According to a new survey, most people in Britain prefer to read books by writers of their own gender — and tend to read fewer of those written by the opposite sex.

The research, which comes after claims of sexism in publishing, found a stark gender divide in reading habits in the 40,000 people polled.

Male authors accounted for 90 percent of men’s 50 most-read titles this year, while the reverse was true for the women’s titles.

According to Goodreads, the reading website which collated the research, female readers also rate books by female writers more highly.

On average, women rated books by women 4 out of 5 and books by men 3.8 out of 5.

A website spokesman said, “Ultimately, when it comes to the most popular 2014 books on Goodreads we are still sticking to our own sex.”

Goodreads was prompted to conduct its survey after author Joanna Walsh launched a campaign to get more people reading female authors at the start of the year.

Recent statistics from the United States showed a vast imbalance in the numbers of women reviewed and reviewing in today’s literary press.

The researchers also found that men and women tended to read the same number of books but that women preferred to read more recent books than men.

Elizabeth Khuri Chandler, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Goodreads, said the aim in sharing the data “was to stimulate conversation and self-reflection” and “to create a space for some friendly conversation about the subject.”

Chandler said, “Some men said they felt they read more male authors because of the type of books they like to read.

“They thought that more male authors tended to write in the genres or about the topics that interest them than female authors. We also noticed that most people were unaware of the gender breakdown of the book they were reading. It certainly seems like an untapped area to explore.”

男人更爱看男人写的书  

一项新调查显示，大多数英国人更喜欢阅读同性作家的著作，阅读异性作家的作品则少一些。

有人提出出版行业也存在性别歧视后，这项研究应运而生，研究发现，参与调查的4万人中，他们的阅读习惯存在鲜明的性别差异。

男作家占据了2014年男性阅读排行榜前50名的90%，而女作家的书同样被女性读者推崇。

整理了研究结果的好读网透露，结果表明，女性读者给女作家的作品评分更高一些。

女性读者给女作家作品打的平均分为4分（满分5分），给男作家作品打的平均分是3.8分。

网站发言人说：“好读网评选2014年最受欢迎书籍时，人们基本上还是偏爱自己的同性作家。”

今年年初，作家乔安娜·沃尔什发起了一项让更多人阅读女性作品的活动，这也促使好读网进行此次调研。

来自美国的最新数据显示，当今文学出版界中，得到评论的女性作品和来自女性的评论数量存在着巨大的不平衡。

研究人员也发现，男性和女性阅读的书籍数量差不多，但女性更喜阅读新近出版的书。

好读网的总编辑、联合创始人伊丽莎白·库里·钱德勒称，把统计数据共享出来的是为了“鼓励交流和自省”，并“为友好讨论这个话题创造空间”。

钱德勒说，“一些男性读者说他们倾向阅读男作家的作品，因为这些是他们喜欢的类型。他们认为，比起女作家，男作家的作品往往有更吸引他们的类别和主题。而我们也注意到大多数读者并不十分介意他们阅读作品的作家性别。这似乎还是一个亟待研究的领域。”

Words to Learn 相关词汇  

    【整理】

    zhěnglǐ

    collate

    examine and compare carefully in order to note points of disagreement

    【分类】

    fēnlèi

    breakdown

    classification, analysis