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Jeffrey2017a Leisure of One's Own
Jeffrey2017a Leisure of One's Own
Heather L. Jeffrey
To cite this article: Heather L. Jeffrey (2017): A leisure of one’s own: a feminist perspective on
women’s leisure, Annals of Leisure Research, DOI: 10.1080/11745398.2017.1377858
Article views: 26
Download by: [Florida International University] Date: 20 September 2017, At: 06:23
ANNALS OF LEISURE RESEARCH, 2017
To define leisure, however, as time away from “work” (paid employment) is obviously proble-
matic for people who are not formally employed in the labor market: children and adolescents,
students, the elderly, and the unemployed as well as many women who are full-time house-
wives and homemakers. (Henderson et al. 1989, 10)
Women’s unpaid work in the home was not valued, and arguably this situation has not
changed in almost three decades. Part of the brilliance of the book is that it questioned defi-
nitions of leisure, by asking whose leisure – for example a trip away often involved women’s
work. Women were the ones who were expected to plan, organize, pack and prepare alongside
continuing the domestic chores expected of them in the home. One man’s leisure was another
woman’s work, and it was noted that women often had a lot less time for leisure, due to both
their double day and their involvement as an enabler of family leisure.
Yet, this was not the primary reason given for the significance of studying women’s leisure.
Women’s leisure was (and is) important to study, not just because of time (i.e. women have less
2 BOOK REVIEW
time to spend on leisure activities), but also because it allows the evaluation of choice. Leisure
may provide women with a way to value themselves and shift gender stereotypes. This link
between leisure and oppression predestined the book to be a valuable addition not just to
the leisure literature, but also the women’s studies literature. Linking leisure with freedom jus-
tifies the study of the former as a site for critical scholars engaging in issues of oppression and
discrimination.
A Leisure of One’s Own also provides an historical perspective on women’s leisure by challen-
ging the way HIStory has been written, noting how because of who had written history certain
perspectives on what constitutes or can be considered as leisure may have been overlooked.
This is particularly pertinent when considering the fractured nature of women’s leisure, or the
way in which women’s leisure grew out of spectating or cheering men on. This historical per-
spective allows the reader to understand how leisure has traditionally been in cahoots with the
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the ‘founding fathers’. Feminist scholarly activity should be part of a wider political project, and
we are all able to participate by citing those that have written before us. We are all standing on
the shoulders of giants, and the giants do not always have male bodies.
At the beginning of the book the authors stressed how they hoped it would become an
impetus for more research on women’s leisure, and gender and leisure. The book can be cele-
brated as having achieved this aim, as not only did the book become the first in a series of on-
going investigations of leisure for girls and women written by the same authors, but gender
and leisure or leisure related fields such as tourism has gained much more scholarly interest
since its publication. In order to understand where we are it is important to understand
where we have come from and that is why this text is important, not just to those studying
leisure and gender, but to all leisure scholars.
A leisure of One’s Own: A Feminist Perspective on Women’s Leisure, published in 1989 was a
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ground breaking text as one of the first full length books on women’s leisure. The text has
been updated and expanded by Both Gains and Gaps: Feminist Perspectives on Women’s
Leisure (Henderson et al. 1996) and Leisure, Women, and Gender (Freysinger et al. 2013).
References
Atwood, M. (1996) 1985. The Handmaid‘s Tale. London: Vintage.
Freysinger, V. J., S. M. Shaw, K. A. Henderson, and M. D. Bialeschki. 2013. Leisure, Women, and Gender. Urbana, IL:
Venture Publishing.
Henderson, K. A., M. D. Bialeschki, S. M. Shaw, and V. J. Freysinger. 1996. Both Gains and Gaps: Feminist Perspectives
on Women’s Leisure. State College: Venture Publishing.
Small, J. 2016. “Holiday Bodies: Young Women and their Appearance.” Annals of Tourism Research 58: 18–32.
Small, J. 2017. “Women’s ‘Beach Body’ in Australian Women’s Magazines.” Annals of Tourism Research 63: 23–33.
World Economic Forum. 2016. The Global Gender Gap Report. Geneva, Switzerland: The World Economic Forum.
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GGGR16/WEF_Global_Gender_Gap_Report_2016.pdf.
Heather L. Jeffrey
Business School, University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK
Heather.L.Jeffrey@Gmail.com
© 2017 Heather L. Jeffrey
https://doi.org/10.1080/11745398.2017.1377858