Anonymous #1 8w

It’s not really a take, it just so happens that women read more than men these days. Most of our staff and clientele were female when I worked there and we had a large problem with harassment.

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Anonymous OP 8w

The women read more than men these days feels like an assumption? What’s that based off of? I read a crap ton and most of my friends do as well. We are always discussing book recs and reviewing books with each other. Maybe we’re just weird 🤣 but anytime I go to a bookstore it always seems like a normal balance between dudes and ladies.

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Anonymous #1 8w

Bookstore owner here! My customer base is definitely women-dominated. Not even as much as other places because I am a college town and a lot of professors come too. But generally, it’s more women and queer folks than men, especially cis men.

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Anonymous #2 8w

I wonder if the majority of men are reading online / audiobooks? I exclusively do audiobooks but search out leatherbounds or special editions of my fav books as “trophies” lol

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Anonymous #1 8w

Women do read more than men but it’s not by that large of a margin. A lot of the people in this group are chronically online and wrapped up in the whole “booktok” thing which is dominated by women creators. Creates a bias that makes it seem like the gap between men and women readers is bigger than it is. Also women outread mean in fiction by a huge amount, but men also outread women in nonfiction by a huge amount. It all depends on context.

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Anonymous #3 8w

Makes sense. Women are normally more vocal online. Plenty of men read and hardly have a social media presence. several of the guys in my group that read don’t at all so there’s no way for them to be accounted for in any metric.

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Anonymous #1 8w

According to Pew Research Center roughly 80% of women read at least one book a year compared to 70% of men, I think that’s where the talking point came from. So the gap’s there but it’s not huge. Women absolutely dominate fiction though, they read fiction at double the rate of men.

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Anonymous #3 8w

So yeah “women-dominated space” is a strange way to describe a bookstore. But quibbling over demographics is a distraction from the real issue that men harassing women in public is unacceptable, regardless of who technically “dominates” the space.

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Anonymous #4 7w

Hey I actually recommend this as a VERY LAST resort. Pepper spraying indoors can be a problem for not just the guy harassing, but also the person spraying, anyone else nearby, those with respiratory issues, and it will 100% ruin any nearby book stock. If someone did this in my store, it would cost me hundreds of dollars to fix and I probably wouldn’t make a profit that month. If anything, you should talk to staff first so they can use their position to ask the guy to leave.

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Anonymous #2 7w

Good point, tase them instead if the staff doesn’t do enough

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