I don't know if it's specifically a "female hobby," but I play a lyre. When the weather is temperate I'd hike along the river trail, and when I stop to rest, I'd take out my lyre and play it. The strings are softer than a guitar's, soothing, sometimes thought of as fairy-like. It's helpful when I want to get into a meditative mood.
One of the most fulfilling passtimes has been tutoring students needing help, often by request by teachers and professors. I've done it with Algebra, English Composition, Classical Languages, and Philosophy.
Apart from that, I write and often include classical texts that I translate myself (I started with Latin in 1971, then Koine Greek and Biblical Hebrew in 1976, then added Attic Greek, Aramaic, and other language studies to that since). One article of mine, published in a magazine in 1991, fetched a letter from a Greek scholar who had become intrigued with something I wrote about Hebrew translation. She sent back a heavily underlined copy of my article and asked for more information. I smiled. If I get a scholar's mind spinning like that, I know I've done my job.
