Abstract
This research examines the role of reading and book club attendance in the lives of Irish and American women’s fiction readers who actively participate in women’s book clubs utilizing mixed methodology, including ethnographic observation, participation in book club meetings, and in-depth narrative interviews. Women in Ireland and the United States used reading to develop a sense of self and to learn about the social world, as well as to construct their own identities, often in contrast to expected norms of feminine identity. Women in Ireland utilized reading and book clubs to develop knowledge and understanding; women in the United States were influenced to increase their status in order to potentially secure or retain a high-status romantic partner. At the same time, important key themes relating to social positionality and social networks, capital development, and the construction of identity were similar and central to women in both cultural environments. Reading was deeply entrenched in the identities of the women in this study and attending book clubs allowed them to continue engaging literature, construct identities, and gain knowledge about the world around them.
On a blustery, snowy evening in Denver, I walked along a quiet, nearly deserted sidewalk until I came upon a forest-themed bar, the sign hidden by the snow. I stepped into the bar and saw a few women seated on barstools that resembled tree stumps alongside a narrow pine bar. Within half an hour, the entire bar, as well as the booths along the wall, was full with women arriving for book club. Eventually, the group spilled into a second room of the bar. Some women arrived with friends and greeted other club members with hugs and caught up on life. Other women, like me, were there for the first time, and watched the bustling commotion without joining in on the conversation. Once everyone ordered food and drinks, Jennifer called the meeting to order. 1 She asked a few women to volunteer to lead discussions with 10 to 15 women and passed around a few pieces of paper with printed questions about the book we read that month. Each group of women addressed the questions themselves, and occasionally Jennifer asked a question of the entire group. At the end of each two-hour club meeting, the group discussed the book assigned for the next month. Afterwards, women did not linger, but gathered their belongings and headed off for the evening. This group continues to remain active and popular, with over 1500 women on the club website, and more than 40 women in regular attendance at monthly club meetings.
Months later, on a rainy Dublin evening, I walked along a cobbled side street and ducked into the entrance of a bustling restaurant. Lisa, who had invited me to join her small book club made up of friends and coworkers, arrived and we walked to a large table where four women already sat. Each woman jumped up and said hello, hugging, and kissing Lisa, and warmly welcoming me to their meeting. They joked they were just there for dinner and drinks, and the books made a good excuse to go out on a weeknight. While we waited for food to arrive, everyone caught up with one another about work, life, boyfriends, pets, families, and roommates; within an hour all seven members arrived. Amidst the lively restaurant, the women talked and talked about the books they’d read in the six weeks since their last book club meeting. Conversations flowed and several hours passed before everyone was ready to leave for the evening. Each member mentioned a book or two they thought would be an interesting read for the next month’s group, and after much discussion, two texts were chosen by general agreement. At the end of the evening, we all split the bill; everyone hugged one another and made arrangements to walk one another to their cars. Two of the women in attendance offered to walk me to my bus stop and waited there with me until the bus arrived.
Prior to beginning my research, my conversations with women in Ireland demonstrated nuanced differences in how women talked about and conceptualized ideas about relationships, identity, and social and cultural expectations when compared to my American friends and colleagues. On one particularly eye-opening visit to Ireland in 2012, many of the women I spoke with happened to be reading the popular erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey (James, 2012), and this book became a somewhat hushed topic of dinner conversations as well as the brunt of many jokes. On multiple occasions, women mentioned to me that it had come up at their book club meetings, and that all the women they knew were reading it, albeit separately from their book club selections. The ubiquity of reading groups for many women I met in Ireland, and subsequently in the United States, became clear. Despite having always considered reading a leisure-time activity, generally separate from my academic work, I was driven to uncover a deeper understanding of this shared cultural activity. I recognized that reading is not merely a separate activity we engage in individually, outside of our constructions of self and place in society but can in fact be intrinsic to how many people come to be who they are today. As JoEllen Shively (1992) demonstrated, texts are used and interpreted differently by those occupying different cultural positions. Thus, I examined two different cultural contexts: Denver, Colorado, in the United States and Dublin, Ireland. This article is part of a larger project examining the ways women’s book club members in the United States and Ireland utilized reading and book clubs to develop social, cultural, and erotic capital.
The primary approaches to understanding book club members were ethnographic field research and narrative interviews. As this research focused on the importance and relevance of reading and book clubs in the deeply personal identities of the women I interviewed, a narrative interview approach allowed me the opportunity to investigate how women utilized reading in constructing their own identities throughout their lifetimes. I attended multiple book club meetings of four different book clubs in the Denver, Colorado region, and five different book clubs in Ireland. In addition to attending regional book club meetings, I conducted 53 interviews with book club attendees in the United States and Ireland, a majority of whom attended the book club meetings I observed. Some of the interviews were recruited through a research website and some through word of mouth by book club attendees.
The two previous examples of my experiences at book club meetings demonstrate the variety in the book club meetings I attended. Most club meetings were not as large as the biggest club in Denver, and most were not as intimate as the small group of friends in Dublin. Some clubs used printed reading and book club guides; others allowed conversation to flow more freely. Meetings took place at restaurants, pubs, or in the homes of club members. While the clubs themselves were quite varied, they all had an important commonality: women always seemed delighted to be attending book club. Even if they had not had time to read the entire book or missed attending a few meetings, women expressed joy in attending the club meetings. The importance of this social interaction remained clear in every book club I attended in the United States and in Ireland.
In order to contextualize contemporary women’s experiences, I will first discuss the history of women’s reading groups and examine current studies of present-day women’s book clubs. Second, I will discuss how the women I interviewed cultivated reading habits and identified reading as important to their personal sense of identity. Interviewees developed reading habits early in life, primarily through reading modeled by parents, and continued their reading habits throughout adolescence and adulthood as reading had become ingrained in their way of life as a central element of their habitus. Women began to understand themselves through reading and further developed this understanding and sense of identity through participation in book club. Third, I will examine important social capital gained through book club participation. Finally, this research explores how Irish and American women utilized their experiences with reading and book clubs to build cultural capital and socially locate themselves in terms of taste and status.
Women’s reading groups
A longstanding history of reading groups in the United States and Europe is clear. During the medieval period, families and neighbors gathered and listened while people read aloud, forming early sorts of reading communities (Howe, 1993). Twelfth century “textual communities” in European centers, wherein readers associated with one another to learn, generated and sustained collective knowledge (Stock, 1983). In 15th century France, women who gathered to spin wool took turns reading to one another and discussing texts (Hartley, 2002). The advent of the printing press in the mid-15th century meant that more people – albeit wealthy, educated, literate, and primarily male – were able to access printed literature and on a wider scale.
White women in the United States began creating book clubs throughout the country after the Civil War. Reading groups, for wealthy antebellum women, were not only gatherings to talk about reading, but served in many ways as social movements, often challenging norms of femininity. Women’s reading groups were known as literary clubs, and adhered to strict regulations regarding topics, readings, and structure of meetings. During the Civil War, as during subsequent large-scale wars, women organized and developed strong ties for self-reliance and organization to support the war effort (Long, 2003). When the Civil War ended, this self-reliance did not altogether disappear, and women were able to maintain a modicum of independence they had developed while fathers, husbands, and brothers were at war, but in an apolitical way now that war was over. Women were able to participate in social groups without challenging political and legal boundaries for women (Seaholm, 1988).
After the Civil War, the role of middle and upper-middle class women changed: wealthy women simultaneously had more leisure time while the sphere of feminine domesticity narrowed; additionally, the gap between men and women, and between the public world of men and the private, feminine world of the home, particularly as women moved into more domestic roles and out of employment, increased (Cowan, 1983). During this time period, education as a central institution became more important to the American middle class, but this education was primarily available to boys. Some girls in wealthy families were able to obtain education, but not to the same degree as their brothers. Women were not admitted to formal education in the United States until 1786, and for subsequent decades women’s education was available to only wealthy white women (Hellinger and Judd, 1991). Even as higher education became be accessible to some women in the late 1800s, it was not the norm (Martin, 1987). Women were not often able or expected to attend college but could participate in learning throughout their lifetime via literary clubs. Mass public education for whites became standard across the United Stated by 1850, and black children began attending school after the Civil War. During this time, the literacy rates of white women increased dramatically to match that of white men (Schwager, 1987). In Ireland, education was not widespread until much later than in the United States. Free secondary education became a right of citizenship in 1967 and became compulsory countrywide in 1972 (Hutton and Walshe, 2011). While women’s access to education varied in Ireland and the United States, reading groups played an important role in both countries (Hartley, 2002). American women’s reading groups began formally meeting in the 17th century, and by the 18th century were starting in countries worldwide. Women’s reading groups provided important social capital, as well as important cultural capital, like the kind developed through networks and knowledge that higher education conferred for men. In both countries, these particular forms of capital were under available and under accessible to women, and reading groups served to mitigate that unavailability.
The late 19th century signaled a time when European and American urban upper class began to focus on the importance of culture, particularly as it related to dominant ideas about art, music, theater, and literature. Social ideology about high culture and the preservation and perpetuation of high culture became widespread. Theaters, concert halls, and museums were built throughout metropolitan areas and high cultural knowledge was legitimated and linked to cultural and financial exclusivity (DiMaggio, 1982). Wealthy white women were encouraged to adhere to high cultural standards as an inherent part of femininity and women were thus linked to the aesthetic realm (Long, 2003). Women who were able to appropriate high culture could, at the same time, use this appropriation to legitimate their own cultural authority through literacy groups.
Women’s quest for knowledge, education, and self-improvement was a challenge to previously altruistic, service-based women’s groups of the earlier 19th century. Historical researchers have examined this push for women’s education, explaining, “the cry of women emerging from a darkened past was ‘light, more light’ and light was breaking. Gradually came the demand and the opportunity for education; for intellectual freedom; for cultivation of gifts and faculties” (Martin, 1987: 39). With these cries for more knowledge came a threat to traditional male authority, and many men discouraged such activities. Seaholm’s (1988) study of the white women’s progressive movement tells of women rushing home from literary clubs to arrive and prepare dinner before their husbands reached home, and of women dropping out of literary clubs due to their husband’s distaste for the clubs, in order to maintain peace in their household. One way groups countered these arguments against women’s reading groups was through a strict adherence to organization and parliamentary procedure (Long, 2003). In this way, groups signaled that they, too, were “serious” consumers of literature and high culture – making literary groups different from other, less formal women’s organizations. As reading, discussion, analysis, and continued study within the context of high culture was given more gravity, women’s reading groups were thus legitimated (Blair, 1980). While these literary groups were decidedly apolitical, the opportunity for engagement with literature and education was empowering to group members and challenged the status quo.
While exhaustive counts of all active book clubs worldwide do not exist, research estimates there are more than 50,000 book clubs in the UK and over 500,000 book clubs in the United States alone (Hartley, 2002; Konchar Far, 2004). Surveys indicate that women read far more fiction than men and consume about 80% of the contemporary fiction on the market (Weiner, 2007). Clearly, women’s literary consumption is important, both within the field of literature and in the publishing industry, leading one author to lament, “Reading groups, readings, breakdowns of book sales all tell the same story: when women stop reading, the novel will be dead” (McEwan, 2015).
Contemporary work in cultural sociology focuses on the social nature of reading. Reading groups have long existed, but a growth in popularity began in the mid-1990s, perhaps fueled by major celebrity endorsements of book clubs reminding readers how valuable reading is in contemporary society (Griswold et al., 2005). Modern reading groups experienced a surge in the mid-1990s in both the United States and in the United Kingdom. A majority (two-thirds) of contemporary book clubs in the US and in the UK are women-only groups. The oldest, most formal groups in both countries are all male groups, but these groups comprise only about 6% of contemporary groups (Hartley, 2002). Oprah’s Book Club, established in 1996, made reading more accessible to consumers. Books on Oprah’s list sold hundreds of thousands of copies and people began talking about reading in a more public way – book clubs became a normal part of life for many women (Konchar Far, 2004). In the UK, popular radio host James Naughtie started the Radio 4 Bookclub in 1998. Oprah’s Book Club was so popular, it continued after a brief hiatus when her talk show ended. Now readers can access Ms Winfrey’s margin notes, listen to audio clips from authors, and participate in social media conversations about the book club choices (Bosman, 2012). Naughtie’s radio-based book club continues to this day (Hartley, 2002). The Irish Times newspaper established a book club in 2014. In this club, members meet to talk about the books and also get together to meet and discuss the texts with the authors themselves. Readers in this club also engage in online discussions with other readers around the country. Large-scale contemporary book clubs are popular across the globe and have proven very influential in the creation of smaller, more intimate book clubs like many of the ones I studied.
Recent studies of book clubs show that 64% or more book club members are part of all-women groups, while only 4% are all-male groups, with remaining book clubs reporting coed membership (Hartley and Turvey, 2001; Long, 2003). Adult women are highly represented as readers in that women read more than men, overall (Rogers, 1991). Early childhood gender socialization may explain the origins of this difference, as girls are encouraged to participate in passive, quiet activities such as reading (Griswold, 1993). Studies of high school adolescents point to the importance of book clubs in identity development and exploring one’s social world. Readers use texts, and in particular, elements of texts discussed extensively with other members of book clubs, to understand their day-to-day interactions and relationships, including friendships and romantic attachments (Polleck, 2010; Sengupta, 2008). Book clubs provide ways for groups within contemporary society to define themselves and their identities. In this way, women can contextualize their experiences within a larger framework of understanding the world, influenced by both the texts they read and the conversations they have with other book club members.
A longstanding history of women-only literary groups is clear, but modern reading groups are markedly different from their predecessors. Namely, because higher education for women is far more common, contemporary reading groups tend to be comprised of well-educated members. A majority of women’s book club members have college degrees, and members holding advanced degrees are not uncommon (Long, 2003). Although women still navigate the public/private dichotomy, more women work outside the home, and changes in the structure, concepts, and expectations of femininity have allowed women more freedom in intellectual pursuits. As such, contemporary reading groups serve to continue some of the positives of a modern higher education experience while allowing a more leisurely engagement with literature. Additionally, contemporary women’s groups do not focus primarily on demonstrating their literary and cultural competence to the larger culture. Due to the high likelihood of college education among club members, women are more comfortable analyzing literature and contemporary groups model this comfort through informal, less structured, discussions (Long, 2003). Of course, not all women who participate in book clubs are highly educated. Hartley’s (2002) study examined a reading group in a rural community in England that was comprised of women who had attended high school but not any college. For these women, starting or joining a book club and working through difficult classic literature provided an opportunity to learn in the absence of access to formal higher education. This is not to say that women do not still face a double-bind, that of pursing education and a career while simultaneously managing and caring for a majority of households and families and maintaining ideals of femininity. However, contemporary women’s book clubs do not serve primarily to work for social change or create educational institutions, but instead now serve social and cultural purposes (Van Herten, 2015). Women’s reading groups continue to allow women an important opportunity to examine and work through the many contradictions of day-to-day life, to reflect on literature and engage with high culture, and to learn, both through literature and through group interactions, about the social and cultural world.
Becoming readers
The importance of reading in women’s sense of self and identity were themes prevalent throughout my interviews. In fact, the women I interviewed expressed that reading was central to their identity. When it came to developing a strong sense of self and constructing an identity, reading was essential for my interviewees. Alice, a single 31-year-old English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher in Denver, grew up what she called a “typical American family,” although she began questioning that when her parents divorced in 2011. Alice told me that she relied on books to help “find my way” during her childhood and again as an adult. She explained, “it has always helped me figure out who I am, who I wanted to be.” Reading played a role in identify formation through the process of developing lifelong reading habits, during which women began to construct a sense of self in relation to the stories and characters with which they interacted throughout their lifetimes.
Development of reading habits
Irish and American women told me of the memories they had regarding reading as children. All of the women I interviewed spoke about one or both of their parents reading. Even women whose parents did not read voraciously told me about the importance their parents placed on their development as readers. Beth, a 40-year-old married librarian from Colorado, knew she wanted to be a librarian for as long as she could remember. Beth attributed that to her mother’s excitement and the joy she took in going to the library with her mother as a young child. Beth explained, “a lot of it was being read to and having books around all the time. Reading was something I wanted to do, something I wanted to learn.” Women told me about the vacations they took during childhood, and how much they looked forward to the opportunity to spend time reading, not worrying about schoolwork or playing with friends. Niamh, an office manager, age 26, grew up in south Dublin. She spent a great deal of time at her grandmother’s farm. She told me she loved going to visit her mother’s childhood home, and when she was not spending time with the horses, she was reading. Niamh reminisced, I remember going down to the country to Tipperary to my mam’s grandmother’s place. There was no TV or anything. There wasn’t even a shower. It was one of those really old country homes. We’d have the open fire and I’d sit on a little stool by the fire and just read for the whole weekend. I wouldn’t take my head out of the book until we were leaving again.
One of the primary ways reading habits were developed was through the modeling of early reading by parents or other important adults. One interviewee, Rachel, a 34-year-old married office manager in Dublin who founded a book club for her female friends and coworkers, told me reading was central to her childhood. Rachel explained that education was highly valued in her household, and the children were encouraged to seek out educational and career pathways that interested them. Every week, Rachel’s father would stop by the bookstore and pick up a specific book or comic for Rachel and each of her siblings, a ritual she recalled fondly: Rachel: I used to read a lot. My Dad used to get us a comic or a book every Friday. That got us all into reading. C: How early did he do that? Rachel: Oh God, as long as I remember. When we were really young, we used to get Twinkle, which is a comic for really young kids. Then we progressed on to books. Even when we were 15 and 16, we still got them because we were just obsessed with them. My mam would read them and everything. The boys got Dandy and Beano [sic]. Then we’d all just swap. C: You each got your own? Rachel: Yeah, we all got one each on a Friday as a treat and a bar of chocolate. C: How did your Dad pick them? Rachel: Big discussion on Thursday night about what book and bar we were going to get! I think he would have picked them originally because I think they’re what my parents would have read. They would have been mad into, especially Beano and Dandy, because my mam was a bit of a tomboy. My mam wouldn’t have read much but she would encourage us to read. It’s always been important. I’ve done it for as long as I could remember. I do remember my parents being very supportive of reading when I was growing up. Before I went to bed every night, my mom would read to me. I remember sitting with my parents and them reading books to me. Like, me pretending to read, where you turn the pages, but they let me say my own words.
Another key theme for the women I interviewed revolved around memories of checking out books at the library. For all but one of the women I interviewed, mothers provided the impetus to go to the library and to check out books and read regularly. A majority of the influence children had regarding reading came from their mothers, and it was mostly mothers who took children to the library. In this sense, while early reading was modeled to male and female children, the women I interviewed seemed to feel that reading was particularly important because they were girls. Women’s role as nurturers and mothers has long been linked to educating their children; women’s reading groups worked to establish nearly 75% of public libraries in the United States (Long, 2003). Thus, it does not come as a surprise that middle-class mothers, in both the US and Ireland, provided a great deal of encouragement for their children to read both in and out of school.
Women spoke fondly of their memories of going to the library. Shirley, a retired Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of a construction company in Colorado, was a self-described “military brat” and moved around the United States often as her father’s post changed regularly. She did not enjoy constantly trying to make new friends, and often felt shy and uninterested at school. She tried different sports teams and joined clubs, but nothing quite affected her in the way reading did. Shirley explained, I can remember one of my most impressive memories is when I visited a library for the first time. I’m not sure how old I was but I was like “Wow! You can take these home?” That was so cool! I suppose when I was quite young, my parents bought me books. Then we did start to go to the library. Our whole family would go to the library on Saturday morning, every week like that. Everyone would get in the car and we’d all go spend an hour or two in the library. I’d pick out what books I wanted. My mam never really dictated what I was allowed to take home or not. I’d take out three books and have them finished in two days. If I wanted to take out ten books, fine. If I wanted to take out the same books, no matter, as long as I was reading.
Continuing reading habits
Reading remained central to the sense of self and identity throughout the lifetimes of the women in this study. Women spoke eloquently of the days and hours they spent reading. Many women talked at length about the deep love of reading they had developed from early childhood and carried throughout their lifetimes. This was not unlike research others have done regarding women’s reading habits. Researchers have spoken of the intense displays of deep love and affection readers have for books (Burke, 1999; Kooy, 2006; Schwartz, 1996). In her study of teachers creating reading groups in their schools, Kooy (2006) explained, “their love for reading is so profoundly woven into their identities that the resulting knowledge reaches into all the corners of these teachers’ lived experiences” (140). This was true for most of the women I interviewed. Reading was clearly important in the development of identity and knowledge for the women I interviewed in Ireland and the United States. Women had fond memories of going to the library or reading books on vacation, but these memories speak to more than just something women did in their spare time. Interviewees began to develop a sense of self through their interactions with books from an early age. As this sense of self developed and became clearer throughout their lifetime, reading itself became an important element of women’s habitus. Reading, then, through early experiences that set the stage for a lifetime of literature consumption, became ingrained in the day-to-day experiences and sense of self for interviewees.
Joining the club – Knowledge and identity formation
While women were developing a sense of identity through their engagement with literature, book clubs and reading groups provided a unique way to navigate identity and work through a sense of self in the context of societal expectations and experiences. Knowledge development was especially important for Irish interviewees. In particular, women in Ireland explained that they utilized book club meetings to ensure they truly understood the texts they read, and to make sure they had a fully developed sense of what was important to the other women at book club meetings. Lana, an elementary school teacher in Dublin, was born to an Irish father and a Polish mother. She was a toddler in Poland when her family relocated to Ireland. Her parents were quite wealthy, and she attended private boarding school in Dublin during childhood and adolescence. Lana projected a confidence about her own aptitude at reading, and over the course of our four-hour interview, spoke at length about the books she loved and why she loved them. Still, she felt that book club meetings allowed her the opportunity to be comfortable admitting when she felt unsure, an experience she had not had in her family or in school. Lana explained how she was able to better engage the literature through this process, I’m more likely to ask, “I didn’t understand why this was necessary,” or “What was the point of such and such?” Sometimes one of the girls will have a reason for it and I understand the book better. I like that, that you appreciate more what you’ve read. Sometimes they say, “I didn’t get it either” or “I don’t think it was necessary,” or “there’s no point to it.” I think one of the reasons why I wanted to join the book club and that I set it up was that I wanted to hear, I wanted to get a deeper understanding and actually look deeper at books, and the stories behind them and see, “have I got the real thing?” Because I hadn’t the confidence to believe that I was getting all I should from what I read. It’s not about getting the book, it’s more than that, I get every book, but I get it in my way. I wanted to see what other people got from it and was I getting all I should from it.
The opportunities within book clubs for women to navigate identity and society were countless. Reading common texts and participating in a book club allowed members to “create opportunities to interpret personal and collective experience” (Sumara, 2002: 19). This is important on a strictly educational level, but the power of reading and discussing texts in a group goes beyond simply education. The feedback from club members allowed women to place themselves in the social world. Mary, aged 52, a married English teacher in Denver, said that she spent a great deal of her life being the person other people wanted her to be. She felt pressure from her parents to attain high standards for success in school as a child and told me she “hid” behind her academic pursuits, and then spent a great deal of her adult life focusing on her children. Mary participated in consciousness raising groups during college and identified as a feminist; she felt her ties to the feminist community decrease as she had children and focused more on her family life. In her early 40 s, a friend recommended she join her book club, and she felt this experience helped her get more in touch with her “real” self. Mary explained, It’s kind of like you feel, you can just sound out things. You can say it out loud and see what happens to it. Things you have only said to yourself, only thought to yourself. Now you can kind of say it out loud and get feedback on it.
Developing confidence
Women built confidence as they participated in book clubs through the production of knowledge within book clubs and interactions reinforcing literary competence. Early women’s book clubs allowed women to begin developing literary competence and a cultural voice; book clubs continue to function in this way. The closeness developed through reading and discussing shared texts with other women provided important pieces of identity development for the women involved. Long’s (2003) research showed that women involved in book clubs develop greater confidence in themselves than before they were in book club, make new friends, and also demonstrate more self-reflection in their own lives and tolerance of the opinions and experiences of others. Polleck’s (2010) study echoed this finding, as she explained participants expressing how transformative the experience of engaging with other readers in book club could be, an environment in which club members “worked to broaden their understandings of the texts, themselves, and the world” (64).
Women in this study relied on books as central to identity formation in various ways, but overall confidence and a strong sense of self remained key themes throughout my interviews. For many women, reading itself worked to build confidence throughout life. Victoria, a 65-year-old widowed attorney outside of Dublin, recalled being incredibly shy as a child, often freezing, paralyzed with fear, when she had to speak in front of others. Victoria told me about spending days at school with her head on her desk to hide her crying because she felt so shy and nervous around her classmates. She explained, That’s one area I don’t feel as self-conscious anymore. I wouldn’t have been able to speak…. I suppose it gives me a confidence, in company, to talk in a way I would not have otherwise had the courage to do, or the ability. I used to be so shy; I used to find it difficult to actually know what to talk to people about. I was always afraid I’d say the wrong thing or embarrass myself, or what I’d say would be wrong.
Many of the women I interviewed said they felt shy or lacked self-confidence at some point in their lives. This is most certainly a gendered phenomenon. Women learn from a very early age that dependence on others, particularly men, for financial, emotional, and sexual support is expected as part of femininity, often linked to cultural expectations that women be shy or timid (Ashmore et al., 1986; Attwood, 2006; Beres and Farvid, 2010; Bettie, 2003; Hamilton and Armstrong, 2009; Ronen, 2010). Cultural messages of submissive femininity reinforce patriarchal and sexist ideals while normalizing traditional gender roles that encourage women to be timid, meek, and dependent. However, women are not simply passive bodies on which gender is constructed and enacted (Bryant and Schofield, 2007). While some women find ways to destabilize gendered boundaries by openly behaving in ways that challenge some sexual norms, these changes often take place within the strict structures of heteronormativity. Women thus attempt to create new gendered rules while working within patriarchal norms of femininity. To this end, women felt confident expressing opinions in monthly book club meetings – many women in more intimate book club environments felt comfortable expressing dissenting opinions about what books to read next or recommending a book out of the norm for their particular book club. In this sense, as women developed confidence through reading and participation in book clubs, they simultaneously challenged social norms and gendered expectations. At the same time, because reading is linked to femininity, while women were able to develop confidence, they concurrently reinforce their gendered identity.
Connections that matter – Social capital and book clubs
Recent research demonstrates that high levels of social capital are linked to multiple health outcomes, and particularly overall physical health (House et al., 1988; Jonsson et al., 2014; Lin and Peek, 1999; Pescosolido and Levy, 2002; Smith and Christakis, 2008). Additionally, people with low social capital have lower educational outcomes (Putnam, 2000), experience higher levels of psychological distress (Song and Chang, 2012), difficulty moderating psychological distress and behaviors in appropriate ways (Pulkkinen et al., 2011), and lower levels of social functioning (Baheiraei et al., 2016). While men benefit from many longstanding social networks, receiving social, cultural, and economic benefits through various work-related “boys clubs,” women have not historically experienced these benefits through employment (Lutter, 2015). Thus, women’s social networks appear to be particularly important in the development of social capital and the benefits of high levels of social capital (Baheiraei et al., 2016). Research demonstrates that people with high social status are considered more valuable, and more sought after in social interactions (Laumann and Senter, 1976; Thye, 2000); research demonstrates this is true for book clubs as well (Rehberg Sedo, 2004). As with cultural and erotic capital, high social capital is linked to popularity, and those with high status confer this status through their interactions and networks. Social capital is integral to social well-being, as social networks are valuable throughout the life course.
As we age, particularly as we move past adolescence and early adulthood and leave college, our ready-made, built-in social networks become more minimal (Chrisatkis and Fowler, 2011). Because of this, in order to maintain networks and continue building social capital, adults must actively seek out groups in which to develop these important connections – book clubs, especially for women, serve this important function (Fuller and Rehberg Sedo, 2014). Anne, a graduate student in Dublin, aged 24, explained that she specifically sought out book clubs as her other social relationships were changing, “Other friends had married and stuff. You feel your network shrinking with couple-dom and all that. It was like I needed to get out there and start meeting new people.” Marilyn, a retired special education teacher in Denver, also spoke about developing social capital. She explained, “I miss the teacher’s lounge where we used to talk about different things and whatever. Just discuss what you thought about things and connect with other people to talk.” Shirley, a retired CFO, spoke about the need to develop new social connections in the face of a divorce and thus newly shrunken social capital. She explained, My husband left me three months shy of our 40th wedding anniversary, and two weeks after my father died. It was a tough, tough thing and I was totally depressed, and so that was part of my way to get out of depression and start doing some stuff and talking to other people. Because I was in my library reading all the time just by myself to just kind of escape from being miserable and I thought, “I have got to get out and do some things with other women.”
At the top of the list for why women attend book clubs, in both Ireland and the United States, were the social connections and development of a sense of community with a book club. All of the women I interviewed elucidated that book clubs provide an important social outlet for them as well as provided avenues for finding and maintaining friendships. Many women explained that the social element was so important in their lives that they attended book club even if they had not finished the book their club was reading that month. Women in Dublin and in Denver explained that the social elements of the book club were just as important, if not more important, than the actual books they read. Natasha, a 30-year-old engaged bank teller in Dublin grew up with a brother and a sister, and said she always felt very close with her family. When she moved to Dublin after college and was no longer able to spend every weekend with her family, she sought new ways to make friends. Natasha regularly attended two book clubs monthly in order to develop her social connections. She explained, Having that sense of community around reading. It’s obviously an individual thing and you’re on your own most of the time. It was another social event. I like that idea of being able to go and chat with other people about it.
Book club members found the opportunity to meet with other women in a single-gendered environment important, and many explained that they felt more comfortable discussing topics in their book club than they would in a coed group or club. Cheryl, a married former teacher who now works in the publishing industry, grew up with three brothers and as a child spent more time playing with boys than with girls. As she aged, she felt she was missing out on important female relationships. Cheryl discussed the importance of women’s only groups: “I just felt socially isolated and not just talking about books, but I was like, I needed to meet more women who I could be friends with.” Mary, a 52-year-old married school teacher, explained that as she aged, women’s groups and a strong sense of a female community became more and more important in her life. Mary spoke to me about the importance of the group in helping another club member, Sharon, through a particularly hostile divorce while she was battling cancer. She said, I think I’m just real strong on women-centered groups. It’s just that I’ve gotten huge on women’s empowerment. Women helping other women, and that kind of, the power that can come from that. I guess it’s just that sometimes I’ll come home, and Ron will say, “What did you do?” And I will say, “We solved the world’s problems, peace on earth,” that kind of thing.” But you kind of just, I guess, like it helped Sharon last month. That whole group. Sometimes I think what would she do if she didn’t have us to tell us over the years. We help each other because we understand. I hate to say that, but there’s um, a level of vulnerability that people come in with, like, they make themselves vulnerable and they open up to one another. Even new people who we don’t know very well, and something about that, I don’t think happens in a co-ed environment.
Unique friendships
Most of the women I interviewed conveyed that they talked to friends or family members about reading and books. These conversations, however, were very different than the kinds of conversations women have about books in book club meetings. Conversations outside of book club were not as in-depth, and women told me they did not always feel comfortable having discussions about reading with people they were not certain were avid readers. These superficial interactions about reading did not seem to meet the needs of the readers I interviewed. This is one of the reasons women told me they found book club to offer a unique opportunity to develop close relationships outside of their “normal” day-to-day life.
Women consistently told me about the unique friendships they developed in book club, often with women with whom they would not have otherwise interacted, and some developing friendships spanning decades. Rose, a widowed, retired school teacher, was a particularly unique character at the age of 80. I interviewed her daughter in Denver, and when Rose heard about my project, she was very excited to talk with me. Rose founded the oldest-known contemporary women’s book club in the United States during her time at an all-women’s college 60 years ago. I asked her what it was that kept her book club together for so long, and she explained, “a wonderful friendship that builds from these books. There’s a wonderful friendship that comes with being together on a constant basis, because you begin to share more than just books.” This closeness is demonstrated through the moving story of Carolyn and Frances, two widowed women in their seventies. Carolyn and Frances lived on the same block, three houses down from one another, for more than 50 years. These women raised their children and worked as a nurse and a school teacher, respectively, to support their husband’s academic and career-related pursuits. While these women had a great deal in common, they also did not know one another for a majority of their lives. Their paths did not cross until they both became widows and ended up joining the same book club. After a few years of attending book club together and speaking to one another a bit more in the neighborhood when Frances was out for her daily five-mile walks, Carolyn was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer and had to undergo a double mastectomy. Frances, at a regular book club meeting, asked Carolyn if there was anything she could do to help. Carolyn felt embarrassed but decided that Frances’s proximity could be useful; Carolyn asked Frances to help her with her required daily massage to help manage painful scar tissue and related side effects of the major surgery. Frances and Carolyn spent hours together each day as Carolyn underwent difficult and painful rehabilitation. At first they used their common ground of book club and discussions about books to help alleviate the potential embarrassment of the situation. As time went on, the friends began what they referred to as their own “mini book club” and had in-depth, very personal discussions about the books they had been reading together. The bond created for Carolyn and Frances was clearly unique; in fact, they requested they be interviewed together. Frances and Carolyn frequently completed one another’s sentences during our interview, and their close-knit friendship was undeniable. These women, who would have otherwise never met, developed an intensely close friendship – one they credit their book club for helping them form. Not only did the book club provide a way for women undergoing a major life transition, from that of married women to widows, to relate to one another and their new social position, but it also created an intense bond between a cancer survivor and her close friend. Book clubs allow women to develop and maintain deep, meaningful, and important friendships.
A matter of taste – Status and cultural capital
The themes of status and cultural capital attainment were at the heart of numerous conversations I had with women readers and book club members. A special social status came with reading for avid readers and book club members, and contemporary research confirms this importance of distinguishing oneself as a reader (Van Herten, 2015). This status was, in many ways, self-conferred, but also perpetuated by spending time with others who place equal value on the meaning of reading and talking about literature. While status and taste were important to women in both countries, the cultural capital attained through reading and participation in book clubs was more important to American women, and remained a central theme prompting participation in book clubs, particularly as it related to maintaining a capital portfolio, or multiple forms of capital exhibited through habitus, in the field of romantic relationships.
The influence of socioeconomic status on cultural “taste” has been well studied (Bennett et al., 2009; Bourdieu, 1984; DiMaggio, 1987; Erikson, 1996; Lamont, 1992). Matters of taste are linked to the perpetuation of cultural habitus through socialization within a particular class. Within cultural sociology, there is consensus that social status does affect cultural tastes, and that cultural taste affects our social status (Lamont, 1992; Lamont and Fournier, 1993; Lizardo, 2006; Schultz and Breiger, 2010; Vaisey and Lizardo, 2010). This linkage of taste to cultural and socioeconomic status is present for fiction readers as well, regarding what and when people choose to read, and even how reading for pleasure is even defined (Griswold, 2008; Griswold et al., 2005; Tepper, 2000). Additionally, how readers perceive a text, and how readers interpret what they read, is clearly linked to connection with a particular social group or standing (DeVault, 1990; Lauristin, 2014). The social position of the women I interviewed clearly played a part in what they chose to read and how they interpreted the texts they read, both in and out of book club.
Being a reader and a book club member conferred a particular kind of status, especially for the American women I interviewed. In American interviews, the status of being known as a reader, and the assumed characteristics of that were important, as exhibited by Anna when she said, “You know, are you a reader or are you somebody who sits and watches TV?” American women explained that being known as someone who reads says something particularly important about an individual’s character and strengthens how one is perceived by important others. Being recognized as a person who regularly engaged in an intellectual activity was considerably important to the women I interviewed in the United States. For example, one interviewee, Michelle, in her late 20s, enjoyed outdoor activities and worked as a ski instructor during the winters but felt it important to demonstrate that she had intellectual interests as well. She explained, “I wanted to be a little more literary, feel like I was a little bit more cultured.” As Karen, a young-adult author in her mid-30 s, explained, If you’re a person who is well read, I think people tend to think of that, for the people who are well read as being intelligent, having a more refined worldview. And so, I’d like to be somebody with that kind of worldview.
Partner selection
The social capital gained through participation in book clubs influenced the social world outside of book clubs for all the women in this study. However, it portrayed important social and cultural capital in a unique way for American club members. Women in the United States expressed that being a book club member was something that “looks good” and helped them to find the right mate for the future. The focus on the relevance of book clubs and reading in setting parameters for finding or keeping a heterosexual partner was central for many of the American women I interviewed, and unique in that women in Ireland did not associate their reading activity or book club participation with partner selection. Claire, a 27-year-old American woman in a non-monogamous relationship and actively dating told me, “I would never date a man who doesn’t read, so it better be pretty obvious that reading is important to me, that I really read, you know?” Corinne, also 27, explained that she made the choice to get involved with reading and book clubs so that she could have more success in finding a long-term partner and eventual husband. Corinne told me that reading “makes you a more interesting person, I think at least, and that’s how I want to be known.” Corinne made sure to include her love of reading and her involvement with book clubs on her online dating profile in the hopes that potential dates would find her more appealing. I wanted to better understand the importance of reading in the mate selection of the women I interviewed, so I asked women to elaborate when they broached the subject. Karen, 36, a young adult author who married at the age of 34, talked to me about the years she spent dating. She explained, “I guess I just get let down when I’m dating someone and they don’t enjoy reading.” April, a single graphic designer, was a child in a family with multiple divorces. She felt her parents hastily remarried new spouses after they divorced, without learning what was important to them in a partner, only to eventually divorce again. She told me that reading “is a very important trait for somebody that I would ever want to be in a relationship with.” This was not only true for the younger women I interviewed, as exhibited by the conversation I had with Shirley, a divorced woman in her late 60 s, and retired CFO. Shirley said, in speaking of a man she had dated but decided to stop dating after realizing he was not interested in reading, “he was watching television constantly, stuff like ‘Gilligan’s Island’ reruns even, and I was like, this is just not attractive!” American interviewees acknowledged the importance of literature consumption in their own social position, but also the importance that they be linked romantically with men who also had similar tastes and levels of cultural capital, as exhibited through active engagement with literature. Thus, while reading was certainly important as a past time for American women, and conferred specific status, it was also imperative to avid readers and book club members in the United States that their romantic partners were also interested in reading and discussing the books they read.
Women in Ireland explained that reading was important to them and they enjoyed talking about literature with friends and romantic partners. However, Irish interviewees did not place this level of importance on presumed character traits associated with reading in their romantic relationships. In fact, often in direct contrast to the American interviews, many of the Irish women I interviewed told me their friends or partners did not enjoy reading, or did not read much, and that they sought out book clubs to develop likeminded friendships and discuss books in the absence of this connection in their romantic relationships. When I asked Irish women if this bothered them, they responded nonchalantly, and told me they just found other ways to relate to their partners or potential partners. As Kate, a 31-year-old female in the publishing industry explained, when I asked if her husband was an avid reader, “Jaysus, no! My husband, he would never pick up a book! He sees me reading, sometimes he asks what I am reading about, but he wouldn’t really be bothered.” While many Irish women said they encouraged their friends and romantic partners to read, it was because they personally found great enjoyment in reading and not because of the status implications. In this sense, reading as a central piece of a partner, or potential partner’s, identity was particularly important to American women’s book club members.
Discussion – The gifts of reading and book clubs
Overall, women’s book clubs, and the friendships developed therein, do not serve simply as an avenue to expand one’s social circle or increase cultural capital, although the women I interviewed explained that these aspects were incredibly important. These social interactions, and the processes of shared reading and working through texts, provided a new way for women to relate to one another, and to the social world outside of book club while utilizing cultural tools to develop personal identities. Contemporary book clubs have, in many ways, continued a longstanding history of middle and upper-middle class women participating in the production of knowledge and developing high cultural literacy, yet the implications of reading groups go far beyond this. Women are often socialized to be shy, meek, and timid, and for the women in this study, participation in book club allowed them to overcome this longstanding gendered expectation. Conversations with other readers allowed women to identify their own arguments and practice talking about their ideas, feelings, and opinions within the context of a group in which they felt safe.
Irish and American women utilized their experiences in book clubs to develop knowledge and confidence. Conversations with other readers allowed women to identify their own arguments and practice talking about their ideas, feelings, and opinions within the context of a group in which they felt safe. This development of knowledge and understanding was especially important for the Irish women I interviewed. Women constructed identities and carved out their own space in the world, in part through participation in women’s book clubs. Rose, a retired teacher who had been attending book clubs for 60 years when I interviewed her, summed up her experiences with book clubs in a way that encompassed the feelings of all the women I interviewed: Everybody brings something different to the table. Everything you bring to a book and a book brings to you, is because of your own experiences. You are bringing that when you begin to discuss it, that comes out, and I think that’s a wonderful gift.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.