TikToker divides opinion with her video about 'male and female hobbies' and sparks debate about gender roles

A TikTok user has divided opinion by posting a video discussing 'male and female hobbies', sparking a debate about gender roles.

In a viral TikTok video, mum-of-four named Paige Turner, who posts under the username @sheisapaigeturner, explained that she believes there are many “discrepancies” between female and male hobbies. She believes that married heterosexual women usually have hobbies that compliment their partners’ and children’s schedules, meaning that their activities revolve around homemaking and staying at home with their family.

Turner, who has more than 120,000 followers, says these are “traditional” activities, including reading, cooking, and gardening, which allow them to be able to look after the children and the home at the same time. Heterosexual men, on the other hand, typically have activities which take them out of the house, and therefore away from their wife and children.

“Traditional male hobbies tend to take them away from the home and caretaking,” Paige wrote in the caption of her video. According to the TikToker, these activities, which are often outdoors such as golfing, hunting, rock climbing, or training for a marathon, keep them out of the house for long amounts of time during prime caretaking hours.

She added: “This is made possible by the unpaid labour of women. Women’s hobbies typically are scheduled around the needs of the family and take place outside of traditional caretaking hours. When women marry men, they lose time to unpaid labour, but when men marry women, they gain time. This plays into their ability to participate in hobbies.”

The video has been captioned with hashtags such as #domesticlabor #thementalload #unpaidlabor and #thementalloadofmotherhood. It has been viewed more than 780,000 times, and has received almost 80,000 likes and 2,000 comments.

The video has also sparked a debate among men and women as other TikTok users have given their opinions in the comments. One woman added that women's hobbies often benefit the good of the household. "A lot of women’s craftier hobbies also often benefit the family, like making things for their home and family! my friend sews and crochets clothes!"

One man defended his sex and said: "This is an interesting take. Most men I know though are begging their wives to take up a hobby in general so they can reciprocate the caretaking time." One more man said he felt sad about other men who don't help their wives or girlfriends in the house so that they can have time to themselves too. "As a dad, this is so aggravating. I cannot believe how many men do this to their partners."

Another woman said she believes women's hobbies tend to be more solo activities. "Our hobbies are more individual activities that don’t require other people to count on them. (Running, gardening, going to the gym, reading, sewing.)"

One more woman, however, said that has a traditional "male" hobby, though she did not disclose what it was, and admitted that she had to "fight for it" and "plan ahead months at a time". "Worth it but it sucks it has to be such a fight," she added.

Another woman said she and her husband had a system to make sure they both cared for their family and had their free time equally. "My husband and I rotate weekend days off (I get Saturday he gets Sunday usually) to be out of the house for 3 hours for whatever we want."

One more woman said she adopts a similar approach with her partner. "We split Saturdays in half. I am gone from 8am-2pm and he goes from 2pm-8pm. BEST parenting decision ever. No more resentment," she declared.

The video was posted as worldwide study, which spoke to over 1,000 UK adults, found 61% of the mothers polled cited their parenting responsibilities as a reason for not being as physically active as they would like. But, just 34% of men perceived a lack of time as a barrier to exercise for women, compared to 80 per cent of women reporting this.

Instead, men thought body insecurities were the leading problem - with 58% citing this as the main obstacle. The research was conducted by ASICS, as part of its study on the gender exercise gap, which saw the sportswear brand survey nearly 25,000 people in 40 countries and conduct 26 focus groups.