The Real Men Read campaign is designed to dispel the idea in boys and young men that reading for pleasure is lame, girl-stuff, nerdy, not masculine. The gender difference in reading of girls to boys is stark and consistent internationally.

 

The reasons for this are many; one of the most important is the modeling of adult men readers to younger men, particularly fathers, who read to their children at a much smaller rate than mothers. Finally, the stigma that reading is for nerds and sissies is real amongst boys and young men, and this Real Men Read campaign exists to combat this.

 

Girls and young women consistently outperform boys and young men as pleasure readers by as much as 40% for girls to 25% for boys. At age 15, 44% of girls say that reading is one of their favorite things as opposed to 24% of boys.

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EVERYONE SHOULD READ! I'm just trying to give guys a nudge with a message that maybe they can connect to.