 
Today it is almost a foregone conclusion that anyone can read and choose what you want to read. In truth, This social conquest is relatively recent, especially with regard to women.
In the Western world mass literacy was achieved only during the 19th century. However the percentage of female readers was very different among residents in town and country, and especially between capitals and the rest of countries.
The first readings that nineteenth-century women were encouraged to undertake were purely religious mold, what some lives of Saints and the Bible. Over time, however, women were attracted to types of reading so to speak more lay, and there arose new types of texts dedicated to women like cheap popular novels and cookbooks. The novels were exquisitely adapted to women, in turn seen as creatures with limited intellectual ability, frivolous and emotional. Therefore, the popular novel was soon associated with women of poor quality and of dubious morality, women who were carried away by the imagination and fantasies of passion of purely fictional characters, as, to name one only, the famous Madame Bovary by Flaubert.
This type of readings were therefore often, especially in rural areas, prohibited by the breadwinner.
With the advent of World War I the woman could change their social position largely because of the absence of the male figure, commitment on: many women had indeed the opportunity to change their lifestyle and the social environment, extended people exchanges and ritagliarono space to attend cultural clubs and libraries.
If you analyze the illiteracy rates today, There is still an alarming: According to data from the Institute for Statistics of UNESCO, the total number of illiterates is about 771 millions, of which 2/3 of women. This number makes you think and definitely puts an emphasis on gender, still present, and about the different possibilities of access to culture that have men and women.
Maria
