Jacobin Essay on Gendered Reading Draws Sharp Criticism Over Claims About Biological Reality.

A recent essay published in Jacobin by writer Ross Barkan has drawn widespread criticism for arguing that biological differences between men and women explain why male readers gravitate toward male authors while female readers prefer female authors.

The essay, which addresses the decline of male fiction readership, has sparked debate across social media and literary circles since its publication.

The core claim in Barkan’s piece is that women do not avoid books by men, but men are more reluctant to read books by women.

According to critics summarizing the essay, Barkan attributes this pattern to what he describes as biological reality rather than purely cultural or market forces.

Journalist Elizabeth Spiers responded to the essay on Bluesky, writing that Barkan’s thesis suggests if fiction were more masculine in its themes, men would read more.

Spiers noted that plenty of masculine fiction is already available and men do not read more of it. She wrote that men simply do not read as much as women across the board.

The Data Behind the Debate

The discussion has renewed attention on existing research about reading preferences. A 2014 Goodreads analysis of 40,000 active readers found that male authors accounted for 90 percent of men’s 50 most-read titles that year, while the reverse was true for women’s lists .

One of the five male authors on the women’s list was Robert Galbraith, the pen name for J.K. Rowling .

The same analysis found that in the first year of publication, 80 percent of a female author’s audience was women, compared to 50 percent for a male author . However, the data also showed that both men and women rated books by female authors slightly higher than books by male authors .

A larger quantitative study published in the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science in 2019 analyzed 201,560 books and their reviews on Goodreads.

It found that for most common genres, reviewers gave higher ratings to books authored by their own gender, confirming that gender bias is not confined to the literary elite .

Criticism From Writers and Readers

The Bluesky account leftistwonk criticized the essay directly, writing that Barkan’s suggestion to fix male readership by publishing more rough, bloody, masculine fiction is misguided.

The post stated that the problem is not a lack of desire to publish such work, but that most of it is very bad. The account added that for every Die Hard, there are 500 atrocious action movies, and the same principle applies to books .

Spiers also wrote that the essay resembles a pattern she has observed among a particular subset of young leftist white men who view women as a different species. She noted this does not describe most young leftist white men she knows .

Barkan himself acknowledged in a 2025 interview with Vox that he has enormous privilege in the real world but felt the literary world was less interested in straight men during the 2010s .

He said publishers were trying to diversify during that era, which he described as zero sum in some respects .

Also Read: Columbus Legacy Divides US as Indigenous Peoples Day Gains Ground Across States and Cities.

Broader Context of Male Reading Decline

The debate over Barkan’s essay occurs against a backdrop of declining fiction readership among American men. According to National Endowment for the Arts data, roughly 35 percent of American men read a novel or short story in 2012. By 2022, that figure had fallen to 27.7 percent .

Publishing industry demographics show that 78 percent of editorial staff at major American publishers were women as of a 2016 study, while literary agents were 58.5 percent female.

A publisher at the UK imprint Serpent’s Tail told one outlet that if a strong novel by a male writer landed on his desk, his first thought was that it would be more difficult to publish.

The VIDA Count, which has tracked gender disparities in literary publications since 2010, has shown persistent gaps in coverage.

The 2016 count found that several publications narrowed the gap, but others including The Atlantic and the Paris Review continued to show men substantially outnumbering women among authors reviewed .

As of October 12, 2026, Barkan has not issued a public response to the criticism of his essay. The Jacobin piece remains available online.