I think that’s basically it. The “man cave” doesn’t have to be a retreat from a doilies infestation. It’s just a designated area of the house where the man can hang out and pursue his hobbies or other work. It can be different for each man - a garage, office, finished basement with a bar and pool table. Whatever he’s into. Mine happens to be a small office the previous owner added to our condo where I surf the web or listen to music or what have you.
Typically it’s not practical for a man to turn the entire house into a frat house because the other rooms in the house already have a designated purpose. The kitchen is for cooking. The bedroom is for sleeping and storing clothes. Maybe one of the bedrooms is a nursery. The living room and den are usually family common areas. It’s nice to have a space where you don’t have to worry about bothering or being bothered by others.
Sorry, the only Woolf I’d gotten my hands on so far was my mother’s much-loaned copy of Three Guineas (she’s loaned it to so many women from the book club, she just plops it into the handbag every “start of year” when the newbies are most likely to come in). Will you feel better if I say I added A Room of One’s Own to my to-read-list when I read your previous post?
How is my single brother’s house not… his territory? Because he has a cleaner, and some of the rooms would look ok in a decoration magazine (“male” section, lots of black and chrome and the kitchen’s paneling is ash as in the wood)? He happens to like it that way. If the man in question likes to cook, does that make the kitchen an acceptable part of the mancave thing, or not? What about if the high alcohol content of his fridge isn’t due to personal consumption but to inviting friends often (including for Warhammer 40K sessions)?
Fwiw, the concept of a mancave in a house is alien to me. It has to be a shed in the garden. The whole point is separation (read: peace and quiet). and to get away from a female-dominated, thermostatically controlled, ever watchful domesticity.
Should include a radio tuned to radio 4 or the cricket, a bashed up old fridge, the means to make a cup of tea and a couple of tired armchairs.
In urban and suburban U.S., it’s a rare house that has a detached shed with electricity. So that bashed-up old fridge in the shed is right out for most of us over here.
I don’t see women adopting external retreats, like boats or camps, en masse, if only because there don’t seem do be gender restricted leisure activities, such as hunting and fishing once were.
I agree with monster; “Man Caves” came into existence well after, and possibly as a reaction to, increasing economic independence of women.
There have always been terms for private domains - boudoir, sewing / craft room, or kitchen, and library, office, or shop / shed.
But the concept of “man-cave” is interesting, as it is a room with no ostensible practical purpose, as the other in-home retreats are. This may be just another new symbol of conspicuous consumption, like lawns and large dogs, but I think it is a mechanism for psychologically transitioning to the new economic reality, that women have a lot more to offer a household than choosing cushions and cleaning kitchens. (Not do diminishing the importance of traditional ‘women’s work’; I just like the alliteration.)
For the urban (British) male of limited resources, there is the allotment option - usually comes with electricity and, somewhere nearby, a standing pipe.
Google Images ‘allotment shed’ for ample variety of types.
My first house (1918) had what was called a “feinting room” - a retreat for the lady of the house. The “Oh, I feel faint” line. Most males knew to back off upon hearing that phrase - if they pushed, out would come a vague reference to “female problems” - and NO male is going to go there.
It would later be called a “sewing room” - again, a space exclusively for females.
This is hardly a new concept.
When houses had basements, the basement became the man’s “shop”.
One of the Thin Man series has a visitor inquiring after Nicky:
“Where’s Nicky?”
“He’s in the basement”
“Oh, what’s he working on?”
“A case of Scotch”
(Would it be too much of a hijack to ask what an allotment is? I’ve read of it in hundreds of books, but the meaning was neither clear from nor vital to the context, so I never learned precisely what it is.)
I’m sure BOOM can explain in more detail, but it’s similar to a community garden plot. I believe the land is actually owned by the local municipality and leased for a fairly small fee.
(For some reason I have it stuck in my head that they are related to the Acts of Enclosure, but I could be completely wrong about that.)
Thank you! Community gardens. I had no idea they went back so far. We’re all excited here on this side, acting like we invented them in the 1990’s or somethin’.
Both my husband and I have ‘nerd caves’ or whatever you want to call them. He has the basement rec room, and it is piled with his hobbies (mostly games). I have the front bedrom, which is piled with my hobbies (mostly crafts).
We both also have computer stations, I guess you might call them, with our separate computers & gadgets.
We don’t have kids, or this might have been different.
They have that? But seriously, Ward Cleaver had The Den. ISTR you entered univited at your own peril. Of course, it was full of books and pipeweed, and nothing particularly fun 'cept for maybe a baseball.
But to the OP: such as it is actually a thing, a Mancave is more of an escape area that some guys feel they need. The need to escape the family certainly exists in both mommies and daddies, but it’s my impression the daddies have a harder time supressing it. For some of us, getting out and going to work is enough of an escape that we don’t mind the rabble in the house for a few hours. If roles continue to switch and we start seeing more stay at home dads, I think you can expect to see The Mancave become significantly more ubiquitous. IMHO it’s not so much about power and privilege as it is about wanting to be alone for a while. Totally sexist presumption: Women are more social naturally, and so don’t crave isolation in quite the same way as a guy does.
He earns most of the money and always has, but I was the one who brought up having my own space when we were first house-hunting. I wanted both of us to have our own space, really–someplace to go when we’d had all the togetherness we could enjoy, but mainly somewhere to keep all those things one of us loved but the other viewed askance. I guess you can call those rooms our man-cave and woman-cave respectively, but we mostly call them the music room and the craft room because that’s what we actually do with them. He stores his guitars and keyboard in his room with the blood-red walls and angular geometric-patterned area rug (the swinging hips Elvis clock, alas, is no more), and I keep my sewing machine and yarn/fiber/fabric stash in my room with the orchid-pink walls full of butterflies and Spanish fans. We bring bits and bobs of each hobby to the living room as it suits.
Most married men expect that their wives will choose 98% of the decor and furnishings of the house. The whole point of the “man cave” concept is that men want one, little, tiny space for THEIR stuff, with furniture and electronics THEY like, where they can hang out and do what THEY want (whether it’s watching TV sports in their underwear, playing violent/sexist video games, eating junk food, whatever).
Outside of that room, the whole HOUSE is a woman cave, more often than not!
I had no idea they went back so far. We’re all excited here on this side, acting like we invented them in the 1990’s or somethin’. 