This is January 2013, and 200 years ago, Pride and Prejudice was first published. That is my favorite book and Jane Austen is one of my two favorite authors.
My other favorite author is William Shakespeare. I have a possibly irrational, all-encompassing love for Romeo and Juliet because it was my first introduction to the Bard. My other favorite plays of his are Macbeth and Othello for tragedies and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, and Much Ado About Nothing for comedies. King John is also a very underrated history play.
I am a fan of musicals. My favorite musicals include classics like South Pacific, Oklahoma!, Anything Goes, and West Side Story, as well as more recent satirical/comic musicals such as Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon, and The Producers. My favorite character in musical theatre is Inspector Javert from Les Miserables.
I am also a fan of science fiction and fantasy. In my lifetime, my three favorite sci-fi or fantasy works have been Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings, with A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones and The Vampire Diaries slowly gaining ground. I also enjoyed LOST, Star Wars, and Joss Whedon’s non-Buffy works. I preferred Dollhouse to Angel and Firefly, despite the show’s flaws.
Aside from classic literature, musical theatre, and sci-fi/fantasy, what else do I enjoy in film, television, and books? Well, I like romantic comedies when they’re good, satirical comedies like The Producers, dramas, English period pieces with lots of tea parties and social commentary, the Muppets, and violent Quentin Tarantino films. The Wizard of Oz is my favorite movie. I love many, many different books, too many to list here.
I love Disney movies with the so-called “princess” characters like Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and The Little Mermaid. I also love Cinderella, even though I like the Stepmother and the mice more than the female lead. I love all of the Pixar films except Cars, only one of which had a female protagonist (though Dory and Helen Parr are close to being co-protagonists). I like most of the villains and hate most of the “cute” animal sidekicks.
I had Barbies when I was a kid. I played with them even into my tween years, though the subject matter of the pretend games got considerably more adult-themed as I went through puberty (I was weird).
I also loved everything about the American Girl dolls and series. I had an Addy doll and all of her books, and also read all of Felicity, Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly’s books. When Mattell bought American Girl and retired Felicity, Kirsten, and Samantha, it went back in time and stabbed part of my childhood through the heart.
I loved The Baby-sitters Club when I was a kid, as well as Sweet Valley Twins and The Unicorn Club. I also liked A Wrinkle in Time and Calvin and Hobbes. I loved Beverly Cleary books and Ramona Quimby is probably my favorite fictional character of all time.
I loved almost all YA books, especially weepy ones about dying teenagers from Lurlene McDaniel, and ones with cool teen protagonists, like Turtle Wexler in The Westing Game. I was obsessed with Caroline B. Cooney’s Janie Johnson series and read The Face on the Milk Carton and its sequels a million times over.
I’m not interested in sports, for the most part, but my interest level also varies depending on the actual game. Football holds no interest for me. I admire the athleticism involved in basketball. I’ll watch the World Cup. I enjoy baseball, especially seeing minor league games in person, but I don’t have a team I root for. The Olympics, however, are a completely different animal. I enjoy the summer games and have known to be very invested in the outcome of the figure skating in the winter games. I have entire scrapbooks documenting the women’s figure skating competitions in the Nagano and Salt Lake City games.
I enjoy cooking and occasionally baking. I’ve never much been interested in sewing, but I know how to knit.
I don’t know how to play sports, for the most part. I’m not very coordinated. I do like to exercise, though, and dance dorky white-girl style. I love karaoke and singing and can play the violin.
I like fashion, not to the point where fashion is an obsession for me, but I love Go Fug Yourself. If I had the money, I would copy Zooey Deschanel’s entire wardrobe, but would likely not wear her clothes most of the time, because even though they’re adorable and pretty, jeans are so much easier. I like earrings but not necklaces, boots but not heels. I like wearing makeup, but not a lot of it. Pink is a great color and I enjoy wearing it, though blues and purples are what I look best in.
I enjoy almost every genre of music. Classical, rock, and singer-songwriter are my favorite types. Some favorite artists include Rufus Wainwright, Regina Spektor, Bach, Nina Simone, Beethoven, Vampire Weekend, Stars, Led Zeppelin, Eminem, and Darren Criss.
I love comedy. The Monty Python troupe, Mel Brooks, and George Carlin helped establish my sense of humor early in life. Love of Monty Python led to love of other sketch comedy shows like Mr. Show, SCTV, Saturday Night Live, The Kids in the Hall, and Key and Peele. Love for Mel Brooks made me love silly comedies, and George Carlin made me love language-based humor.
Above almost all else, I love The Simpsons. I probably quote The Simpsons more frequently than anything else.
So, why am I telling you all of this? Why am I sharing a laundry list of my interests?
Because I like some things that are traditionally considered “girl stuff,” and some things that are traditionally “boy stuff.”
Figure skating? That’s girl stuff. Makeup? Definite girl stuff. Tarantino movies? Closer to boy stuff. Sketch comedy? Considering that most of the famous sketch groups out there are male-dominated, I’ll go with closer to “boy stuff.”
You’ll rarely find a woman who only likes traditionally feminine activities, and you’ll rarely find a man who only likes traditionally masculine activities – but our society likes to put people in boxes, and tell us we can’t like pink and baking if we’re boys, and we can’t like sports and video games if we’re girls.
Human beings are complex and we all have varied interests. I think we should all celebrate our complexities and each other’s interests.
I am now inviting readers to participate in the comments section. What are some things that you love? What activities and interests do you have that are considered “boy stuff,” and what activities and interests do you have that are considered “girl stuff?”
In other words, what are a few of your favorite things?
Articles
Interviews
Novels, Fiction & Silliness
Reviews
Its a tough question because I pretty much never think of my interests in terms of masculine or feminine. The last time I really assessed myself in that way was with a quiz I found in a neurobiology text (long story short my score was barely masculine)
I enjoy comic books, I tend to read mostly superhero stuff (almost exclusively). I used to read a lot of books but ever since I left boarding school the ammount I read has gone down from 3-6 a week to one in a great while.
I play video gamesk all sorts and the same goes for movies and tv.
The problem I have with defining my likes when it comes to the sentence immedtialy above is I don’t tend to have explicit favourites and my likes vary. I could spend one evening watching Waiting for God and watch some sci fi the next day.
I also like board games and usually go to the local board game club every Thursday
I have no interest in sports.
I’d say for the most part that my interests are the traditionally “nerdy” intersts. No idea where that puts me in terms of manly or feminine.
I can understand why it might be hard to categorize interests as traditionally masculine or feminine, because we all have different experiences and different backgrounds. I was thinking about this because of the “Fake Geek Girl” Meme and the sexism in the backlash: http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/why-the-fake-geek-girl-meme-needs-to-die.
I don’t get that (the fake gamer thing) not only because it presumes the motives of others I a very sexist manner but I have problem defining my interests one way or the other because I don’t see video games,comics, etc as being masculine or feminine.
After reading your post, I started making lists of stuff I liked and found that it was kind of hard to define a lot of it as “masculine” or “feminine” — which I think helps make your point, that society trying to pin us into certain interests based on gender is pretty stupid. I mean, are Dr. Who and Sherlock sterotypically masculine or feminine?
The books I like include Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Lord of the Rings, Darkness at Noon, Song of Ice and FIre, Ender’s Game, A Canticle for Leibowitz and Good Omens. The movies are Sherlock Holmes movies and superhero movies, especially The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. I also like Lord of the Rings, Cool Hand Luke, the Star Wars movies, the new Star Trek, Calender Girls, Mamma Mia, Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, Friend Green Tomatoes, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Benny and Joon, and lots of romantic comedies. TV shows are Firefly, NCIS, Terra Nova, Merlin, Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time, Downton Abbey, Charmed, Dr. Who and Sherlock, all of which I feel like have a wide following of both men and women.
I also really like reading nonfiction books about history. I’m a History major at my university, and I recently did a paper about the history of literature, and traditionally, novels are supposed to be things women like to read, while men like reading history. I like reading both. I have Winston Churchill’s entire History of the English Speaking People, even though I’ve only read a tiny bit of it.
I also like nail polish and the color pink. I’d probably be more into sports if I had the patience to sit through games, but I’m gearing up for the Notre Dame-Alabama game tonight. I’m bad at music but I like singing. I mostly sing soft, slow, romantic songs because my voice works better for those, but I listen to lots of loud, upbeat guy bands like Franz Ferdinand, the Fratellis, and Smashmouth. I don’t like video games much at all.
I agree with you. I think most people have a wide variety of interest that doesn’t depend on gender (or at least doesn’t JUST depend on gender). I’ve always been pretty proud of myself for having a lot of different interests. What matters is what you actually enjoy and not what people tell you you should enjoy.
I mean, are Dr. Who and Sherlock sterotypically masculine or feminine?
In my opinion, they both fall into the “geek” realm, and “geek” is becoming more gender-neutral. Though when I was in my formative years, “geek” and “female” were mutually exclusive terms, and if you were a geek girl, you were extra weird. I don’t know if the culture has changed, or if it’s considered more culturally acceptable for adult women to be geeky than for teen girls to be geeky. I think it all depends on the experiences we’ve had growing up 🙂
Jane Austen is one of my favorite writers too. I also love Shakespeare, especially The Midsummers Night Dream. I also love Edith Wharton, P.G. Wodehouse and reading biographies and letters of writers (Stanisław Lem’s at the moment).
As a kid I played with Barbies (I totally get what you did with them…so did I), with my dad’s old matchbox cars and tracks, with LEGOs, of course. I never considered the latter “boyish” at all. I didn’t like the terrible “Bellville” “girly” lego series, I just found it stupid. If I wanted to play with dolls, I played with dolls (and dinosaur figurines…), if I wanted to build with legos — I used the “normal” sets.
I’ve always loved reading — my childhood favorites include Winnie the Pooh, anything by Astrid Lindgren, Linklater’s “Wind on the moon”, anything by Dahl, Harry Potter, Polish rhymes for children, and many other. The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings! Three Men in a Boat! Enid Blython’s all-girls-boarding school series! Stanley Weibaums sci-fi! Babysitters Club and Railway Children when I lived in the US for awhile.
My M.A, will be an annotated translation of “Mrs.Piggle-Wiggle”. Most translation scholars are men, I guess. Most translation scholars dealing with literature for children are women; Scandinavian women to be more specific:)
film-wise: adaptations of my favorite books are a constant sourse of pleasure mixed with irritation, I like Tarantino and Wes Anderson, Kieślowski. I don’t mind a good Bond movie (I really liked Skyfall even though for me Craig looks like Putin…). I like costume dramas, good rom-coms, and spy films. Sometimes I like to watch a bad movie with my friends to ridicule it. I am extreemely geeky Star-Wars wise (only the original Trilogy). I’ve been Leia countless times.I have a Yoda keychain (I used to have a Han Solo one, but his hand fell off — wrong character hand loss!).
TV-wise, I like Chuck, HIMYM, Friends, Law and Order, BBC costume miniseries (Pride and Prejudice, Poirot, Jane Eyre…), “Parks and Rec.”, and “Community”.
Musically, I like classical music and jazz, and I also like the more “girly” (?) Simon&Garfunkel-like indie rock/falk (Head and the Heart, Laurla Marling), I like Regina Spector and Feist, I like the Rolling Stones and the Kinks.
I like cooking, I like photography. I do set and costume design for a university theatre group. I like crafts, but I’m terrible at sewing. And I’m too impatient to finish most non-work related things.
I tutor English to kids. Is being a teacher “girly”? But my guy friends also do that!
I translate both stories and medical texts. Some have meen written by men, some by women.
I like fashion. I like wearing skirts and dresses, but also love the comfort of a pair of curds or jeans. If I feel like it I dress more girly, sometimes more “tomboyishly”. Is that inconsistent?
I love playing board games. I get quite competitive at whatever I’m playing, be it Scrabble, Monopoly, or Carcasonne.
I love playing board games. I get quite competitive at whatever I’m playing, be it Scrabble, Monopoly, or Carcasonne.
I love board games! I get competitive, too. It’s not so much that I mind losing; I just hate losing badly. I can handle losing in a good game.
Love reading everyone’s posts!
The “girly” stuff I like consists of dresses (though I don’t wear them much as I tend to stand out too much since I live in kind of a small cow town in Texas), Jane Austin, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vampire Diaries, anything by Joss Whedon, BBC films, cooking, sewing, Coldplay, U2, Disney, and teaching.
I know that all of these don’t have to be labled girly things but most of the men here in Texas would label them so.
“Girly” things I can’t stand consist of getting my nails done, expensive purses or shoes, The Notebook, Real Housewives shows.
“Boyish” stuff I like consists of karate, climbing, camping and any outdoorsy activity. I like Dexter, Game of Thrones, not wearing a lot of makeup, or dancing. Most of this doesn’t fit with what the girls I know like.
Stuff I don’t know how to qualify : drawing, guitar playing and playing with my dogs.
“Girly” things I can’t stand consist of getting my nails done, expensive purses or shoes, The Notebook, Real Housewives shows.
Ugh, co-signed on all of the above. I like shoes but not expensive ones, and I wind up only wearing three pairs on a regular basis: an all-purpose sneaker, an all-purpose black heel with a THICK heel so they don’t hurt my feet, and an all-purpose loafer. Oh, and boots.
I bite my nails, so getting them done would be completely pointless!
I love Jane Austen (well, obviously). I like God. I like belting out show tunes with my gross-sounding voice that could pass for a tenor (fun). Nothing gets me on an endorphin high more than an intense, sweaty game of basketball. I’ve been known to scream expletives in “high-risk” games of Mario Kart.
I like clothes. I don’t like shopping. I love sewing, but I can’t dance (unless it’s flail-arm style to Disney songs). Sweatpants are my thing, but I don’t mind gussying up. Makeup is a scary and confusing world, but handmade jewelry litters my room.
I like the Beatles and Regina Spektor and Bon Jovi. I love watching crime shows and I have all 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls. My bookmarks menu doesn’t contain any links to Vogue or seventeen magazine, but I’ve got a giant pile of sewing references and ESPN.
My brother got me hooked on old cartoon games. My sister got me addicted to playing Barbies. He introduced the world of NBA to me, but she was the one who pushed me to play ball.
And maybe most importantly, I like writing. I like planning out perfect murders (wow, imagine that sentence without the context. I like creating the perfect romance.
Here’s all the stuff I like. And then some. Now if there was a list of stuff that I *didn’t* like….
I like books, music, a very few specially selected video games, photography, and bicycling, and swimming: all gender-neutral. I also like trains (boy), astronomy (boy), having sex (boy), the colors pink and lavender (girl), non-sexual cuddling (girl), dolls (girl), and actual babies (girl). I ACTIVELY DISLIKE sports (boy), cars (boy), most movies (gender-neutral although I dislike “boy” movies more), makeup (girl), jewelry (girl), and fashion (girl). I don’t actively dislike, but am no good at so I hardly ever participate in, cooking (girl), sewing (girl), gardening (gender-neutral), parallel parking (boy).
Thank you for this!
Hope it isn’t too long after the post to discuss it but a great example of this happened to me today. My fiancee and I have a list of movies that is sort of like dibs. Basically we both love going to the cinema when we can and this list is movies that we promise to see with each other first.
On my list is “every superhero movie”, we were comparing lists today and Ellie’s list had a movie with her two favourite male movie stars (Gambit, she finds Alan Rickman and Colin Firth very attractive) but it also had the next Die Hard movie on it (it was a real “I love this woman” moment for me)