A sad sight...

[yellowraincoat]

Yesterday as I was driving up the road I saw a BMX track. 5 or 6 lads using it while 3 or 4 girls stood watching them. No girls biking, no boys watching.

Why do you see this so much? Why are so many women standing watching while men do stuff? It really depressed me and made me feel that things will never move on or change.

disclaimer: have only read OP so far.

i got quite annoyed with myself recently based on the same sort of thing. i travelled by plane to spend the weekend with a new man i had been seeing. saturday was spent leaving our hotel at 12 noon going to the local football field, waiting for all the players to turn up, watching him and his team mates set up the nets, wait while they all got changed, had team talk etc, watched the match alongside the other wives and girlfriends and a few small children, once again waited while they all got changed and then went to their local, again with all the other wives, girlfriends and dcs following behind the men and waiting outside in the beer garden for the men to get us our drinks because although the rules had been changed to allow women into the bar, "it just felt wrong going in" (not my words). needless to say, i haven't been back to see him again. anyway, this got me thinking about how many times i had tagged along with what my ex had wanted to do and socialised with his friends and their girlfriends when he would never have entertained the idea of joining me and my friends for lunch on a saturday.

i have vowed never to let myself go down that unbalanced road again. i just need to find myself a hobby that encourages spectators.

"I cycled,fished and did tombstoning with boys, knocked myself out once when I came off my bike. It was all fine until my boobs started to develop and then they asked me to take off my top so they could have a look. It was a turning point and lots of boys have irritated me since."

We've all been there too

Unfortunately it extends into all things....

A while ago my friends and I went to see a fantastic exhibition on a female dominated craft at the V&A. It was so interesting, full of social history, and there were hundreds of spectators. Female spectators that is. I counted no more than two men among them.

Yet women will go to exhibitions on scientific inventions, tanks, war technology, etc, and admire the work that men do.

Geena Davis's theory is that it starts early with the lack of female protagonists in mainstream movies which teaches kids that boys are worth watching/admiring but girls are not. Except of course when they're hot.

It really does make me despair.

OH does a lot of physical/ outdoor team sport things. . . and is in the TA so with lots of things he does he tends to encourage new joiners/ younger members to join in. So there?s always new people coming in

I go to watch if he asks me, if it is important to him i.e.: big charity event, friend?s last appearance etc.
I go then because he has asked he doesn?t assume and that?s what partners do support each other. Sometime it means me standing in the cold sometimes it?s him going to films/concerts/shows that he gets nothing out of.

Having attended an event recently one of the other girlfriends took it upon herself to tell me I was being very silly. . .

Didn?t I realise that OH was very attractive and I was being foolish not keeping an eye on him at these things, and besides a ?good? girlfriend would ?make? an effort.

Because I don?t go to lot of these things a lot of the new joiners don?t realise quite how long I?ve been around (17 years +).

I did point out that (a) I had better things to do than stand freezing in mud passively watching OH, when he really wasn?t bothered too much if I was there or not, like studying, reading, MN-ing.

And (b) that it wouldn?t be much of a relationship if I needed to police him, that he was an adult and if he as an adult wanted to become involved with someone else there wouldn?t be a lot I could do. (A quick look at the relationship boards on here will quickly show that if someone wants to cheat, very little will stop them)

I fricking got tutted at. . .and as she walked off commented that I?d soon learn

I mean really if a group of adult women think this, what hope is there for their daughters and sons.

Girls being brought up to stand around and Ohh and Ahh at the menfolk and thinking that they need to police ?their? men and it?s their fault if they cheat they weren?t hanging off them at every minute?????

Boys thinking that their every move should be fawned over. . .

It really worries me.

I dislike this type of thing too. Luckily, I don't ever recall doing it as a teenager. Before we had the children, I used to go and watch dp playing in his band a lot but I like to think it was because I liked the music. He plays a lot of squash and I never go to see him play that; it's soooooo boring!

Sadly, I don't do anything myself that anyone would want or feel they had to come and watch me doing so I think it's true that, firstly, boys/men do more of that type of activity and, secondly, they expect their girlfriends to come and watch them. I recently took up running in an attempt to become fitter (although I haven't been able to go recently because ds2 has been in hospital for 3 weeks). It has crossed my mind to enter a race in the future and I would hope do and the boys would come and watch me.

Thinking about it, dp has actually watched me having a riding lesson in the past!

I will be telling my boys not to expect, or even suggest that any future girlfriends tag along to watch them do any sporting type things.

Interesting discussion. Years ago, in the early days of our relationship, I deliberately avoided watching DH play cricket every weekend. I found it totally boring, although I was very happy for him to take part. Instead, I went out with my friends and did my own thing. Later on, he told me that one of the things that attracted him was the very fact that I was so independent and didn't need to hang around him all of the time! He had had a gf in the past who irritated him enormously in that she hung around all of the time when he was playing sport and didn't seem to have a life of her own.

This was 25 to 30 years ago. Have things got so much worse then?

yes, it is sad... i remember as a teenager the boys mucking around on skateboards and the girls just chatting and sometimes playing on swings in the park.

BUT.. things do seem to be changing (slowly).. i do a lot of mountain biking and i've noticed a LOT of girls stick with it from kids to teenagers and young adults.. i think cause it's so social and family-friendly. i've seen some bloody amazing girls at the jump park (14/15/16yr olds) and that's traditionally the most 'male' part of cycling.

my DH was attracted to me initially because i was really really into martial arts. he's not at all but he cycles and he just appreciated that i had 'a thing' that i cared about that was physical and active.

I've noticed this, in a few different ways.

From the age of about 12 or so, there is quite a lot of unspecified pressure on girls not to have any active hobbies or interests at all. DD is a rhythmic gymnast, the most feminine of the sports probably, and the coaches have often noted that there is a huge dropoff in attendance after the first year of secondary school, even if the girls concerned were very good. Apparently it is particularly true in karting, which is why there are so few female racing drivers. I can't put my finger on what the pressure actually is, but it exists, and I think boys are often part of it. Media promotion of passive appearance-based activities to this age group is probably a major factor.

I've also noticed adult women doing the whole spectating thing, sometimes after having given up that sport themselves. What strikes me is how much they complain about it, and when it is put to them to join in, or do something else, this is met with indignation. DH climbs, and unless he's going somewhere really far-out we can make a weekend of, I don't bother going. A couple of the other partners do and they whinge about it constantly. I don't understand.

God that reminds me, somehting that has been niggling me about a friend since last summer...

He didn't want to go and see Bridesmaids.

Nothing wrong with that, I hear you say.

Of course not.

But but but... the thing is, my deep down suspicion, is that he didn't want to go and see it, the best mainstream buddy movie of summer, because its protagonists were women and it was about female friendship.

Whereas we're expected to go and see fucking buddy movies ad nauseum.

Because men's experience is universal. Whereas women's, is , er, just women's. So irrelevant to me if I'm a man.

Oh I think that's so true BasilRathbone. I think A LOT of men didn't go and see Bridesmaids because it's "about" women.

Any bookshop has clearly defined women's sections and sections for EVERYONE. Because no man could ever be interested in women or what they think.

The day we started secondary school we were "suppose" to stop playing and stand around talking. The boys still played football.
32 years latter I still don't get it.

Since my daughters are still very very young I can't know, but could this also have to do with the level of activity they see their mothers do?

As in, is the daughter of an active climber/skateboarder/footballer whatever mother more likely to take it up herself, than one who sees her mother only ever in the spectator ranks?

messy "Yet women will go to exhibitions on scientific inventions, tanks, war technology, etc, and admire the work that men do."

The thinking that scientific inventions, technology (and yes, even war technology are men's things or the work men do is rather sad. Women are sadly still underepresented in the STEM field, but that's not being helped by labelling them as "male".

This is not to say that sewing/knitting/crafting should be interesting to men too, and that it's quite sad that there's less men venturing into that direction than women into the other.

As in, is the daughter of an active climber/skateboarder/footballer whatever mother more likely to take it up herself, than one who sees her mother only ever in the spectator ranks?

Possibly but I think many kids of both sexes (not all for sure) get to early teens and want to break away from mother/ parents influence. I do think it may come back though when they are a bit older.

What I mean is that I was/ am the active on in our family as DH has poor health and works very long hours self employed. Since the kids were in prams I had them out walking and in bike seats. I have taken them to the Alps climbing, they have canoed, climbed, skiied, snowboarded etc.

By the time DS1 got t0 14 and half he has lost interest in wild camping, biking across the Lake District and all the things he loved doing. So it's just me and DS2 and I am losing him.

I don't push it but I do think there interest will come back (once they get bored of itunes and facebook!!)

Same with girls? Who knows, I don't- it's just a guess.

Actually Widow that is a very good point.

IT's one of the reasons I force myself sometimes to go running and swimming. It's why I bought a bike. I fucking hate cycling most of the time. But I did want my DD (and my DS) to see me being active, to see me running and not giving a shit about make up, clothes, etc., to see me valuing health and fitness and endurance and to assume that it's normal for women to do that.

I'm glad you said that I've been sitting on my arse far too much recently. Will make more effort to go running again...

upahill - yes I think most kids lose interest in stuff they do with their families, in their teens. But as you say, they come back to it later on.

I'm glad you said that I've been sitting on my arse far too much recently. Will make more effort to go running again...

Same here. I intend to go out again as soon as I can breath normally - bad bughs have had me for two weeks now!!

I am not a sporty person at all, just wasn't encouraged to do it as a child and am very unconfident about my abilities. However, I took up climbing a few years ago and although I haven't been for a while I am going to start again. I am doing a PGCE to become a primary school teacher and I want to show girls that it's something women can do too, even puny women like me.

What would also be awesome would be if men would actually pick up some knitting needles or a sewing kit.

I practically burst a blood vessel every time dd2(17) gets dolled up to 'go and watch the boys play rugby'. My spluttering about own interests, doormats etc only stop when I hear the door slam on her way out.

Not bughs, upahill! Anything but bughs!

I've got them bastards as well!!!

Cough, sniff, bugh!!