I think it is also interesting to study the money men and women bring separately into their relationship and how that plays into relationship dynamics.
Common Law States
Most states, except those listed as community property states below, use the "common law" system of property ownership. In these states, it's usually easy to tell which spouse owns what. If only your name is on the deed, registration document, or other title paper, it's yours. If you and your spouse both have your name on the title, you each own a half interest in the property unless the title document says otherwise. If an item doesn't have a title document, generally you own it if you paid for it or received it as a gift.
Community Property States
If you live in a community property state, the rules are more complicated. But in general:
spouses own equally almost all property either one acquires during the marriage, regardless of whose name the property is in
half of each spouse's income is owned by the other spouse during the marriage, and
debts incurred during marriage are generally debts of the couple.
In community property states, the following is separate property:
gifts given to one spouse
property either spouse owned before the marriage and kept separate during the marriage, and
inheritances.
The community property states are: Alaska (by agreement), Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. (In Alaska, spouses can sign an agreement making specific assets community property.)
And why would Wisconsin choose this, when it never had any connection to Spain?
That's... not true at all.
The IRS tax forms even have an entire category for people who are married but maintain separate finances. It's called "married filing separate".
Now in some states there are laws that property acquired after marriage is shared, you can still maintain separate finances, and then it is up to a judge to figure it out in the case of divorce.
Also, you keep what you entered the marriage with. If you maintain separate finances, it's a lot easier to disentangle if you get divorced.
I have a friend who is on his second marriage, and his wife is also on her second. They maintain separate finances because they were both burned on a divorce, and they are very aware of what is common property and what is not. They could split up pretty much any time without a lawyer because they keep such good books.
Think gaming equipment, steam sales for games they will never play, flying, cars, tech, 3d printer and what not.
Compared to that, feminine hobbies are few bucks once in a while.
My actual point is this type of discussion doesn't really add anything. It's difficult to prove, and prone to an extreme amount of bias combined with generalizing from a small sample.
That is not personal purchase on hobby.
Hahah. Sorry, but there's just no way. The entire McMansion industry, the furnishing industry, IKEA, fast fashion brands and high fashion are all driven by women's business.
I agree about the rest though, and I think the McMansion industry bit is an insightful comment. I'll also add giant luxury SUVs to this list.
But I'm thinking that someplace like Bed, Bath & Beyond probably gets more female customers, and would be a preferred place to go for the items you list. That store has fancier stuff than IKEA, and is seriously overpriced; it's not a place you shop at to get a good value. I'd also suggest various mall shops or department stores.
This is anecdotal too, but in my experience women spend FAR more money on unnecessary stuff than men. Here's many examples: - donations to churches - designer clothes - luxury SUVs - jewelry (the conflict diamond trade wouldn't exist without women) - eating at expensive restaurants - McMansions - stuff for those McMansions (e.g., custom-made "window treatments": my Mom just spent $15K on "window treatments" for her new house!) - luxurious vacations (as opposed to, for instance, staying in hostels)
Of course, I'm generalizing, and probably mostly describing the Gen-X to Boomer white American woman demographic, but it's what I've seen the most.
As for men, I work with a bunch of Millennial and younger men, and they spend money on Magic cards and video games, and that's about it. That stuff costs hundreds of dollars, and that's about it usually unless you go really nuts. A woman can easily spend a few hundred dollars on a single article of designer clothing. Meanwhile, these younger men don't seem to really give a shit about cars the way men in older generations did.
And of course the things on my list aren't all exclusive to women; some men like eating at nice restaurants too, some men have BMW SUVs, etc., but in my observation, most of those purchases are either done by women directly, or insisted on by them if they're married.
I can see why you think that women tend not to have "expensive hobbies" the way some men do, but even here you're actually wrong. Here in my metro area, the single women all seem to be members of some kind of exercise class (like Zumba, Barre, Orange Theory, etc.). Those memberships are quite expensive, and easily comparable to men spending money on Steam games. Single women also almost all have dogs, and those can be really expensive too when you account for fancy food, grooming, dog-walking, dog-sitting, etc. The problem is that you're not looking at where people are actually spending money, and you're not counting women's purchases as "hobbies". My most recent ex-girlfriend had two big "hobbies" before I met her: one was her Barre class, which was hundreds of dollars per month. The other was going out to eat: she basically had a hobby of going out every weekend with her girlfriends to some new super-fancy restaurant in DC. That too would amount to hundreds of dollars per month. The other thing I've seen with single professional women is they spend a LOT of money on alcohol: they like to go "out for drinks" a lot, and of course a single drink at a nice DC restaurant will probably run $15. That really adds up over a month. So no, not a lot of women buy 3D printers or fix up old cars, but they do have luxurious things they like to spend $$$$ on.