Gendered question, I know. If you don’t identify as a man, please feel free to answer with whatever you want. I meant to post it in the Men’s Lib sub but somehow it always bugs for me.

Let’s spill the tea lads

I like painting my nails.

I like gardening and I take great pride in my plants and upcoming indoor veggie and herb garden.

I dance when I go out.

I like bright colors.

I like candles that smell nice.

I like flowers.

I like Harry Styles.

I like crocheting.

Whatever you like, be proud of it. There is no such thing as liking something unmanly. Nothing can harm your manliness. Do what you want.

  • redtea
    5·
    1 year ago

    I think a lot of the distinction comes down to marketing.

    Things have changed in my lifetime. My granddad, for instance, knew how to sew and was proud of it. He was a soldier and soldiers who can’t do art least minor repairs in the field aren’t useful. He probably wasn’t embroidering flowers on his kit bag but it’s the same skill.

    I remember wanting to learn to sew in school because of stories like that but almost all the other boys tried their hardest not to enjoy textiles class. It’s still gendered reasoning, but it seems like there used to be gendered reasons to do any hobby but nowadays it’s ‘just for girls’ or ‘just for boys’. Immersed in the literature that I read, I’m always shocked to still see things sold in pink for girls and blue for boys.

    There seems to be a trend in treating e.g. sewing as useful for snazzing something up or making something decorative. There’s less around about e.g. making or fixing clothes. This conveniently lines up with fast fashion. I’ll say from experience that although fast fashion doesn’t last long due to the quality, applying the right techniques can still make clothes last for years. Come to think of it, I wonder if clothes were ever really ‘made to last’ or whether previous generations just made things last. Maybe it’s a mix of both.

    When I was a kid (not that long ago) I remember having a tool kit and asking everyone for spare wood. Toys nowadays are like the Apple universe, where it works once before you have to buy a bespoke expansion kit. I know these things existed when I was a kid but it seems worse now. Then again I also used to take things apart around the house and put them back together so maybe I was just a misfit even then.

    Anyway, my point was that there seems to be a connection between:

    • Dividing hobbies between genders rather than finding gendered ways to sell each hobby to boy, girl, and non-binary consumers (ironically? there has been an attempt to use rainbow flags to sell hobbies to LGBTQIA2S consumers) – removing the skill element and replacing it with mere consumerism.
    • Single use products and incompatibility between brands.

    This suggests a relationship between modern gender norms and conditioning us to buy as many products as possible without ever repairing them. I’m unsure if this clarifies the difficulty in working out what hobbies are for which gender. But it seems to be confusing because we’re getting mixed messages from the production side of things.