Too girly for a man?

Doing English at university, my first ever seminar began with the tutor asking each of us in turn about the latest book we had read. I have no recollection what I said, but I do remember that, much to the horror of the rest of the group, one boy volunteered [Helen Fielding's] Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Not only was this a brave thing to have admitted, but the fact that he had opened a book aimed unashamedly at the female market was, as I now realize, a complete and utter miracle.

A male friend admitted to me over the weekend that although he has wanted to read Patrick Süskind’s Perfume, he has felt unable to buy it and couldn’t imagine reading it in public because the title is “too girly” (I might add that this man is over thirty). Or take another example, when my brother desperately turned to me in an airport bookshop for emergency reading matter, just as the loudspeaker announced our final flight call. I grabbed two that I thought he might enjoy, held them either side of my face and speedily summarized them to aid his choice. Instinctively, he was unconvinced by either. Zadie Smith’s On Beauty and [Alice Walker's] The Color Purple are both guilty of possessing names that are also deemed “too girly.”

I’ve never had a problem reading “girly” books—need I mention my obsession with Jane Austen?—nor have I ever worried about my masculinity being compromised simply for reading a book that might be deemed “feminine.” Perfume is actually on my wishlist, as is Geraldine Brooks’s Year of Wonders and Jude Morgan’s Indiscretion. And I’ve never even been embarrassed to read a girly book in public—I can think of more embarrassing books a man could be caught reading.