Women's Leisure, Men's Leisure: A Study in Subordination and Exploitation

Abstract

In this paper findings from an Australian rural community study are presented which show that men dominate local recreational resources and activities and often deliberately exclude women from them. Notwithstanding this treatment women are expected to use their domestic skills to facilitate men's leisure and to be present to cheer men on in their pursuit of personal glory and public esteem. As a rule men do not reciprocate. Women's own leisure in both the home and the public sphere is reduced by their incorporation in men's leisure and by their far greater responsibilities under the prevailing domestic division of labour. Often men do not have to move openly and directly against women because the process of domination and exclusion are facilitated by their inheritance of leisure space, historical precedent, and a gender specific ideology that portrays existing inequitable arrangements as natural and proper. It is shown that relationships are so one-sided and the control of resources for recreation so asymmetrical to warrant describing the situation as exploitative.