This is all a moot point for any family with cats, because THEY rule the house and will sit on whatever project you are making in whatever room/cave/potting shed you occupy.
(My Feline Overlord told me to say this.)
If you’ll forgive answering a lot at once (cut/paste/quote/etc. is becoming error-prone).
I’m fully aware a sample consisting of me and six other Texas good-ole-boys isn’t statistically valid. It’s why I’m here asking the questions. At the risk of repeating myself, in my experience it’s the main wage earner who’s buying himself some sort of retreat.
It seems to me the US is undergoing a massive cultural shift as women move into the majority of good jobs and management. I believe management has already passed the 50% female threshold, and I suspect high earning jobs will do so soon. I’m not decrying the change, nor am I much concerned over the new reality for men. Based on the useless ones following my daughter home, young males seem to concentrate on wasting time in college, and acquiring really stupid hats. If they’ve elected to piddle around while their counterparts concentrate on useful learning and careers, so be it. But I’m curious if this heralds a noticeable switch in roles at home as well.
As to the mess aspect. I understand the poster’s statement about who cleans it. But in my defense, I find that I’m frequently tiptoeing carefully around trying to avoid violating some rule in her house. Not mine… hers. This tracks with the experiences of my friends, and is the primary reason for our retreats.
I also suspect this cultural shift will have a huge effect on the hobby/vacation/entertainment industry. I don’t know for sure what to expect, but with women likely assuming a majority of workforce and head-of-household roles, this is a bad time to invest in stocks related to hunting or boating. I wonder where families’ disposable income will go in the future?
You’re not quite getting what a man-cave is. It’s not a garage or shed or shop. It’s an area within the house that a man gets to decorate as he pleases and act as he pleases.
Think of the worst husband/wife stereotypes from TV: the wife is shrill harpy who has completely taken over the decor and decorum of the house and the beleaguered man-child husband has to move 8 pillows before he can sit on the couch to watch the game on a tiny TV with the volume on mute; has to leave his bowl of pretzels and beer in the kitchen so as not to leave crumbs. Everything from his college/bachelor days got put in a box in the basement because it’s not what “grown-ups” have. One day he unpacks it all, buys couch off CraigsList and gets a 50" flat screen: he made a man cave.
It’s since been commoditized to have fancier, comfier stuff, but that defeats the purpose to me. Its supposed to be rough so no one but dad wants to be in there.
Nit pick. That was his actual “doctor’s office”, as in where he saw all his patients outside of the delivery room. That’s the genesis of the running joke about pregnant women in labor being at the door. His man cave was the basement. Claire say’s she goes down there to get away from the kids as well.
It’s hard to sit on the furniture when it has toilet seats & table cloths on it.
My impression is that this cultural shift has already happened for the most part and the current trends are a result. Hunting and boating isn’t going away, and there are major efforts to get women involved in both. I know many women who do both.
I’ve always had my own “cave” in every house the spouse and I have ever lived in, and so has he (at least as soon as it became practical and we had enough bedrooms).
Mine would probably qualify as more of a “man cave” than a “woman cave”–it’s full of computers, cyberpunk artwork, musical instruments, and books. Not a girly bit in it anywhere. I’ve painted it up to look like an industrial bolt-hole (gray spongepainted walls, metal-framed loft bed (the upper part of which has become storage), that sort of thing. It’s currently a massive mess–I don’t use it very often since I set up my writing space downstairs in a more accessible area.
It’s funny–every time I watch those “Man Cave” shows, I get jealous–I would like nothing more than to have most of those (well, okay, not into sports or beer, but video games, arcade games, etc. would be fantastic). One of my fondest wishes is to have a fully finished large basement or attic, but living in the Bay Area I doubt that’s going to happen.
Fortunately, since my decorating tastes are not at all “feminine,” the spouse and I pretty much agree on the decor for the rest of the house. My only insistence is that I get final say, because my decorating tastes are way above his (he admits this too). He makes suggestions, which are sometimes really good and sometimes not, but I get the last word.
Between us, we have 4-bedroom nerd cave. 
I think you are contradicting yourself. On one hand, you are suggesting that man caves arose because women had effective control of the rest of the house, so the man needed a space of her own. Why would earning a larger share of the household income lessen the woman’s control over the rest of the house? Is she still has the rest of the house, why would she need a cave?
On the other hand, you seem to be suggesting that mancaves arose because as the higher earners, men felt like they were entitled to a higher portion of the household income, and so were entitled to indulge themselves with expensive trappings and hobbies, and a mancave was a place to put things related to that. I am not sure I agree on this: I think leisure money is spent differently by the genders, but I don’t know that many couples divide the leisure money by who earns it.
This. I always thought the “Woman Cave” was called the rest of the house.
Exactly, and no where else moreso than the bedroom. Compare any bedroom of a single guy to one where a man and woman share. Nothing in the joint room will be anything like the guy’s sole room. Yet if you looked at a single woman’s room, not that different from the shared one (talking about adults here, not 12 year old girls with a bunch of princess stuff all over).
I think you’re seeing causation here where there is really only correlation.
Men don’t have man-caves because they are the primary earner, I suspect men have man-caves and they are the primary earner for some deeper reason to do with strength and traditional hunter/gatherer societies. As they cease being the primary earner that doesn’t mean that the underlying reason for the man-cave has gone.
If I had the space at home, I would surely have a “woman cave.” For now how I get away is to go outside and walk.
They already do. It’s called “the rest of the house outside the man cave”.
Neither my fiance nor I have ever felt the need to create a separate {insert gender}cave. Maybe that will come later? I’m not really the frou-frou decoratey control-freak type, though. We put our computers next to each other in the computer room, we sleep in the same bed in the bedroom, we put the TV and consoles in the living room, and that’s about it. If there’s a spare room, we fill it up with boxes of junk that he needs to sell on eBay. I might make a music practice “area” soon, as there are no spare rooms in the house we’re currently renting. But I wouldn’t put up a “no boys allowed!lol” sign or anything.
When I was a teenager, my stepdad had a mancave in our basement. He had a bunch of tools that he liked to polish, but never did a thing with them. My mom was a hell of a nag, so I don’t blame him for needing a place to bug out. I hope I don’t end up in a relationship like that.
I’m not generally opposed to the concept of separate spaces, particularly in long-term relationships. I just think it’s sexist to imply that men should get “a cave” while women get the rest of the house.
This. I’ve never heard or seen a workshop in a garage or unfinished basement referred to as a ‘man cave.’
It’s a furnished indoor room where a guy can hang out in comfort. And the general idea, from what I gather (I don’t have one of these myself), is that he can do so without getting crap from anyone else about putting his feet up on the furniture, or his beer mug leaving rings on the table, or just how much room his stuff that’s just lying around in there is taking up.
My wife has a sewing room, even though she’d have to move a pile of stuff to get to the sewing machine these days, but at least she keeps her pack-rat tendencies confined to that one room. That’s strictly her domain, which is fine with me, because it keeps her clutter from spilling over into the rest of the house.
Can I pick up on the assumption that men have man-caves because/when they are the primary breadwinners?
Underlying this is is some kind of message akin to the primary, alpha-male saying “Now listen here, woman. I pay for all this stuff, so I’m gonna have a room to myself - because I’ve earned it and I deserve it. And if you don’t like it, then tough!”.
(It would therefore follow that as soon as women start earning more en masse this trend will reverse, and that’s what they’ll start saying to their husbands.)
As others have pointed out here, though - the man cave doesn’t so much appear to be a symbol of masculine socio-economic dominance as much as…
a) Men often have hobbies which require big and/or messy equipment - it’s sensible to keep that in a separate area of the house.
b) The style and decor of most rooms in the home tend to be decided upon (and enforced) by the matriarch - the ‘man cave’ is essentially an indulgence, a concession - if you will - that the man is allowed a certain area to ‘play’ which does not fall under the jurisdiction of normal household legislation (in terms of where to put mugs, etc…).
Would either of the above change once a household changed its primary earner from male to female?
I can’t see how it would…
The “man cave” started as a place that a man could decorate by himself, and display all his taxidermied fish and deer heads, because his wife refused to allow them in the living room. And he could have his friends over to watch the game without worrying about messing up the “good” furniture.
I think that there has been a culture shift in terms of who “controls” the decorating of a home, not because women are making more money but because women are no longer the traditional “homemaker.” I mean, it made perfect sense that the person who rarely left the home should have more influence on how the home is decorated than the person who is only home for 5 waking hours. Now that both probably work, input on decorating is shared more.
And houses have followed that shift – now they are far less formal and immaculate than the 50s. The “living room” has gone the way of the Dodo and the “family room” has morphed into a more comfortable hang-out space, complete with 60" big screen tv. There’s no fish head, but that’s mainly because no one fishes anymore.
There seems to be a persuasive idea in this thread that the bulk of the home belongs to the woman, the woman decorates it, cleans it, and is the last word on everything that goes on. That’s why men need a “man cave” - somewhere in the house that belongs just to him.
I’m calling bullshit on that. Why? Because I’ve heard Mr. Athena say the same thing about how it’s MY house and he just lives here. It’s a load of crap. The main areas of the house, including the bedroom, are a study in compromise. Very, very little of the house is what it would be if I were living here alone. I think you boys see “compromise” as “I don’t get it exactly how I’d like” and therefore the bulk of the house is your wife’s. Newflash: It’s probably not exactly how she’d like, either. But when she compromises, it’s perceived as she gets her way. That’s simply not true. Neither of you are getting it 100% your way. If you have kids, I’m guessing it’s even MORE of a compromise, because those little critters come with their own ideas, needs, and desires.
I agree, but that’s not monstro’s fault. It’s the OP’s definition, apparently, and she’s trying to work with it.
Exactly. Except that I think the Man Cave in this sense is largely a marketing myth. How many people here actually have one, really? I bet it’s more and more each year, but I think it’s the marketing people who thought it up, to convince men that they needed/are entitled to a big screen TV and comfy chair and coffee table with a built in cooler that no wimminfolks mess up with their candles and doilies.
Do some men have actual Man Caves, as opposed to hobby rooms (got to keep the trains somewhere) or workshops or home offices? Sure, I expect so. There are some ridiculously huge houses built in the 90’s and 00’s that have more rooms than can reasonably be used, so I bet there are some Man Caves in those, now that their owners know they need them. In a more modest demographic, I’ve never actually seen one outside of an advertisement.
That too. And also…I think sometimes we women ask for input, receive a grunt, and know we’ve made a compromise. But to (some) men grown up in a matriarchal home, or who have absorbed cultural ideas of matriarchal homes (“Happy wife, happy life.” Gag me.), they may not hear our questions as real questions. They may think they have to agree with our choice of rug (which we chose because we thought they might like it and we could live with it, not necessarily because we loved it) because the home belongs to the woman. And so we have a fundamental disconnect: we think we’ve compromised, he thinks he’s given in to the natural order of things. No one actually got what they’d most like, but everyone got what they could accept.
As for the OP, I think women do have escapes outside the home, but they’re not always tied to a place. They’re more often tied to people. I don’t think this is new, or tied into who is the breadwinner. My grandpa had his bowling, my grandma had her canasta. He always went to the same bowling alley, grandma and her friends took turns hosting, so while she was out 7/8 weeks, it wasn’t always to the same place.
Today, my friends and I might go out for dinner, or go dancing, or join a book club or a Stitch and Bitch to get away and get some “girly time,” but we don’t have one spot where we always end up.
I like this. The upstairs bathroom is the only room I had full say over, and it has been identified as the most friendly/pleasing room in the house (there is a lot of light, the tub is huge, and there are two mirrors, no trains or taxidermy, and only two clocks) . I’m the primary wage earner, have been for decades (before himself’s involuntary retirement due to stroke), and while I had some input as to basic design of our house much of the construction and subsequent decor was driven by his preferences. This is not a Bad Thing- he’s an incredibly multitalented man with a perfectionist complex who could and did produce house and almost all the furniture from scratch. (Yes, this included cutting down the trees;)). He converted an entire horse barn into shop space (leaving me two stalls and a neato feed room/tack room, all I needed) which was also fine.
When the kids were small/home, the barn space (and getting out on a horse) were my escape areas, so I suppose you could call them my woman cave.
The OP lives in a different world from mine.
Right. I asked the OP what happens in a man cave, and I didn’t get anything real specific. If a man cave is where a guy retreats when the missus is on a nagging streak, then it’s the garage for folks like my father. But if a man cave is a room in the house that’s decorated however the man of the house likes, then for my father, it’s his office. But it’s not really a private retreat the same way the garage is, seeing as how my mother is constantly running the vaccuum through it and looking for stuff. Plus, that’s where he works. When he wants to watch the big game, he lounges in front of the big screen TV in the living room. My mother gets the TV in their bedroom.
If neither an office or a garage are a man cave, then I don’t know what one is.