So as an occasional (male) rider of real horses, there's something I've always wondered about: how did the recreation become so gendered?
Up until about the middle of the 20th century there was still utilitarian and military horse riding. Men would learn to ride. Now it seems to be culturally associated almost entirely with young upper-middle-class girls or middle-aged women. Is this the result of toy marketing (My Little Pony from the 80s onwards), or high society, or something else?
What interests me about this Finnish subculture is that it's perfectly cloned the "horse culture", just without any actual horses. It's very close to a cargo cult. Possibly Finland is too cold to have a regular horse culture?
This discussion reminded me of a video I saw a while back. It's a song that gives a moving glimpse into the male dominated urban horse culture in Dublin, Ireland. It's amazing to see shots of teenage boys racing their horses through city streets.
This reminds of the feeling when I discovered some urban areas have subcultures of mostly black people riding dirt bikes and four-wheelers around cities:
Atlanta's got a strong bike (and ATV) culture. It's not uncommon to see a group of 10-20 blow through downtown on the weekends when the weather's nice.
I think it's awesome! Find your passion and do it.
They're boisterous and the bikes are loud, but the larger clubs generally self-police reasonably well. They're usually not doing anything more dangerous than a wheelie and are obviously having a great time.
The Atlantic had a photo essay about a riding club in North Philadelphia a couple years back. I don't know if they race, but it's still pretty crazy to see people riding horses in Philadelphia:
I would say Finland has a moderately strong horse culture. Harness racing [1] events remain popular, and using horses in low-impact landscaping and forestry has seen some resurgence [2]. Finland also has its own breed of horses, the Finnhorse [3].
> What interests me about this Finnish subculture is that it's perfectly cloned the "horse culture", just without any actual horses. It's very close to a cargo cult. Possibly Finland is too cold to have a regular horse culture?
There is a horse culture in Finland, and as you said, it's heavily associated with teenage girls. Horses are of course quite an expensive anf time-consuming hobby by definition, so I'm sure the affordability plays some role here too.
There is boy/men oriented horse culture too but is focused on racing (ravit). Also mainly popular in the rural region as breeding/training the horses is as big part of the culture as the actual racing.
> Possibly Finland is too cold to have a regular horse culture?
Finland's level of cold doesn't preclude horse culture.
Finland only gets down to -50°C in its coldest regions. There are horse breeds that laugh at calling that cold. For example the Siberian Yakutian [1], which are kept unstabled year-round in places that regularly go down to -70°C. (+38°C in summer, so these things deal with a 108°C range!)
I live in Finland and I have friends who have horses. Happens to be the friends are female, originally from the countryside, and have a car to transit from campus area back to the stables. To my knowledge maintaining horses is more expensive the closer to a big city you live in. Thus, in Helsinki stables must cost an enormous amount of money, especially considering you need the actual horse, the lessons, time, and a vehicle to transit with. I don't think most people have the money to have one.
Further anecdote: in elementary school, we had trips to farms. I would think that it's not out of the ordinary for other schools to have this as well, which could be one factor how kids get interested in horses or farm life early on. Feeding a horse or a sheep, which tended to be the only animals interested in humans, can feel like having an exotic pet. Though horses are probably cooler because you can ride one.
In the northwest US, there's a good split between men and women riding horses, the primary difference seems to be the competitions.
Men seem to focus on events where the goal is on the rider's other abilities, such as roping, while women seem to focus on events that focus on riding skills, such as barrel racing and jumping. There's also very few younger men who do dressage style events.
Of course, we still have an active "cowboy" job, where riding on a (horse/ATV) is still a requirement on ranches.
Aren't the events themselves divided by gender? (i.e. what your are describing is a result of the way competitions are structured, not a symptom of preference) I don't live in a horse area but have family that ride high school rodeo out west, and I thought rodeo events were divided by gender so that women do barrel racing, and men do roping (for example).
The categories feel less explicitly gendered than "historically" gendered. I've seen many female ropers over the years, though they are definitely outnumbered by men. Of course, most of those competitions were at the extra-cirricular level.
Not saying your main point is wrong, but Black Beauty wasn't written to appeal to young girls. It is an urgent call to treat horses better, and has been called "the most influential anticruelty novel of all time."
(totally unrelated, but made me remember it). When I went to college for a BS in Computer Science, my CS adviser (a woman) pitched some of the equine courses to her male students as a way to meet women on the campus. She actively pushed to get you to sign up to the class as an elective. :)
(I probably would have done it, but I'm horribly allergic to horses.)
Really not an issue once you learn how to ride and develop the right muscles. It's all in how you sit and learn to move with the horse rather than just reacting.
I admittedly did use a jock strap when I was first getting started, but within a few months I found that I was better off without it. Even riding bareback (Without a saddle) is completely doable once you have the right muscle stamina.
I was fortunate to go to Cal Poly (Pomona, not SLO) for college. You were allowed to take Equitation classes to satisfy your General Ed requirement. It's definitely a culture.
The Official Preppy Handbook repeatedly treats a phase of interest in horses and horseback riding as nigh-inevitable for girls (of the set of people it's describing, so, the wealthy professional class up through the idle rich, though especially the lower half of that range) and no consideration at all for boys. It was published in 1980, so before My Little Pony, and much of what it describes, though tongue in cheek, represents trends and habits that pre-date it by years to decades, at least.
National Velvet was a movie released in 1944 starring a young Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney. It's about steeplechase, but it won two Oscars and is probably one of the biggest horse girl movies out there. Maybe it helped create the desire some.
I'll but add my own anecdata: Here in the mountain west, the gymkhanas at the county fairs are almost exclusively female riders. In the last decade or so of various county fairs, I've only seen three males total to the hundreds of female riders.
Many activities popular among men involve danger or risk. I would postulate that after the death of utilitarian and military horse-riding, the connotations of it changed. It became more of a leisure activity, and was largely supplanted by the faster, more utilitarian, more military car/truck/bike culture (at least in America). To your point about mid-20th century, I would suspect WWII had something to do with it.
Another poster also mentioned that it is less than comfortable for men. This is true. I would imagine it to be a serious motivation to switch to cars.
> Up until about the middle of the 20th century there was still utilitarian and military horse riding.
Interestingly, the earliest fighting of the first US war of the 21st Century featured soldiers on horses. Horseback riding is apparently now part of Special Forces training. [0]
> What interests me about this Finnish subculture is that it's perfectly cloned the "horse culture", just without any actual horses. It's very close to a cargo cult. Possibly Finland is too cold to have a regular horse culture?
I assumed this was why the hobbyhorse culture was female -- whatever the reasons are for horses to be a female interest, hobbyhorses are an imitation and necessarily target the same demographic.
Horses are expensive; it seems natural to me that enthusiasts who don't have real horses might be drawn to an imitation.
May have to do with animals in general and horses in particular being basically exclusively girl toys any time after very small age. Animals themed things are significantly less likely to be gifted to little boys. It is not as gendered as cars and boy liking animals is not "shameful", but still treated in pretty gendered way anyway.
The result of mostly girls hobby riding might just naturally follow from that.
A little over a year ago I (female who had never ridden a horse) did a ten day ride across Spain and into Portugal. All of the Americans in the group were women but all of the Spanish and Portuguese riders were men. I definitely got the impression they viewed horse riding much the same way Americans would view motorcycle riding.
Imho different gender preferences might play a big role. A horse combines utilitarian with something emotional: You get means of transportation but you also gotta empathize and take care of said transportation because it's a breathing and feeling being.
While most males probably prefer the "no hassle" approach of motor vehicles, where you don't have to empathize to figure out what's wrong but only need to check for "mechanical failures".
I live near a riding school. I asked my son whether he wanted to learn how to ride a horse. He said yes, enthusiastically, and spent days reading and watching movies about cowboys. Then we went to visit the school on the weekend. He only saw girls wearing pink giggling and riding the horses. Before we even entered the gate he said he was no longer interested.
No more than a girl having the same reaction from entering a computer gaming club and only seeing boys. I would expect to see this kind of behavior universally in all cultures and across gender, and being most profound around the ages 10-18.
The fact that you disagree with "traditional" gender stereotypes does not mean they have not held true for large parts of history. The reasons for this are debatable, as are its merits, but it is still a part of history.
But if you actually read history, sometimes the stereotypes were the opposite of what they are today. Traditional thinking as we know it now was often invented quite recently.
From what I've read, riding fast horses was much more popular with men before cars.
> sometimes the stereotypes were the opposite of what they are today.
Correct, and this is the reason for which I qualified my statement. They do, however, apply to the section where western "horse culture" as is being debated arose.
>The fact that you disagree with "traditional" gender stereotypes does not mean they have not held true for large parts of history
I didn't take any position.... I simply said that for that argument to hold true you need to believe traditional gender stereotypes. Of course, as with every topic on this site recently, someone downvoted after being confronted with an opinion that made them uncomfortable or didn't exactly align with their own despite it being relevant
It's my understanding that these "gendered differences" have been shown to be more than mere "stereotypes" in a number of different studies across different fields.
That's not to say there's "male brain" and a "female brain", but it very strongly hints at gender influencing preferences which are not entirely based on socialization but also involves its fair share of biological factors.
If this wouldn't be the case, how are trans-people be able to feel like "being stuck in the wrong body" if all brains and consciousness are alike? If there are zero biological factors at play, then that feeling of trans-people would be entirely imagined on their end, wouldn't it?
Up until about the middle of the 20th century there was still utilitarian and military horse riding. Men would learn to ride. Now it seems to be culturally associated almost entirely with young upper-middle-class girls or middle-aged women. Is this the result of toy marketing (My Little Pony from the 80s onwards), or high society, or something else?
What interests me about this Finnish subculture is that it's perfectly cloned the "horse culture", just without any actual horses. It's very close to a cargo cult. Possibly Finland is too cold to have a regular horse culture?