why only women mostly do these things? what do men do?

[CoursesForHorsesandMares]

Over the past years say like a decade maybe longer I have done lots of different activities including short courses. Initially (like many women who made a similar mistake!) I started out with wine tasting when I was in a dating mind set and I did it to try to meet some men and broaden my social circle. Of course as anyone who has done this will tell you, wine tasting is 99% women trying to meet men who arent there!

Since then I've done lots of different courses for things I was interested in learning - not to meet guys -but a comment on a different thread (about walking groups) made me think that actually all of these courses are just women -maybe you get one or two men but in every case it is hugely dispropotionate weighting. This covers a really wide range of subjects from lots of varied providers - art based courses, computer based courses, acting courses, language course, comedy courses, wine tasting I've mentioned, street skating, skiiing, climbing. Even the ones that are less stereotypically 'female' - same thing again - almost all women.

Doesn't matter what the subject is - it's always women and not just single women with very few men. If you have a group of say 10 or 15, usually one man maybe two. Why is this? Is it women who are just interested in learning? Or is there something else? It's really strange because the law of averages should dictate a greater male attendance. I'm not saying 50:50 but maybe even 60:40 is so far away.

Why is it so disproportionate? What are men never doing these kinds of things?

This! They'd prefer to be in front of telly than making effort to do stuff

The male dominated activities in my area include golf (the main one), surfing, paddle-boarding and sailing. The arts groups, reading clubs & yoga classes are predominantly (often exclusively) female.

A lot of men tend to develop their interests and skills within their career in order to extract defined benefit for it.
Or into hobbies that are enjoyable.
Women seem to be more interested in doing a course to learn something just for the hell of it and to meet new people and a certificate at the end adds to the sense of validation.

I agree with the social elements also. A lot of women want to hear and be heard. Most men aren't interested and already know +1 more people than they have time for. They enjoy the company of other men because it will often mean they are focused on doing something rather than just aimlessly talking with each other without much purpose.

As an example my brother went on 1/2 day pasta making course for the sole purpose of learning to make pasta for his partner and her family.
He said it was mainly full of women which was fine.
There was lots of chat about the task, again fine.
But then those next to him would stray into getting-to-know-you small talk, like where have you travelled from, what do you do for a living etc which in his mind was distracting, pointless and nothing to do with them.

He wasn't there to make friends and had no intention of ever seeing any of them again.
It was clear he found the women annoying so just ignored them unless it was about the pasta making.
But I 100% guarantee the women would have said he was a weird grumpy antisocial middle aged man because he didn't want anything to do with their attempts at pointless social interaction lol

I think it's a combination of:

• Most men will do some kind of sport as a hobby if they have one
• Men are generally less sociable and happier in their own company
• More men than women are in full time employment (not loads more, but enough to make a difference in who has the time and energy for classes)
• In general men feel less social pressure to have a complete/fulfilled life, or to be seen to have a wide range of interest
• Men read less than women so that explains the book clubs
• Far fewer men learn languages than women so that explains the language courses
• As pointed out men are more likely to self teach/learn a skill

With the first two points being the most influential

Most men don't want to be social in the same way women do 🤷🏼‍♀️

Perhaps this is generalisation, but the men I know communicate entirely in a task based manner, DH included. They don't do chit chat. They just want to land the plane. They are all about getting to a goal.
Women often use chit chat to vent and be seen.I certainly do. I love chit chat even when it has no purpose. It's all about the journey for me. Luckily I have my mum, sis and DD for silly chit chat!

Yup, my mum goes to a family history course - 10 students, 9 women and 1 man, And the teacher is a woman too.

In my experience it depends on the language. KGerman and Russian: more men. Italian and French: more women. Korean: 99% women

I think youre wrong. My brother has done tons of these random course - climbing, skiing, crew/boat training (incidentally he said that one was entirely made up of divorced men) - and I'm a woman who has done zero.

I've never thought of it as a female trait to do lots of random courses

Women are more social and maybe have less confidence to learn by themselves from YouTube etc. i guess I’m more “manly” (or away from average should i say) and prefer to do activities on my own. If i want to learn something I’ll look it up, i would dread going to a class.

ie small but significant sex differences that become bigger en masse

I've started doing indoor bouldering and there are lots of men there, I think generally speaking men are less keen on classroom type settings and get more involved in sports or outdoor activities. Having said that DH plays table top games and dungeons and dragons (ahhh outing MN husband hobbies.....) and that's predominantly men. I go to the gym, very mixed, DH goes to more exercise classes body pump, boot camp etc and there are more women, I also do aqua pilates 99% female.
I think it just depends which activities you are choosing.

I teach at a sixth form college, subjects which were not often available when I was at school, and every open event I get lots of mums saying “I wish I could come and do this course”! Sometimes men do too but not nearly as often - and they’re way more likely to try and showboat about their own knowledge of the subject (like I give a damn) 🙄 or even to quiz me about it…! Never had a mum try and catch me out on my subject knowledge.

I am frequently the only woman in the weights room at the gym. But then again knuckle dragging meat heads arent much use to anyone 🤷🏻‍♀️

I agree - older men do tend to embrace the solitary. I think it's something very deeply rooted in evolution.

Whenever you see David Attenborough documentaries about groups of animals, the older males - bonobos, lions - are always sitting alone, apparently perfectly content and contemplating their next meal, while the females hang out in groups. Silverback gorillas particularly remind me of a lot of middle-aged men, chewing the occasional leaf and wearing an expression that says, 'look, just leave me in peace, eh, unless something important comes up.'

When men socialise, it tends to be with other men. I don't think it's because of sports specifically. That's just a vehicle for male company. And even then, once a week seems to be quite enough.

Join a cycling club. That seems to be all men from what I’ve seen on the roads!

Women need other people as part of their support system and seek them out in all areas of life. They need the emotional connection to others and join groups as much to be sociable as to the actual activity. Men have been bought up to be more insular.
In a school playground girls socialise in a completely different way to boys. This carries on through life. Men don’t tend to be “joiners” unless it’s team sports.

Took my friend to a rock gig recently. Her first comment after walking in was "so here is where all the men are".

Perhaps they think that they already know everything.

only took 7 posts for you to wilfully misinterpret an innocuous post and garnish your ignorance with a 😆
Classic MN

My hobbies are mostly blokes there, sometimes 90%+ blokes.
I don't do learning courses though, maybe that's the reason.

Most of my hobbies are solitary, true. It's just so much hassle to coordinate with other ppl and some of them have very loudly voiced strong opinions how I do (anyone does) things, ffs. Leave me alone, happy with my own ways.

Interesting… I just totted up the numbers for the music groups I play with and the split is about 50:50. But I did notice that the split is different within the groups at different levels. Men dominate the more advanced players, most of the intermediate players are women, beginners are more evenly split but with slightly more women. There does seem to be a trend that many more of the women learnt as adults but the men played from a young age. The men who start as beginners seem to either drop out or take it very seriously. They are often “all or nothing” about it.

BIL tried joining groups to meet women in his 30s. He had the opposite issue that everything he joined was male dominated 😂 He tried photography, Italian cookery, stained glass, badminton and sailing classes, I think.

I can't speak for all men but my husband isn't keen on anything too "organised" and likes to "be spontaneous" as he puts it. Ironically this means he usually ends up doing nothing much socially unless I've organised it ...

He would baulk at the idea of doing an exercise class or course, but would happily go for a walk or bike ride alone or if someone he knew suggested it.

Before we met he would go to the local pub and have a pint. Nice times out of ten someone he knew would turn up and he'd stay longer having a chat/another drink. Often his brother who lived nearby. If not he'd head home but said he still enjoyed the change of scene for that half hour or so. Whereas I can't imagine going to a pub for a drink on my own when I hadn't planned to meet someone.

It's just ... different.

I wonder if it is also to do with the demands on women at home - housework, kids etc still overwhelmingly fall to women so if they want to do something else they need to get out of the house. Men just ignore stuff needing doing around the house and do what they want anyway (not all men, etc etc). Often Mum is the go-to person for kids to pester which makes it hard to focus on an activity at home.

I went with a (female) friend to a small creative writing group in a local bookshop.

Half of the attendees were men, including the course leader and the bookshop owner.

It didn't take long for the men to take offense at criticism, even though that's exactly why we were there. We both said that we were on eggshells with the men and felt that we had to massage their egos in a way that we certainly didn't with the other women.

Made us both glad to not be single!

My friend does kayaking and welding and says it's mostly men in these groups. I did woodworking and found the same.

I agree with those who say men just tend not to be joiners. Although my DH has recently joined something for once - it's a brass band and again, mostly men.