balance the world of libraries and books is, in terms of male /female readers and staffs, and it'd probably help to do a survey of the current book clubs in your library's system that asks facilitators to tally up attendees by gender. In most realms, doing something that benefits men is kind of anti-women, but in the library, which is a woman-dominated space, doing something that benefits men can be pro-men without taking anything away from women.
You're correct, I was automatically transposing this to library programming rather than simply private citizens creating book clubs. However, our current book club is 99% women and has rarely retained men.
The Reese Witherspoon book club which is national explicitly states that the books are always about women and I have never seen the club pick a novel by a male author. Interestingly, there is a diversity statement about inclusivity but that inclusivity doesn't extend to men.
All this is to say, I think there is a niche here for male centered book clubs. It's interesting when I was a teenager, several of us loved to read science fiction and we loved to talk about the books. Not a book club in any formal sense but I remember how much we enjoyed talking about books and what a bonding experience it was.
I like several of your ideas here and might try something at my library. We'll see what happens!
Hey, makes sense, the blog has “librarian” right in the title!
Celebrity book clubs are another great example: very few, if any, led by men or designed with male readers in mind, or even given some consideration.
I have similar feelings about diversity statements in the library/book world: they seem to betray a lack of concern for a very large, very obvious missing population.
I love this column. Some thoughts:
Some public libraries have rules against making programs that are exclusionary (especially on racial or gender lines---still others do make some programs explicitly exclusionary). For those where that is against the rules maybe making a Thriller reading or Literary Domination Reading group. Because so many library programs are dominated by women (without any coding---almost like the library itself is coded as a feminine space), with rules like that it can take some cleverness to suggest --- this is a masculine discussion even if women can't be excluded.
I think there is some sense as people suggested with STEM fields that being in a room that is dominated by one sex can be intimidating or even unwelcoming to the other. Like a room full of male science geeks for girls or a room full women literati for most guys.
I feel some of this is parallel to the points that Richard V Reeves makes in his book Of Boys and Men. We don't want to move backwards on feminism (which I think causes the sort of mean spirited response to these articles) but there can be spaces that are more welcoming to men.
If you're doing this in a library, you're totally right, you couldn't make a book club that disallows women as attendees, my understanding is that this is because a government-funded institution has to be super careful about that so as not to create a situation where the government is discriminating. So the realistic, CYA answer is probably to say it's "suited" for men and to make it as appealing to men as possible. You could also not make attendee stipulations, but instead explicitly list the reading list and that the book club won't be reading books by or about women.
I do think, if someone goes down this road, they have to be very prepared to make the case for it as a move towards fairness and equality in attracting men as opposed to anti-feminism. There probably will be complaints, and I think they are fair, and it's good to be ready to explain to the person lodging the complaint how out of balance the world of libraries and books is, in terms of male /female readers and staffs, and it'd probably help to do a survey of the current book clubs in your library's system that asks facilitators to tally up attendees by gender. In most realms, doing something that benefits men is kind of anti-women, but in the library, which is a woman-dominated space, doing something that benefits men can be pro-men without taking anything away from women.
You're correct, I was automatically transposing this to library programming rather than simply private citizens creating book clubs. However, our current book club is 99% women and has rarely retained men.
The Reese Witherspoon book club which is national explicitly states that the books are always about women and I have never seen the club pick a novel by a male author. Interestingly, there is a diversity statement about inclusivity but that inclusivity doesn't extend to men.
All this is to say, I think there is a niche here for male centered book clubs. It's interesting when I was a teenager, several of us loved to read science fiction and we loved to talk about the books. Not a book club in any formal sense but I remember how much we enjoyed talking about books and what a bonding experience it was.
I like several of your ideas here and might try something at my library. We'll see what happens!
Hey, makes sense, the blog has “librarian” right in the title!
Celebrity book clubs are another great example: very few, if any, led by men or designed with male readers in mind, or even given some consideration.
I have similar feelings about diversity statements in the library/book world: they seem to betray a lack of concern for a very large, very obvious missing population.