Stereotypically Masculine Special Interests

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My family moved from near Research Triangle Park in North Carolina to the Deep South a few months ago, and being a female tuba player here is definetly more annoying. Has anyone else had a specific interest in a traditionally masculine subject? Does anyone have stratagies for dealing with sexist or insistently chivalrous men?

why honey chile! I am simply ahmazed you have to ask! You just flutter those eyelashes and wiggle your fingers in front of their noses and treat them like the big ol' ignoramuses they are! Just let the honey words flow off your cherry lips and you can have those pre - cromagnons carrying your tuba case alllll over the Park!

Have fun and blow us a tune, sweetums! oh, I love a good brass! Don't you?

Merle

A big belly laugh in response might be a good start. Those attitudes are so deeply ingrained that they don't even question them. Tell them you can toot your own horn!

A moderate amount of "chivalry" can be tolerable, especially if it makes sense (holding doors when your hands are full, things like that). If it gets out of hand you might thank them profusely for their thoughtfulness, then tell them you're a big girl and you don't need all that.

Sexism, on the other hand, needs to be broken through like a foot through a drum. I come from a time when girls were not allowed to take metal shop and boys could not take home ec, I know about stupid sexist barriers. Are you dealing with more little-old-you can't/shouldn't be doing whatever, or is it more like wolf whistles and leering?

i earned a yellow belt in Karate when i was 14 (couldn't keep up with 'cos i was moving a lot). and i love fighting video games (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Soul Calibur, etc.) if people got a problem with that, i tell 'em 'F**K YOU!'.

This isn't a traditional male activity, per se, but the way I do it isn't the way most women do it. I do long hikes in the desert and mountains, alone. People are always telling me I'm crazy, or that I should hike "in a group".

But I hate groups, especially in the wilderness. People also ask me if it's safe from predators of the two-legged kind. I tell them over the years I've never had a problem with anyone out on the trails, despite encountering men hiking alone all the time. There's a comraderie among wilderness people. The men I run into out there, after their initial surprise at seeing a woman hiking alone, are universally cool with it. I get along fine with them.

In contrast, I have more than once had trouble in organized campgrounds, and as a result I refuse to camp in them. One night many years ago a guy slipped into my tent in a Forest Service campground in California and wouldn't leave. I should have sex with him, he said, because "no one will ever know". Now that's some kind of logic for you, eh?

Well, I don't know if he was planning on forcing me or what, but when I hike I carry a gleaming buck knife with a blade as long as my forearm, and I keep it at my side in my tent. I brandished that blade in the guy's face and told him if he didn't get out of my tent, he was losing his balls. The look on his face was priceless. He wasn't quite sure if he believed I'd really do it (I wasn't sure myself, to be honest). But he decided he didn't want to take the chance, and left.

Since that night, I camp instead out by myself, away from campgrounds.

I'm a female drummer and hockey player. Don't let those "traditional" guys bother you. I find that the older I get, the more guys find these things "cool" as opposed to weird.

Don't think of it as being stuck with a bunch of dudes. Think of it as being the cutest one out there!

As a teenager I was interested in politics, later in computer science

I dunno. Most guys who see me play a videogame or play football or anything seem to kind of like it that I'm decent at it.

I game, and generally my group is either all guys and me, or me, one other woman, and the rest guys. I also tend to prefer movies that are marketed at guys -- "dick flicks," as one female friend calls them. I play console games and game online as well, and those are both activities still more popular with guys. I also follow football (Go Steelers!), including playing in a fantasy league (I tend to lose, though). I've been told I act like a guy, or think like a guy -- a guy friend once said jokingly that it's obvious I was a guy in my previous life -- and I take that as a compliment, although I'm pretty certain that's not always how it's meant.

oh! did i ever mention i like watching martial arts, action-comedy, and black comedy flicks?

I'm interested in vintage vehicles, such as Routemasters, and classic cars.

All my life. A female being interested in things like snowmobiles, cars, science and such usually surprises people. When men have been overly chivalrous I've made it clear that I don't want to be treated differently and don't need their help, I am capable of doing things myself. When men have been sexist to me, I've teased them by being sexist back (in a comic way), which has made them get the message and stop.

I am in a lot of ways more masculine than feminine, which is maybe why I haven't found it to be a big problem dealing with men's attitude. It's often harder for me to deal with the females who make assumptions based on stereotypical gender roles.

I am pretty girlie, but I am more into computers and electronics than most women I know. One of my top special interests is computers. I can fix my own and upgrade it. I am pretty sure I would be able to build one as I have had to repair my older ones enough, and I am a quick study. I am also pretty handy around the house because I have lived alone most of my life with no man. I was not raised to be Dependant on men to fix stuff around the house. I learned how to change my own oil and tires when I had my first car too.

I make sure men know this when they try to do stuff for me under the assumption that I cannot possibly do it without a penis. They don't always mean to be this way, but they should really assume you are able to do something unless you ask for help.

Once I went to a weekend archery competition with my boyfriend. It was a camping trip and tournament in one. He was the archer, not me, but I liked the woods and trails and enjoyed the hiking. We had some steep climbs in some spots, and he would instinctively turn about to try to help me up the rocks only to find me right at his elbow waiting for him to move up. At the top he needed to borrow an asthma pump from someone and I was breathing quite normally. His friends found this pretty funny- they passed around the asthma pump several times that day, poor things.

LOL ... that's funny. Whenever a man says he wants to hike with me, I say "sure, if you think you can keep up with me."

I once hiked a trail in Colorado that climbed above 12,000 ft. Well, even if you're in really good condition, which I was (and am), that high an altitude is gonna get to you. But the guy I was with was sucking wind like a bellows. I frequently had to stop and let him catch up. He never wanted to hike with me after that.

Books and films about war! Laurence of Arabia, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now are some of my favorite films.

Jeez. I wish I knew more chicks as cool as the bunch of you.