Women's hobbies

[GoshAnneGorilla]

Apologies if this has been done already and is a bit muddled, but I've been thinking...

One of the things that bothers me about "anti-pinkification" is that boys toys or gender neutral toys are positioned as being better then girls toys, which are often viewed as having no value at all.

Then we get into adult hobbies, chick-lit is disparaged in a way that pulpy crime fiction or those endless SAS books never are.

Cooking has become a respected hobby, but only it seems, because men are on the telly doing it. Any activity that is mainly done by women, seems to be fair game for mockery and disparagement.

This is reflected in endless threads on Relationships, where men's hobbies are sacrosanct and women are expected to not have any need for leisure activities.

Has anyone got any thoughts on this?

I know what you mean about women being expected not to need leisure activities. We are actually sold the idea that having a fucking bath is a leisure activity ('pampering').

"We are actually sold the idea that having a fucking bath is a leisure activity"

That is so true. Look at all the countless adverts which feature a mother desperately trying to have her Super Special Bath in peace.

Ot even better than a bath, eat a Super Special yogurt! Now that's the ultimate height of female leisure time, apparently. That or online bingo, never something outside the house anyway.

Very true and subtle.

Women's hobbies are touted as being actual things that everyone should be doing:-

Washing - (passed off as pampering), although it's hard to find the time when your DH is working 12 hours a day and then going to his hobbies in the evenings.

Cooking - except it's not enough to just cook; we're meant to pour over books for inspiration, to attend night classes to learn how to cook better, to bake cupcakes for all occasions.

Shopping - for food, for washing products, for clothes to make us look lovely.

These are the accepted hobbies for women, and it'd be super if we can remember our place and fit them in during daytime hours.

The gym, sports clubs, etc are still seen as 'men's' domains, even though I've seen plenty of women in gyms who could run rings round some men!

Argh! Yes! The book thing pisses me off - even good, thoughtful writers like Marianne Keyes get dismissed as 'chicklit' where as there is nothing like the same contempt and dismissal of crime/thrillers which are often badly written derivative tripe.

MY DM told me, not long after I'd had DC1 that 'there's only room/time for one person within a marriage to have a hobby' by which, of course, she meant DH.

I also hate the way 'female' hobbies that are skilled and productive are mocked and lookee down on because they are 'girlie' - I knit, I sew (I make clothes) but this was regarded as a waste of time by someone who plays World of Warcraft FFS. At least I making things that will be used again and again.

I also do yoga and used to play rugby and fence. The rugby got lots of comments about 'women getting hurt' 'cos no men ever get hurt playing rugby . I would cheerfully take up both those sports again but don't have the time. DH also had a time consuming hobby but has had to scale it back massively.
We could both carry on but that would involve one or the other of us being out every evening and no time together. In the eyes of someone like DM I'm probably a bit mean/selfish not to 'let' DH go off doing his hobbies/sports at the expense of mine but heyho, I can live with that.

I hadn't thought of the bath-time/pampering thing being our hobby/leisure time before - that is SO true!! I like this way this place makes me see things in a new light all the time.

Oh yes, a lot of craft is dismissed as 'girly' even though it's useful. Wierdly, even when it makes money for the family as it sometimes can, it still seems to be trivialised (though to be fair the money-making aspect doesn't always work; I've known enough people who spend a lot on the equipment needed for making stuff - and on pitch rents at craft fairs - and make sod all back, but then this applies to men as well.)

I knit and crochet - in fact, I teach crocheting. I absolutely hate this stereotype of twee women/grannies with their knitting needles. it really winds me up. it is such a statement on our hobby and skill - that is is for old women with nothing better to do.

Strangely, my hobby has created nearly all our christmas presents this year, but is still regarded with amusement in our household...

Have we reached the point where we discuss women's jobs being considered "leisure time"? That still happens in my household. Which pisses me off.

Ahh, but you see not only are crafty hobbies associated with women, they're associated with old women, so thus can't be truly valuable.

There's an overlap between the issue of women's (craft) activities, women's labour and women's right to non-productive time, isn't there? And that notion of "productive" is quite slippery, too, isn't it? (Am thinking now about whatdoesittake48 having produced Christmas presents from her leisure activity.)

It's a really interesting topic ...

The cat - virtually all women's hobbies are productive in some way, or gussied up versions of everyday activities - grooming, eating, shopping.

It is pants.

This is an interesting topic.

I turned 40 last year and consciously took up 2 hobbies. Baking and returned to play hockey. I parent four wonderful boys. I wanted them to see that I enjoyed myself, was independent and could do the things they did (my baking is more akin to doing science and they play club sport too). I wanted to expand their expectations of the girls and women they meet. For me my hobbies were me making a feminist statement in my family.

Interestingly, I'm slightly baulking at the description 'hobbies' - I have found I need them to feel whole and content.

I have had some really interesting reactions to the fact I leave my family a couple of nights a week and half a day at the weekend. It's like I shouldn't because I work full time. My DH never gets the same reaction to his rugby playing and the boys are practically pushed out of the door my society expectations on them.

Why?

I have found my little feminist stand with my family has generated a wider impact I hadn't anticipated but I'm enjoying pushing hobby time for women is a right that should be taken to role model for the next generation.

Sorry if this is very lowbrow. I'm a lurker and learner from this topic - this is my first post.

The gym, sports clubs, etc are still seen as 'men's' domains, even though I've seen plenty of women in gyms who could run rings round some men!

Women are allowed to go to gyms. How else are you going to make sure you look good for your man? (No, I'm not serious.)

I do agree though that generally, women's hobbies don't have the same status as men's.

That's great, Tea. And it's given me a bit more of a push to take up a hobby myself. I want to but I feel guilty about the time.

I think of the gym as a female thing - too much "Cosmopolitan" too young, I think. Gym is almost a woman's duty in many parts. And if not gym, then something cheap, like running - to lose weight, perhaps??

I keep thinking of a children's reading book from the 1970s I used with the children. It was a Teach-the-Time book. It had a picture of Mummy leaving the house at 7 to go to a painting class with her pal. I find that the idea of that kind of hobby - a "learning", class-based sort of thing, that one presumably paid for, at a reasonable hour (7), that isn't linked to some kind of economic return - really luxurious.

Perhaps some women still have hobbies - but which women? And perhaps the nature of hobbies has changed? How? And is it connected to other things (a longer working day; both parents working; the decline of subsidised adult learning and night-time adult education???)

There's been a conscious re-appropriation and re-evaluation of traditional female hobbies/crafts, too, hasn't there? I remember reading essays by people like Elaine Showalter on knitting and quilting and feminism back when I was a student. The tone of those essays were that these crafts were largely history, and the re-assessment was historical and conceptual, rather than actually doing them.

"Perhaps some women still have hobbies - but which women? And perhaps the nature of hobbies has changed? How? And is it connected to other things (a longer working day; both parents working; the decline of subsidised adult learning and night-time adult education???)"

Good point. You don't hear of people going to evening classes as much as you once did.

If any Women's Studies types are reading, there's a PhD waiting to be done in this topic which I would love to read .

Does it depend on what your perception of a Hobby is?

Surely if you do something you like doing - it's a hobby. If you're only focusing on hobbies that are covered in the mainstream media then you're limiting yourself hugely.

It doesn't have to involve evening classes, being in a group etc - many people have photography as a hobby & never join a club, stamp collecting is a hobby, gardening is a hobby....

I kayak & do photography & there are lots of women involved in those hobbies - kayaking especially! I also do RPGs and miniature wargaming - not so many there!

While I have a couple of hobbies, my DW says she has none - she loves the gardening & does it all, so that's a hobby right? It's time to relax doing something you enjoy.....

We've chatted about it in the past, but I can't really help as I'm a bit of a geek & nothing I do appeals - plus I think a hobby should be for her to have time & space away from the rest of us.

I do evening classes, currently yoga & Welsh. But funding for them has been massively cut in recent years.

I am single and childless, so I have the time for it, but when I was a child, we had babysitters on the nights both my parents were at classes. My mother was secretary for the local WEA, so I grew up thinking evening classes were something sll adults did. Except they don't.

I don't think of it as a luxury - it's something to use other parts of my brain that work doesn't and is important for my mental balance.

"Perhaps some women still have hobbies - but which women? "

I have to say, I know lots of women who have hobbies - tri-athlon & long distance cycling (ie 100 mile races) seems to be very popular (men & women probably evenly), evening classes in various things (metalwork / furniture restoration / jewellery making / life drawing that I can think of). And in particular riding - if you see two people out on horses for a leisure ride, you can assume maybe 90% of the time if not more they will be women.

But, I live in a very rural area - a lot of people here whether originally from this area or incomers have made a choice of lifestyle over career IYSWIM (ie, those that valued career either left or didn't come here!). And of course it is only the women with disposable income that can do all this stuff (and also, on the whole I know either women without dc or women with older dc).

Forgot singing and drama - DH is very into singing / musical theatre, but he is always in a minority, mostly it is women.

Agree on the chick Lit thing. One Day is essentially chick lit, it's good but no better than a lot of other books out there by women. I know loads of people, men and women, who would have dismissed it had it been by a woman, as they don't like chick lit. Only they do like it, when it's by a man.

On the hobby thing, dh and I both do long distance cycling. We both do the same type of rides/ distances, but I've noticed lots of people will ask dh questions about it, but not me, or even acknowledge that i do it. When ride london was on tv, my mother said she had been looking out for dh in the coverage. I asked her why she didn't look for me, she said she assumed only dh would be able to do it! I've been quite surprised by quite how strange people are about it!

Beaker - that sounds really annoying. I get a similar thing with rugby. My DSs play (DD wil once she's a bit older) everyone asks DH who he played for and which position and are then surprised to find out I was the rugby player not him. It never occurs to then that maybe it's the short slim female not the 6ft+ male.

I have been irritated for quite a long time with how women's traditional crafts aren't valued, but I hadn't made the connection with how women's hobbies are either productive or everyday activities. Very interesting.

A lot of women do do drama and singing as hobbies, especially church choirs. More women do bell ringing now too. And there's walking and riding, which lots of the women I know do. Walking is a massive leisure sport and there are always loads of women in every hiking group.

But I don't think that sewing/crocheting type craft has always been the exclusive preserve of women. A lot of men in my family historically did crocheting and sewing and knitting because they were in the Navy and that's what lots of sailors did to pass the time.

I entirely agree with the OP.

I think there is a difference between children's hobbies and adult hobbies. DD dances and acts, but these are not considered appropriate hobbies for adult women a lot of the time, particularly not dancing. Dancing as an adult woman is perceived as something you do in a night club for purposes of sexual allurement (is that even a word?), or otherwise you are seen as making an exhibition of yourself if you dare to do it on amateur level on a stage. A woman who had a daughter in dance classes with DD said if her daughter still wanted to do dance classes as a teenager she would be embarrassed for her.

Stereotypical boys' hobbies, football and so on, are seen as a valuable pursuit in adult life.

I've gone back to acting as a hobby after a 20 year break, and I really enjoy it. I regret giving it up for twenty years, and there is a huge lack of women in their twenties doing drama as a hobby. I have the part of a woman in a play, and the man playing my husband is fifteen years younger than me, but there are no women his age to play the part. I don't know if that is local to me or a general trend. My much younger sister won't act as she feels she should no longer be doing it, and she has a drama degree and really misses acting. So I suppose I have got to the age where I am prepared to make a massive exhibition of myself.

I also RP with other women. I don't tell anyone in real life about that, given how unacceptable people seem to find it. I suppose as it a leisure activity that is purely for enjoyment it is a hobby.

Some male hobbies seem to be about buying stuff. I know a lot about Nick Drake and own all his records, but not on original vinyl. If I was a man and had spent thousands of pounds on the originals then it would be considered a hobby. I don't tell men that I know a lot about Nick Drake. He's a musician that men like to tell women about as a reflection of their intensely melancholic souls. It kind of ruins it for them if I actually confess to knowing more about his music than they do. Comic books probably also fall into this area for men; they see it as their domain, although staff in comic book shops are great with DD.

I play in an orchestra and sing, and got from a few people (mostly mums but one dad too) that I continued to do this during maternity leave (DH was quite happy for me to do so as he knew I would really enjoy the time out of the house). Music is not a very gendered hobby but I was surprised that people were surprised, if you see what I mean - the women said 'you must be very organised' and the man said 'but who's looking after the baby?'

My mother is a successful artist but does not need to earn much income from it as my DF has always earned well - I was rather angry to hear him dismiss it as a hobby recently - she has spent the last 35 years getting good at it amd very well respected by other artists!