Image credit: Bob Harvey [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I was innocently browsing a prestigious internet website that definitely didn’t have silly quizzes for me to take, when I found an article about She Sheds. It presented them as “the answer to the Man Cave”. I read it and moved on, but then heard someone talking about She Sheds on the radio on my way to work. At staff meeting that day, someone else mentioned it. Apparently these She Shed things are something to talk about.

A She Shed is a shed in the yard that’s been turned into a private place for the woman of the house to hang out, do girly things, and be alone or with her girlfriends. And the typical She Shed is decked out in frills, lace, and throw pillows. (If you want to go look at pictures, here’s a good round up of them.)

I’ll admit it, a part of me wanted to say “Yay! We deserve our own space too!” and I imagined what my own shed might look like. But then I realized something was a little lopsided. My She Shed wouldn’t fit the profile at all. For one, I’m not a big fan of what Captain Hammer would call lacy, gently wafting curtains. My She Shed would be a place of geekery, possibly looking like a miniature Warehouse 13. There would be a bin full of nerf guns for impromptu fights. Maybe even a 3D printer.

Then it dawned on me: the purpose of a man cave or a she shed is to provide a space to put the things you love to do out of the way of common areas. This need to isolate the things you love to one spot is kind of disturbing to me. Shouldn’t our dwelling places reflect who we are everywhere? If the guys have their man caves and the gals their she sheds, then what is the rest of the house for? (I say this while living in an apartment, so — take it with a glob of purple goo.)

I hope that if I ever have a she shed, or my husband develops a need for a man cave, it is out of a desire to have lots of things I love within arm’s reach rather than a shunning of the hobbies.

Actually, I think this could go one of two ways: either Sheds and Caves become known as a symbol of hen-pecking and forced isolation of the things each gender loves, or it becomes a thing that spreads through warmth, love, and peace, and all of a sudden created spaces pop up everywhere–not just gender based, but interest based as well. Until finally, we hear things like “Oh that? That’s my Whomping Willow fortress. Yes, I hooked it up to animatronics. Why do you ask?”

And to be honest, I hope, I hope, I hope this is just one development in a chain of developments that will someday lead to it being perfectly acceptable for me to have my own bat cave.

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