University Of Georgia

RLST 5320 / 7320 WOMEN AND LEISURE

Diane M. Samdahl

351 Ramsey

University of Georgia

Athens, GA30602-6555

dsamdahl@coe.uga.edu

706-542-4334

Note:The following reading list does not contain full bibliographic information on all articles, though the readings are identified fully enough for you to find the complete citation and a documented copy of each article is included in the reading packet. The textbook is Betsy Wearing's Leisure and Feminist Theory (1998, Sage).

Jan 11:Introduction to the Course

Jan 13:Introduction to Concepts of Sex, Gender, and Leisure

Members of this class come from different backgrounds, some with no exposure to women’s studies and others with no exposure to leisure studies.During the first few class periods we will attempt to build a common foundation for all by talking about basic concepts.Today we will discuss the difference between sex and gender, basic ideas about women’s (in)access to leisure, and a quick review of the ways women’s leisure was studied in its earliest phase in the U.S.

Gentile, D.A.(1993).Just what are sex and gender, anyway? And Unger, R.K.& Crawford, M.(1993).Commentary:sex and gender.

O'Neill, W.(1991).Women: The unleisured majority.World Leisure and Recreation 33 (3), 6-10.

Henderson, K.A. (1990).The meaning of leisure for women:An integrative review of the literature

Side note--Other introductory readings about leisure that could have been assigned:

Henderson, K. A.(1990).The meaning of leisure for women: An integrative review of the literature.

Henderson, K. A.(1989).Anatomy is not destiny: a feminist analysis of the scholarship on women's leisure.

Wearing, B. & Wearing, S.(1988).'All in a day's leisure': Gender and the concept of leisure.

Jan 20: (a) Introduction to Feminist Theory, and (b) Functional Perspectives on Leisure

These readings provide a good introduction to feminist scholarship.Scott asks how “gender” came to have the meanings it does today, and in answering that question she describes how our concept of gender is invevitably interwoven with power and politics.Collins raises the critique that feminist scholarship represents white women’s reality but black women’s experiences are typically excluded from those theories.And the two pieces by Lorde eloquently express central ideas in feminist thought.

Though you may not understand everything in these readings, you should be able to explain what distinguishes feminist research from research that is simply about women, and to articulate some of the beliefs shared by all feminists. Are you comfortable or uncomfortable with any of the feminist ideas put forward in these discussions?If so, what pieces do you particularly like or dislike?Make note of any passage or idea that evokes an emotional response for you.

Scott, J.(1988).Gender and the politics of history (Introduction and Chapter 1).

Collins, P.H. (1990).Black feminist thought (Chapters 1). 

Lorde, A. (1984).Sister Outsider: Essays and speeches by Audre Lorde:

The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

The transformation of silence into language and action.

On a somewhat different note, we will begin reading the textbook.The introduction offers a good overview of the different chapters and points out that the functionalist approach, discussed in Chapter 1, is basically androcentric and descriptive.This functionalist research did not address power or politics when it talked about differences in men’s and women’s leisure.The article by Raymond and Kelly, though not necessarily functionalist, illustrates research on women’s leisure that talks around issues of politics and power but never openly addresses them, even though this group (inner city women) is a blatant illustration of how people are marginalized in our society.The article by Freysinger reports male-female differences in parental roles but never questions the power relationships inherent in the traditionally defined roles of mother and father. 

Wearing, B. (textbook) Introduction and Chapter 1

Raymond, L & Kelly, J. R.(1991).Leisure activity patterns of young unemployed 

inner-city women

Freysinger, V.(1994). Leisure with children and parental satisfaction: further evidence of a sex difference in the experience of adult roles and leisure.

Side note--another introduction to feminism that could have been assigned:

Henderson, Bialeschki, Shaw, & Freysinger.(1999).Both gains and gaps: Feminist perspectives on women's leisure.(chapter 3).

Jan 27:Marxist and Socialist Perspectives on Women and Leisure

We start today's readings with a chapter by Dorothy Smith that returns us to some central tenets of feminist theory.Her discussion of "complicity" lies at the heart of the power of hegemony--that is, by buying into the set order of things we indirectly reaffirm patterns of domination.Use this also as a chance to return to questions from last week's readings on feminist theory.

Smith, D.A. (1987).A peculiar eclipsing:Women's exclusion from man's culture.

(Introduction and Chapter 1).

In Chapter 2, Wearing presents some Marxist and socialist perspectives on leisure.This approach has been very common in England and Australia and is an important framework for much of the feminist leisure scholarship coming out of those countries.Marxism emphasized power differentials between people in society, though it focused on class (defined by relation to production) as the primary source of power. Some feminists argue that the traditional Marxist theories were inherently androcentric because their concepts of work, labor, and production reflected men’s paid employment but not women’s contributions to the economic well-being of a society.The article by Dawson explains how women’s leisure fits into Marxist discussions.Feminist Marxist theories are an adaptation of those traditional Marxist ideas.Terms like hegemony and patriarchy are common in Marxist feminist discussions (as well as in poststructural discussions we’ll encounter in a later chapter)

The chapter from Wearing makes reference to the other four readings listed below, each of which illustrates and expands upon points from the chapter.The excerpt by Green, Hebron, and Woodward provides a good introduction to the socialist feminist study of leisure. The article by Hargreaves is a general discussion of patriarchal power relations that minimize women’s involvement in sport.The articles by Dempsey, and by Hunter and Whitson, illustrate this point in studies of sport and recreation in two communities. 

Wearing, B.(textbook).Chapter 3.

Dawson, D.(1988).The rational subordination of women’s leisure under patriarchal capitalism

Green, E., Hebron, S., & Woodward, D.(1989).Women’s leisure, what leisure?, 

(chapters 1 and 3).

Hargreaves, J.(1989).The promise and problems of women’s leisure and sport.

Hunter, P. L. & Whitson, D. J.(1991).Women, leisure, and familism: relationships and isolation in small town Canada

Feb 3:Interactionist Theories: Self, Freedom, and Women’s Leisure

Symbolic interaction was the foundation of a significant portion of North American leisure research published in the 1980s and 1990s (including my early work).As Wearing discusses in Chapter 3, this perspective emphasizes the construction of meaning in the subjective lives of individuals.Questions stemming from symbolic interaction included examination of self-expression in leisure and the meaning of leisure experiences. While most of this work was not feminist, symbolic interaction did provide a good framework for the initial research on differences in leisure between men and women.

Wearing’s chapter provides a good overview of the general use of interaction theory in understanding leisure.Samdahl (1988) is another explanation of symbolic interaction, specifically showing how it has been applied to the study of leisure. Samdahl (1992) is an extension of that earlier work applying a gender analysis to the meanings people use when they apply the label "leisure."Wearing and Wearing (1988) is a classic article that proposes that traditional definitions (“meanings”) of leisure may be different for men and women.Shaw (1985) presents another empirical study that suggests men and women use similar (but slightly different) meanings for leisure. 

Wearing, B.(1998).(textbook).Chapter 3

Samdahl, D. M.(1988).A symbolic interactionist model of leisure: Theory and empirical support.JLR.

Samdahl, D. M.(1992).The effect of gender socialization on labeling experience as “leisure.”Paper presented at the NRPA Leisure Research Symposium (Baltimore).

Wearing, B. & Wearing, S.(1988).‘All in a day’s leisure’” gender and the concept of leisure.

Shaw, S. M.(1985).

The issue of resistance is raised in this chapter os Wearing’s book though it will be examined more intensely in association with Chapter 8.Wearing makes many references to her “mother study,” summarized here in Wearing (1990), where she begins to discuss the idea of leisure as resistance. This is illustrated as well in Freysinger and Flannery (1992) and Wearing and Wearing (1992).

Wearing, B.(1990).Beyond the ideology of motherhood: leisure as resistance.

Freysinger, V. J. & Flannery, D.(1992).Women’s leisure: affiliation, self-determination, empowerment and resistance?Society and Leisure, 15, 303-322.

Feb 10:Leisure and gender in cultural contexts

Cultural studies is an important arena in the feminist analysis of leisure.It focuses on everyday culture and the use of products and space, analyzing how hegemony is reproduced and sometimes resisted in those situations.A center for cultural studies was established in Birmingham, England, which explains why this type of analysis is more prevalent in the British literature than in the United States.

Wearing’s Chapter 4 gives an overview of cultural studies with particular focus on the ways it has been applied to the study of leisure.She makes mention of McRobbie’s (1978) book, a seminal piece in cultural studies.That book is summarized here in a shorter article, McRobbie (1991).The article by Broom et al. (1992) is an example of cultural studies applied to a public place—in this case, a pool hall.In addition to analyses of public space, Wearing make reference to several articles that analyzed the images of women in the media. I’ve selected the article by Currie to illustrate that work, and included the article by Bolla which specifically examines the images of women and leisure in advertisements.The last article included here, Canaan (1991), uses a cultural studies approach to examine gender socialization for boys during free play; it makes a good transition into next week’s readings which will focus specifically on masculinities.

Wearing, B.(1998).Textbook.Chapter 4.

Broom, D. H., Byrne, M. & Petkovic, L.(1992).Off cue: women who play pool. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 28, 175-191.

McRobbie, A.(1991).The culture of working-class girls.In McRobbie, A., Feminism and Youth Culture, pp. 35-60.Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Currie, D. H.(1997).Decoding femininity: Advertisements and their teenage readers.Gender and Society, 11, 453-477.

Bolla, P. A.(1990).Media images of women and leisure: an analysis of magazine advertisements 1964-1987.

Canaan, J. E.(1991).Is ‘doing nothing’ just boys’ play? Integrating feminist and cultural studies perspectives on working-class young men’s masculinity.In Franklin, S., Lury, C., & Stacey, J. (Eds.), Off-Centre: Feminism and Cultural Studies, 109-125.?: HarperCollins.

Feb 17:Leisure, Masculinity, and Feminist Theory

These readings are an important complement to the rest of the semester that focuses primarily on women’s experiences.In these readings we see how masculinity itself is a social construct, and we see how leisure (especially but not only sports) is often a realm for establishing and enacting that masculinity.These understandings of masculinity have benefited greatly from feminist theory with its focus on gender (not sex) as a cultural creation.

The Wearing chapter gives a brief overview of some central work on masculinity, including work by Messner who has studied men’s sports.Two of Messner’s articles are included here for a better understanding of his central ideas.Since Messner brings our attention to sports, the article by Seagraves is an interesting extension that examines how “sportspeak” brings sport metaphors into everyday language and thereby perpetuates both masculinity and sports as valued statuses.The article by Birrell and Cole analyzes the problems created when Renee Richards, a transsexual, attempted to enter professional women’s tennis.Though not as explicitly about masculinity as the other articles, the difficulty people had in accepting Richards as a female highlights the strongly gendered premises of sports.

Wearing, B. (1998).Textbook.Chapter 5.

Messner, M.(1990).Boyhood, organized sports, and the construction of masculinities.Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 18, 416-444.

Messner, M.(1992).Sport and gender relations: Continuity, contradiction, and change.In Messner, M.Power and Play, chapter 8.Boston: Beacon Press.

Seagrave, J. O.(1994).The perfect 10: “sportspeak” in the language of sexual relations.Sociology of Sport Journal, 11, 95-113.

Birell, S. & Cole, C.(1990).Double fault: Renee Richards and the construction and naturalization of difference.Sociology of Sport Journal, 7, 1-21.

Wearing’s chapter gave a lot of emphasis to sports but I wanted to broaden our discussion to other leisure arenas.The article by Hantover is fairly functionalist in perspective but raises an interesting point about how the Boy Scouts were created to validate an image of masculinity that was being threatened in the 20^th century.The outdoors and the environmental movement have been important facets of the leisure studies field, laying an important foundation for our parks and wilderness areas.I selected this article by Connell (who is frequently cited in the chapter) because of its focus on the environmental movement.

Hantover, J. P.(1978).The Boy Scouts and the validation of masculinity.Journal of Social Issues, 34.

Connell, R. W.(1990).A whole new world: Remaking masculinity in the context of the environmental movement.Gender and Society, 4, 452-478.

Feb 24:Leisure, the Body, and Feminist Theory

These articles remind us that the physical body is a significant part of our experience, in spite of its absence in much of social science research.Wearing's chapter gives an overview of and introduction to these ideas, including the cultural construction of meanings associated with the body and women's use of their bodies in space (particularly through sport).Note that her discussion of emotions relies entirely on sociological literature--there is little or no feminist research that examines the emotional dimension of leisure.Lorde's short piece on the erotic brings an emotional component into studies of the body, and illustrates how the body can be a source of power for women.

Dorothy Smith's chapter returns us to feminist theory and lays out a good discussion for how femininity consists of cultural expectations regarding the body (adornment, movement, etc.).The article by Frederick and Shaw on aerobics, and the article by Wright and Dreyfus on belly dancing, illustrate two research studies that address women's bodies in a leisure context.

One discussion that is visibly missing in Wearing's chapter is the topic of physical disability.The meaning of a disability--of having one's body look and act different than "normal"--certainly highlights the cultural discourse surrounding women's bodies.The chapter by Connors and the two pieces by Sager and Lewis are introduced here to expand the discussion of body into the realm of disability.

Wearing, B.(1998).Textbook.Chapter 6.

Smith, D.(1988).Feminity as discourse.In Roman, L. G. and Christian-Smith, L. K. [Eds.], Becoming feminine: The politics of popular culture, pp. 37-59.London: The Falmer Press.

Lorde, A.(1984).Uses of the erotic: The erotic as power. In Sister Outsider: Essays and speeches by Audre Lorde.Trumansburg, New York:The Crossing Press.

Frederick, C. J. & Shaw, S. M.(1995).Body image as a leisure constraint: Examining the experience of aerobic exercise classes for young women.Leisure Sciences, 17, 57-73.

Wright, J. & Dreyfus, S.(1998).Belly dancing: A feminist project? Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 7, p. 95-.[also online via GenderWatch]

Connors, D.(1985).Disability, sexism, and the social order.In Browne, S.E., Connors, D. & Stern N. (Eds.), With the power of each breath: A disabled women's anthology.Pittsburgh, PA:Cleis Press.

Sager, J.(1985).Five reasons I play wheelchair basketball. [In above book]

Ann-Lewis, V.(1985).The great outdoors.[In above book]

March 2:Leisure and Urban Studies

Urban studies is a fast-growing area of study, particularly in England where much of the feminist research on women and leisure is generated.The chapter provides an overview of some of this literature, though there are many other ways to approach women's urban leisure (e.g. urban geography).The concept of the flâneur comes out of poststructuralist and postmodern theories and describes an individual who exists almost as a tourist in the urban setting.Wearing discusses this idea and critiques this view, offering an alternative (feminist) way of viewing urban individuals.The article by Wearing and Wearing (1996) more fully develops these ideas.

The remaining articles all come from recent issues of Leisure Studies, a British research journal, and illustrate how feminist analysis is being used to understand women's leisure in the city.Realize that the word "holiday" in the article by Deem translates into "vacation" in American English.

Wearing, B.(1998).Textbook.Chapter 7.

Wearing, B. & Wearing, S.(1996).Refocussing the tourist experience:The flâneur and the choraster.Leisure Studies, 15,229-243.

Deem, R.(1996).Women, the city and holidays.Leisure Studies, 15, 105-119.

Scraton, S. and Watson, B.(1998).Gendered cities: Women and public leisure space in the "postmodern" city. Leisure Studies, 17, 123-137.

Aitchison, C.(1999).New cultural geographies: The spatiality of leisure, gender and sexuality.Leisure Studies, 18, 19-39.

Mar 16:Leisure and Post-structural Theory, including Leisure as Resistance

The tenets of post-structuralism have appeared in earlier chapters and have been discussed in class, though today we will tackle them head-on.The article by Weedon offers one of the most readable introductions to post-structural theory; I've included her introductory chapter onfeminist theory but you should give primary attention to the second chapter on post-structuralism.The chapter by Davis and Fisher offers another good introduction to post-structuralist theory and gives increased attention to the concept of "resistance."

Weedon, C.(1997).Feminist Practice and Post Structuralist Theory (2^nd ed.), Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publ.

Davis, K. and Fisher, S.(1993).Power and the female subject.In Fisher, S. and Davis, K. (Eds.), Negotiating at the margins: The gendered discourses of power and resistance, pp. 3-20.New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

The following three articles elaborate on leisure as a context where broad cultural discourse is evaded and/or negotiated. The article by Jacobson and Samdahl does not openly display a post-structuralist framework but the hidden leisure spaces that lesbians create for themselves clearly illustrate the post-structuralist ideas that Wearing discusses in the textbook.The article by Samdahl, Jacobson, and Hutchinson more clearly makes a post-structuralist argument by openly addressing leisure and resistance, though you can tell we were just beginning to grapple with this concept of resistance in our comments at the end of that paper.These pieces reflect my own early movement into post-structuralist thinking and are representative of a larger body of work on leisure and resistance.The article by Davidson illustrates the complex meanings associated with women's leisure, showing how it simultaneously acts as a space for conformity and a space for resistance to gendered expectations.

Jacobson, S. & Samdahl, D. M.Leisure in the lives of old lesbians: Experiences with and responses to discrimination.Journal of Leisure Research, 30, 233-255.

Samdahl, D. M., Jacobson, S., & Hutchinson, S.(1998). When gender is problematic:leisure and gender negotiation for marginalized women.Paper presented at the British Leisure Studies Association conference, Leeds, England.

Davidson, P.(not published).Holidays: Contradictory spaces of resistance and reinforcement.

Mar 23:Leisure and Postcolonial Theory

Postcolonialism is an important theoretical perspective that has been gaining momentum in recent years.It is linked to feminism through a central belief that white Eurocentric perspectives--and the imperialistic power structures imbedded in those perspectives--have unfairly dominated our understanding of the world.Central to postcolonialism is the premise that Eurocentric views define non-Eurocentric cultures as "other,"implicitly giving them a lesser status.Wearing's chapter discusses some of these ideas but, overall, does not effectively introduce postcolonial theory. Read her chapter for the introduction it provides, then look at the articles below for a fuller understanding of postcolonialism.

What postcolonialism is critiquing is a colonialistic view of the world.Think of the classic images of white British citizens living the good life in India with indigenous servants to wait on them (I will bring in a short clip from the movie Passage to India to illustrate this) and you will have a good understanding of that perspective.Perry (1997) presents a readable discussion of the role of women during colonization of west Canada and highlights how white women symbolized a much different thing than indigenous women during that era.Vaz (1995) points out our tendency to view African American women in relation to white culture rather than having their own vibrant culture, thereby maintaining a colonialistic perspective in scholarship about African American women.(This idea is central to standpoint theory; think also of Collins who we've already read who spoke about the importance of establishing black feminism separate from mainstream white feminism.)

My literature searches turned up no articles that directly used postcolonial theory to examine leisure.I find this surprising since the good life (leisure) of colonizing people was often supported through the work of the indigenous population.We can see some of this in Bishop and Robinson's (1999) discussion of sex tourism in Thailand.I've also included a few short newsarticles about foreign domestic laborers whose indentured servitude makes it possible for wealthy U.S. women to avoid childcare and housecleaning.We may have to make our own extensions into leisure as we discuss the ideas of postcolonial theory.

Read the last chapter by Wearing as well, for it provides a wrap-up to her textbook.

Wearing, B.(1998).Textbook.Chapter 9.

Perry, A.(1997)."Fair ones of a purer caste": White women and colonialism in nineteenth-century British Columbia."Feminist Studies, 23, 501-524.

Vaz, Kim Marie.(1995).Racial aliteracy: White appropriation of black presences.Women and Therapy, 16, 31-49.

Bishop, R. & Robinson, L. S.(1999).In the night market: Tourism, sex, and commerce in contemporary Thailand.Women's Studies Quarterly, 1&2, 32-45.

Wearing, B.(1998).Textbook.Chapter 10.

April 13, 20, 27:Student Presentations, Readings to be Assigned