Men have an empathy problem—so let’s get boys reading fiction

As charities warn of a crisis in men's health, building empathy among men of all ages is more crucial than ever. One way to do that? Reading fiction

by Sarah Manavis / August 30, 2017 / Leave a comment

Published in October 2017 issue of Prospect Magazine

I come from a family of chronic film criers. My mom is known for being “teary,” wailing into a towel at Bridges of Madison County and repeatedly weeping at Ever After. My little sister infamously cried at the first Ice Age movie when she thought the tiger had died. In the last month, I have pathetically sobbed at the final scene of Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

My tendency to cry so easily used to embarrass me; that I, and the other women in my family, would break down at the simplest, most predictable Hollywood plot lines. We’re “tender-hearted,” my mother used to say, which I used to read as code for being overly-sensitive. But what I realise now is that what we actually were, and what we really are, is empathetic. Even though we don’t know these (poorly-developed) characters or lived their fictitious plot-lines, we feel for their losses, cry over their heartbreaks and feel their feelings.

This trait, empathy, is widely seen as female. Men, with their tough exteriors, are able to see that what we’re watching is really just Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley in front of a studio green screen. This ability to disconnect emotionally is seen as a strength, especially by other men, in pop-culture and in wider society. In the case of Pirates of the Caribbean 3, you may be thinking: well, fair enough.

But a deeper societal problem lurks here. The problem is not that women are too sensitive, too sweet, and too empathetic; the problem is that men aren’t. Unholy amounts of studies and data over the last twenty years have unearthed the fact that men aren’t, generally, empathetic to their peers. Not only do they not feel very empathetic, but they are growing less and less empathetic year by year. What can we do to solve this? One idea that’s slightly less obvious than extreme social restructuring, feminist lectures and a mass therapy programme is to get them reading. Reading what, specifically? Reading fiction.

YOU'VE HIT THE LIMIT

You have now reached your limit of 3 free articles in the last 30 days.
But don't worry! You can get another 7 articles absolutely free, simply by entering your email address in the box below.

When you register we'll also send you a free e-book—Writing with punch—which includes some of the finest writing from our archive of 22 years. And we'll also send you a weekly newsletter with the best new ideas in politics and philosophy of culture, which you can of course unsubscribe from at any time

Prospect may process your personal information for our legitimate business purposes, to provide you with our newsletter, subscription offers and other relevant information.

Click to learn more about these interests and how we use your data. You will be able to object to this processing on the next page and in all our communications.

DEBUG messsage: regular

Northern and southern Chinese think differently—and the reason goes back centuries

Comments

Carol Stobie
August 30, 2017 at 19:23
Excellent article. I can testify to the apparent impact (of reading a wide range of fiction) on my 11 year old's emotional intelligence, though I'm unsure whether reading every Harry Potter 8 times has multiplied his empathy levels eightfold.
JimmyMack
September 2, 2017 at 09:42
This piece certainly fixed my yawn empathy. However, if we accept that men are broadly less empathetic than women (I don't), is this a good thing? I have brought up two girls. I work mainly with women. I have witnessed many times the particular, knowing, feminine brand of cruelty girls and women inflict on members of their own sex they don't like. Women know this about other women. They acknowledge it privately while paying lip-service to the publicly-prescribed 'aren't we women nicer' fiction this article plays to. Female cruelty lies behind the falsehood of 'sisterhood'. All women know that without a friend they are the defenceless prey of other women. Do I overstate and generalise? No more so than this article and a million 'problem with men' pieces like it.
Babs
September 13, 2017 at 16:57
When women grouse about men's lack of "empathy", they're generally just whining because men don't focus on things that are stupid and trivial. They also tend to bang on about the importance of empathy as it applies to THEM, but not to the other women they taunt, abuse, harrass, undercut, and throw under the bus during any given day in the average school/workplace. I feel genuinely sorry for any hapless little boy unfortunate enough to have a mother screeching at him about his lack of empathy; perhaps that's why twenty-something males are calling themselves misogynists and pretending to be Nazis.
Kevin
September 14, 2017 at 23:37
Lisa Barrett wrote an interesting article in Nautil on how to increase emotional intelligence. Learning new words for different emotions, and knowing the different subtleties between each word actually increases emotional intelligence. This might explain why reading fiction increases our EM, the author uses words we're not familiar to convey an emotion, and then, through the events happening in the story, presents us an example of that emotion in work.