This awesome article by Erica Jong is more than a year old. I read it when it first came out, and lately I stumbled across it again. She tackles the chick lit dilemma, and concludes that women writers are ghettoized when they write about topics that seem feminine. "War matters; love does not," she writes. This got me thinking.
Useless leisure activities that are stereotypically female are usually thought of as much more frivolous, stupid, and pointless than similarly useless leisure activities associated with men.
I could tell you that I like fashion, chick lit, and celebrity tabloids. You'd all decide that I am very shallow, and probably not too bright.
Or I could tell you that I like video games, ESPN, and golf. You'd all decide that I'm an easygoing woman who's into sports. I'd be a great girlfriend.
(And no, I'm not interested in all these things. I don't think I'd have time to breathe.)
The fact is that NONE of these activities has much in the way of usefulness. Why should the first group get me so much more distain than the second?
(Okay, I'm sure you could find something useful in all of these. But nothing significant and certainly nothing you couldn't find another, more effective way to get elsewhere.)
Every once in a while, I find myself explaining Lindsay Lohan's relationships to someone, and I catch myself thinking, I feel like this knowledge is actually making me stupider. And it probably is, but it's not any dumber than knowing how to work a video game controller.
"Time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted."
--John Lennon
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To play devil's advocate, playing video games has been shown to increase spacial skills in both genders, so playing certain video games might actually help your brain. However, I agree with the main thrust of your post and have definitely seen this phenomenon in many circles of denigrating activities associated as more female pursuits. :)
Thanks for this post!!
My friends, boyfriend, acquaintances constantly tease me for my 'addiction' to celebrity gossip. I try to stop, but honestly, I really enjoy reading the tabloids, so why stop? My boyfriend reluctantly got me a subscription to InTouch for my birthday last year along with a card teasing me about my habit. But then I think back about all of the silly things I've given him at special occasions: talking stuffed parrot, marshmallow gun, Beavis and Butthead boxers, bacon flavored mints. The man will be 26 next month!
Although I have many problems with the tabloids and how they present stories (focusing so negatively on women's weight and how fast they lose it after giving birth, those awful 'Who wore it best?' pieces, the slut-shaming), I really do enjoy looking at the pictures of celebrity street fashion and reading the ridiculous, over-the-top, not even close to being true stories. It is a nice change from all the depressing stories I see in the other news.
But when you think of everyday conversations people have, they follow similar patterns. Who is dating who, who's getting married, who's pregnant, who got a new job, who's buying a house, what people are wearing. It is just a glamorized version.