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The older I get the more I hate data and academic papers and just want to trust my instincts. Because it’s virtually impossible to read thru studies and figure it out; and more times than not it seems like my instincts end up being correct after someone does a thorough literature review.
I enjoy cooking. I can do it as a hobby. There are a lot of famous male chefs and my gut says more than females. Some reason evolution made me enjoy cooking and I feel like I know plenty of men who enjoy cooking.
There does seem to be something with meat especially that men enjoy doing. Men love barbecuing. And men doing the hunting, starting a fire, and making meat safer to eat is a story I can believe we did a lot of evolving around. Girls do seem to have a stronger desire to do things like baking. So perhaps your statistics are picking up activities like that.
Perhaps it’s a pre-civilization trait that was ditched in most agricultural societies but is still a significant gene in the male population.
Cooking doesn’t feel like work to me. It probably would feel like work if I did a 12 hour shift in a factory, but in white collar world where your not physically tired it seems like a hobby for a lot of men.
I personally cook because I'm the better cook vs my wife but my dad, male cousins, brother, and friends don't cook. One of my friends, he actually taught me a lot about cooking when we were roommates but he doesn't cook most of the time because it's a hassle as a single guy.
So, one data point in that it doesn't seem to be a hobby for a lot of men. It may be popular in some social niches for some men, though.
Heck, most of the women in my age group don't really cook either, compared to my mom and grandmother's generation.
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