Narratives of Negotiation and Transformation: Women's Experiences within a Mixed-Gendered Gym

ABSTRACT

Those within the fitness industry claim that gyms provide accessible space for women (of certain economic status) to engage in activities that will increase their health. As such, gyms are marketed as safe, inclusive, and empowering spaces. Yet when viewing gym spaces through a feminist-informed lens, it becomes clear that gyms are not always innocuous spaces. They often reflect and perpetuate gendered power relations and highly prescribed cultural expectations for femininity around women's bodies, appearances, strength, and abilities. This narrative inquiry sought to illuminate women's gendered experiences within a for-profit mixed-gendered gym space. Through the use of unstructured life story interviews, this research highlights the dominant gendered expectations that women perceived within the gym and how these expectations influence women's gym use. The narratives also exposed several ways that gyms can be changed in order to facilitate more positive gym experiences for women.     

Kicking against tradition: women’s football,negotiating friendships and social spaces

This article examines friendships and social networks in the context of amateur women’s football. Studies of intimacies and friendships tend to situate women’s same-sex friendships around emotional support. The aim of this research seeks to account for more depth in understanding diversity in female friendships. The traditionally masculine (football) environment is peculiarly distinctive because it contrasts with traditional spaces found in private, domestic context that have traditionally associated with the formation and negotiation of ‘feminine’ friendship identities. Utilising 10 narrative interviews, the paper examines social and friendship networks in two main areas. Firstly, although non-traditional social groupings were evident, it was apparent that some participants had to negotiate a dual private/public role. Secondly, there were friendships based on sociability and these were integral to the connectedness of groups not defined by conventionally gendered roles, defined by emotional ties, but instead on collective interest focused around playing sport. These groupings are of interest because they are contrary to conventionality that frame emotional femininity, and foreground social activities that accentuate cultural complexities rather than confine friendship groups in terms of either masculine or feminine cultural practices. Drawing on the grounded experiences of female football players, we found that female friendships are much more layered and complex than represented in broader cultural discourse.     

En/Activist Drag: Kings Reflect on Queerness,Queens, and Questionable Masculinities

ABSTRACT

In recent years, media attention to drag performers has increased transforming the once-hidden leisure activity of gay men and lesbians into a publicly recognized phenomenon. Many of these representations of drag have fallen short in offering reflective illustrations of the connections among gender identity, performance, misogyny, patriarchy, and activism. In response, we find ourselves studying the gendered life experiences of drag kings to illuminate the variety of experiences that shape their gendered lives. We specifically look to our re-storied, visual, composite narratives of eight kings' experiences to show how drag functions as a context where social-political-capitalist transformation can be enacted.     

Knowing your place and commanding space: de/constructions of gendered embodiment in mixed-sex karate

ABSTRACT

Feminists have long acknowledged that gendered divisions in access to spaces of leisure, and how women and men physically take up that space, reproduce gender inequality. This article will explore how karate practitioners participate in the space of mixed-sex karate practice and how such uses of space de/construct gendered embodiments and a gender hierarchy. Data presented are drawn from nine months of ethnographic emersion within three karate clubs and 15 photo-elicitation interviews with karate participants from the three clubs. The findings of this paper suggest that whilst women often occupied spaces of expertise within the karate hall, gendered distinctions in uses of space emerged in the more subtle ways in which women and men used their voice, responded to the tacit and smelt dilemmas of sweat, and moved their bodies across physical space. This research highlights both the potential of physical leisure practice to ‘undo’ conventional gendered embodiments that particularly restrict women’s intentionality in the world, and the power of spatially attuned research to illuminate the minute ways in which unequal gender relations are naturalised, legitimised and done.     

Cycling Assemblages,Self-Tracking Digital Technologies and Negotiating Gendered Subjectivities of Road Cyclists On-the-Move

Abstract

Self-tracking technologies are now a taken-for-granted part of the road cyclist’s kit. We are interested in the gendered dynamics of one particular self-tracking platform: Strava. This article offers the concept of the cycling assemblage to explore how gendered subjectivities are felt and gain legitimacy on-the-move through the ongoing negotiated relationship between cycling bodies and technology. Our account draws on a cycling ethnography conducted with 27 Australian participants. Four vignettes demonstrate how Strava’s incorporation within road cycling assemblages functions as a mechanism of gendered inclusion and exclusion. We point toward the tensions of Strava as site of excess, where the pleasures and pains of the “quantified cycling self” may reinforce or challenge bodily and spatial boundaries associated with sporting masculine subjectivities and alternative femininities. A focus on cycling assemblages enhances our understanding of the spatiality, fragility, vitality, and multiplicity of gender-on-the-move.     

Creating Distance from Body Issues: Exploring New Materialist Feminist Possibilities for Renegotiating Gendered Embodiment

Abstract

The body’s active role in the production of gendered embodiments is a key focus for feminist cultural studies and leisure studies. The article draws on new materialist feminist scholarship to explore how gender relations are produced and negotiated in physical culture through one case study example taken from a wider study of young people’s experiences of the body and self-image over time. The article explores how gendered embodiment is assembled through the socio-material circumstances of everyday life. For one particiapnt, 'Ann', “creating distance” from appearance concerns was an embodied process which involved new practices and encounters (e.g., walking for leisure, reading feminist literature) and relationships and engagements with others (e.g., a partner, friends, family). The potential for feminism to open possibilities to imagine the body otherwise is also discussed in relation to recent efforts to foster social justice imperatives in leisure sciences and feminist physical cultural studies.     

Inter- and Intra-Gender Similarities and Differences in Motivations for Casino Gambling

Abstract

The two objectives of this study were to examine if motivations for casino gambling vary by gender and, based on motivations for casino gambling, to ascertain different types of male and female gamblers. To accomplish these objectives, five casino motivation scales were developed. Nine hundred male and female casino patrons living in two major Canadian metropolitan areas completed a telephone questionnaire. Male study participants rated risk-taking/gambling as a rush and learning/cognitive self-classification as being more important than did female participants. Two types of male casino gamblers existed: men who gave primacy to risk-taking/gambling as a rush and emotional self-classification, and men who gave primacy to communing. Three types of female casino gamblers existed: women who gave primacy to emotional self-classification and escaping everyday problems, women who gave primacy to communing and emotional self-classification, and women who gave primacy to communing alone. Gender theory was used to explain these findings, and study limitations and future research recommendations also were discussed.     

Designed for leisure … for all? Gendered experiences and practices of leisure at the architect designed second home

ABSTRACT

In contrast to an inherited or repurposed second home, owners are able to stipulate how their leisure practices are catered for when they employ an architect to design their second home. This longitudinal study examines gendered experiences and practices of leisure at architect designed second homes in New Zealand, through an analysis of written and visual discourse in an architecture and lifestyle magazine over a period of 80 years. The identified themes were persistent over the 80 years, but the discourses evolved through time and indicate the socio-cultural context in which they were written. The findings suggest that although the opportunity to imagine a ‘life lived differently’ exists at the second home, for the second homeowners featured in the magazine articles at least, this does not extend to gender relations. This may be in part due to the very nature of the second home, whereby it is difficult to escape the deeply ingrained gender ideologies associated with home/work, productive/reproductive dichotomies.     

‘It made me feel powerful’: women’s gendered embodiment and physical empowerment in the martial arts

This paper presents data collected from 11 females and explores their gendered and embodied experiences of the martial arts. Our research suggests that through their involvement in the martial arts, women develop physical strength, which leads to individual physical empowerment. Furthermore, the women note their involvement in the martial arts increases their confidence to defend themselves and challenge their gendered embodiment. However, despite acquiring physical strength that challenges their previous forms of gendered embodiment, their experiences remain predominantly at the level of individual empowerment. Thus, the women do not problematise normative views of gendered embodiment which position women as weak and men as strong. Nor do the women in this study question the pressure on females’ bodies to be toned and feminine. Drawing predominantly on physical feminism, we question and problematise the concepts of women’s empowerment and gendered embodiment through women’s experiences of the martial arts.     

From ‘just a swimmer’ to a ‘swimming mother’: women’s embodied experiences of recreational aquatic activity with pre-school children

Increased academic attention on the gendering of leisure pastimes in recent years has highlighted the centrality of the gendered body in influencing how leisure is accessed, experienced and transformed. To date, however, little attention has been paid to how women experience aquatic leisure activity, the second most popular form of leisure activity in the UK, and where female participation predominates. This paper presents results from research investigating the aquatic leisure experiences of 22 women, with children aged under 3, in the North-East of England. A number of key themes emerged from the data, which highlighted the centrality of the gendered, lived body as a key social construct contouring participant perceptions in the swimming pool environment. Women reflected upon their self-perceived physical deficiencies when wearing revealing swimming costumes, particularly under the critical gaze of ‘other’ bodies, whether present or imagined. The co-presence of other bodies was also central in shaping lived experiences, and the presence of ‘dependent’ children’s bodies shifted bodily intentionality away from the self towards perceived maternal responsibilities and the management of perceived risks, including ‘dirt’ and ‘germs’ and the negotiation of the tacit rules of the swimming pool. Results also suggest that the emphasis on maternal responsibility in aquatic leisure activity and timing of parent-toddler sessions could lead to reproduction of gender inequalities and the exclusion of some fathers from participation.     

‘Classy and Never Trashy’: Young Women's Experiences of Nightclubs and the Construction of Gender and Sexuality

This article presents findings from an interpretive study that sought to understand the meanings and experiences of the mainstream nightclub culture from the perspective of young women. Specifically, how the young women's leisure experiences contested, negotiated, constructed and reconstructed feminine ideals and public displays of sexuality were examined as well as the gendered risks that they mitigate throughout this process. Seven young women, between the ages of 19 and 25, participated in the study. The findings call attention to the ways in which the young women created an alternate and desirable self through their appearance and the consumption of alcohol, how they sought male attention and the repercussions of double standards, and how they kept safe through the use of the buddy system and cautionary tales. Emphasis is placed on the highly contradictory nature of the young women's experiences as well as the significance of leisure, friendships, and gender relations.     

Feminist Knowledges as Interventions in Physical Cultures

Abstract

This collection explores how feminist knowledges work as interventions in physical cultures and recognizes the considerable contribution of feminist theories and methodologies in understanding the power relations implicated in embodied movement. Our introductory piece weaves together questions about the gendered formation of physical cultures (across leisure, sport, the arts, tourism, well-being, and various embodied practices) with key issues raised by contributing authors, from disciplinary perspectives to theory-method approaches. Exploring questions of digital and physical cultures, more-than-human relations, post- and decolonial ways of knowing, and contemporary onto-epistemologies, this feminist collection aims to contribute to the movement of ideas within and across physical cultural studies. Bringing together diverse perspectives around our common focus we entangle physical cultures with a range of gendered problematizations and interventions that produce different ways of knowing, imagining and doing feminisms.     

Domesticating Gambling: Gender,Caring and the UK National Lottery

Abstract

The issue of gambling as a form of leisure practice has, to date, received very little attention from sociologists. This is despite the enormous range of consideration recently invested in gambling by policy makers, politicians, journalists, psychologists and economists. In particular, the role that gambling plays as an important part of women’s leisure patterns has been virtually ignored. In this paper, the impact of UK National Lottery play on women’s everyday leisure experiences is examined. A questionnaire was administered to a diverse group of 150 women, and 15 women from this sample volunteered to take part in in‐depth interviews. The questionnaires sought to produce a database of the frequency of lottery play, the types of games played and the amounts of money gambled. The interviews focused on individual experiences, meanings and perceptions of lottery play as a form of leisure. The quantitative and qualitative findings of the research are discussed in terms of the material and ideological constraints shaping women’s everyday experiences of leisure, and also in terms of the ways in which gender and ‘caring’ are reproduced through women’s National Lottery play. It examines the ways in which the lottery addresses a lack of time and space for women’s pursuit of leisure.     

Errata

Abstract

Using large‐scale and nationally representative surveys of the American public conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, the authors examined recent differences in the sport and fitness activities of men and women aged 18 or older. It was found that participation in sport and fitness activity declined by 12% between 1985 and 1990. Contrary to expectations, such declines were greater among women than men, thus increasing the gender gap in sport and fitness. Young women showed greater rates of decline than did older women, and the largest declines, amounting to more than 30 occasions of sport and fitness participation per year, were found among the youngest group of women in the sample. Such differences continued to be pronounced even when the influence of a variety of variables pertaining to biological, social, economic, and lifestyle statuses were controlled. A model for the analysis of such variables in relation to sport and fitness activity is presented.     

Women's travel in the Tang Dynasty: Gendered identity in a hierarchical society

Women's travel writing has received increasing attention, with English literature being the focus of most studies. In contrast, Chinese women have been absent from historical travel narratives. The Tang Dynasty (618–907), a golden period in Chinese history, had a rare collection of women's travel poetry, a genre offering richness and insights on female travelers' experiences and perceptions of “other” places they had visited. Drawing on women's travel writings from All Tang Poetry, this study illustrates how travel narratives help formulate and reinforce, or downplay, gendered identities in the contexts of social hierarchy and patriarchal ideology. The research contributes to the gender, travel and identity literature from a Chinese language and culture perspective.     

First comes love,then comes marriage,then comes baby in the baby carriage? exploring how women can use leisure as resistance to gendered ideologies

Although an increasing number of people are identifying as single in western society, gendered ideologies continue to influence women’s lives, emphasising the importance of heterosexual couplehood, marriage, family, and biological parenthood. Utilising third wave feminism as our theoretical framework, this paper explores how gendered ideologies can work together to influence adult women’s experiences with singlehood. Findings from qualitative interviews with 12 single, adult women, conducted in Ontario, Canada, reveal the ways women can face marginalisation and stigmatisation in certain leisure contexts because of their single status and how the ideology of couplehood can reinforce expectations related to familism and pronatalism for single women. Yet, the findings also illustrate the ways single women can resist these expectations through their leisure. This paper provides an important contribution to the literature, bringing attention to the complex ties between gendered ideologies and leisure for adult women.     

Becoming a belly dancer: gender,the life course and the beginnings of a serious leisure career

Serious leisure careers have a beginning, middle and end, yet few studies examine the beginning stage of leisure careers dominated by women. Drawing from interviews with male and female belly dancers in the USA, this study examines how people join serious leisure activities. Results show that both men and women were interested in dance, arts and history, had personal ties to belly dance, and wanted an enjoyable form of exercise to match their capabilities when they entered the world of belly dance. Unlike men, the women in this study also experienced major life transitions, such as diminishing familial responsibilities, job and school issues, moving and shifting relationships. These findings have implications for the gendered nature of serious leisure.     

‘Stand out,not up’: bodyboarders,gendered hierarchies and negotiating the dynamics of pride/shame

In this paper, bodyboarders who surf the breaks of the Illawarra, New South Wales talk about their surfing experiences. We are particularly interested in leisured exclusions. Bodyboarders’ principal concern appears to be territorialisation of surf breaks and the legitimisation of bodyboarding in a sport where they are disavowed a ‘real’ surfing identity based on shortboarders’ desire to claim superiority. The paper explores how bodyboarders’ experiences of pride and shame articulate with understanding of space, self and masculinities. Alongside the physical environment of the surf break, interpersonal relationships between shortboarders and bodyboarders figure heavily in participant’s negotiation and construction of their gendered identities. We argue how individual bodyboarders negotiate the pride/shame nexus has important implication for understanding gender and territorialisation of the surf.     

Organized Youth Sport and Parenting in Public and Private Spaces

This article examines the connection of organized youth sport to cultural beliefs, values and practices of contemporary parenting ideologies, specifically the idealization of intensive mothering and involved fathering. It explores how parenting ideologies are constructed by the discourses expressed by individuals in their everyday lives through their children's sport participation. Moreover, the analysis of the parental discourse illustrates how parenting goes beyond the home environment and becomes a public act that is observed by other parents, with these observations creating the basis of what is deemed to be a good parent. Emphasis is also placed on the gendered dimensions of meeting the expectations for being a good parent.