Eileen Green

‘Women Doing Friendship’: an analysis of women's leisure as a site of identity construction, empowerment and resistance

This paper examines the importance of leisure contexts as a crucial site of gendered identity construction. Revisiting the debate about the meaning of leisure for women, it is argued that leisure contexts, particularly those with other women, are important spaces for women to review their lives; assessing the balance of satisfactions and activities through contradictory discourses which involve both the ‘mirroring’ of similarities, and resistance to traditional feminine identities. ‘Womens talk’ as friendship is examined, both as a prime site of leisure and as a key mechanism through which feminine subjectivities are secured. Finally, it is suggested that in particular circumstances, women use humour to subvert sexist imagery. Shared humour between women in leisure contexts, can be a source of empowerment and resistance to gender stereotypes, the study of which, assists in illuminating the process of gender identity construction.

’Women's business’: Are women entrepreneurs breaking new ground or simply balancing the demands of ‘women's work’ in a new way?

Abstract Small businesses are regarded as playing a vital role in regenerating the economy. Many new enterprises are founded, owned and/or managed by women; indeed women owner/managers have become a significant economic force. This paper takes as its starting point the androcentricity of existing approaches to entrepreneurship, and explores possible ways forward. Following a review of the literature generally, it considers the growing literature on women entrepreneurs, highlighting in particular the importance of feminist perspectives. It then turns to the data generated in the authors’ study of women who have left jobs in organisations and set up their own businesses. Focusing on the issue of motherhood and womens position in the labour market, it explores the ways in which the respondents’ roles and responsibilities as mothers impacted on their experiences of moving from employment within organisations to self‐employment.

The nature of medical evidence and its inherent uncertainty for the clinical consultation: qualitative study

Abstract Objective To describe how clinicians deal with the uncertainty inherent in medical evidence in clinical consultations. Design Qualitative study. Setting Clinical consultations related to hormone replacement therapy, bone densitometry, and breast screening in seven general practices and three secondary care clinics in the UK NHS. Participants Women aged 45-64. Results 45 of the 109 relevant consultations included sufficient discussion for analysis. The consultations could be categorised into three groups: focus on certainty for now and this test, with slippage into general reassurance; a coherent account of the medical evidence for risks and benefits, but blurring of the uncertainty inherent in the evidence and giving an impression of certainty; and acknowledging the inherent uncertainty of the medical evidence and negotiating a provisional decision. Conclusion Strategies health professionals use to cope with the uncertainty inherent in medical evidence in clinical consultations include the use of provisional decisions that allow for changing priorities and circumstances over time, to avoid slippage into general reassurance from a particular test result, and to avoid the creation of a myth of certainty.

Contextualizing Risk and Danger: An Analysis of Young People's Perceptions of Risk

Current debates about the nature of risk in late modernity suggest that changing social structures and a weakening, or increasingly global mediation of social constraints associated with the old order, have given rise to a new set of risks and opportunities. Social inequalities continue to impact upon peoples lives but from within the contingencies of individualizing processes of ‘risk society’. Whilst it is acknowledged that there are differences between the production and perception of risks, there is a need for empirical evidence examining how risks are unequally distributed. The same study can provide illustration of how the solutions to social ills are often sought at an individual rather than a collective level through personal action. Drawing upon data from a three-year project, this paper explores young peoples perceptions of risk. It is argued that since young peoples experiences continue to be shaped by local social dimensions of class and gender, risk behaviour should continue to be analysed within these contexts.

Risky Bodies at Leisure: Young Women Negotiating Space and Place

This article explores constructions of risk and safety in the leisure lives of young women. Drawing upon qualitative data from two action research projects based in the north-east of England, we analyse the risk narratives of two groups of young women, one white and one South Asian, in order to ground theoretical perspectives on risk. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, we address the ways in which risk emotions, risk calculations and management strategies are perceived as embodied, temporal and spatially located, arguing that risk is also deeply embedded in social and cultural discourses around female ‘respectability’. Young women share some common risk perceptions and experiences, in particular linked to male violence, many choosing to inhabit inside ‘safe’ spaces for leisure. What is also clear is that taking a risk can be a fun and desirable aspect of leisurely activity, ‘risky’ behaviour providing a way for young women to negotiate and contest dominant discourses around feminine, cultural identities.

Through the wardrobe : women's relationships with their clothes

Relating to clothes is a fundamental experience in the lives of most Western women. Even when choice is fraught with ambivalence, clothing matters. From considerations about dressing for success, to worries about weight, through to investing particular articles of clothing with meaning bordering on the sacred, what we wear speaks volumes about personal identity - what is revealed, what is concealed, what is created. This book fills a gap in the existing literature on the ambivalence of fashion and dress by drawing on a wide range of womens experiences with their wardrobes and providing empirical data noticeably absent from other studies of women and dress. Navigating what is clearly a contested realm in feminist scholarship, contributors provide rich case studies of the reality of womens relationships with clothing. While on the surface concerns about fashion or dress may appear to reflect gendered patterns, in fact clothing may be used to challenge ascribed meanings about femininity.

Women, Leisure and Social Control

At first sight, the areas of violence and social control, on the one hand, and leisure on the other seem to occupy opposite ends of the continuum of freedom and extreme coercion. Closer examination through feminist analysis, however, reveals that the area which is portrayed by capitalist ideology as representing the ultimate in freedom from constraint, that is, leisure, is actually one of the areas where women’s behaviour is regulated most closely. The concern in this chapter is with the particular forms which this regulation takes, that is, with how social control is experienced by women in their daily lives. This entails an analysis not only of the constraints on opportunities for free time and access to leisure activities experienced at an individual level, but also of the structural context within which choices, decisions and negotiations are worked out.

Mammography screening: views from women and primary care physicians in Crete.

BackgroundBreast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women and a leading cause of death from cancer in women in Europe. Although breast cancer incidence is on the rise worldwide, breast cancer mortality over the past 25 years has been stable or decreasing in some countries and a fall in breast cancer mortality rates in most European countries in the 1990s was reported by several studies, in contrast, in Greece have not reported these favourable trends. In Greece, the age-standardised incidence and mortality rate for breast cancer per 100.000 in 2006 was 81,8 and 21,7 and although it is lower than most other countries in Europe, the fall in breast cancer mortality that observed has not been as great as in other European countries. There is no national strategy for screening in this country. This study reports on the use of mammography among middle-aged women in rural Crete and investigates barriers to mammography screening encountered by women and their primary care physicians.MethodsDesign: Semi-structured individual interviews. Setting and participants: Thirty women between 45–65 years of age, with a mean age of 54,6 years, and standard deviation 6,8 from rural areas of Crete and 28 qualified primary care physicians, with a mean age of 44,7 years and standard deviation 7,0 serving this rural population. Main outcome measure: Qualitative thematic analysis.ResultsMost women identified several reasons for not using mammography. These included poor knowledge of the benefits and indications for mammography screening, fear of pain during the procedure, fear of a serious diagnosis, embarrassment, stress while anticipating the results, cost and lack of physician recommendation. Physicians identified difficulties in scheduling an appointment as one reason women did not use mammography and both women and physicians identified distance from the screening site, transportation problems and the absence of symptoms as reasons for non-use.ConclusionWomen are inhibited from participating in mammography screening in rural Crete. The provision of more accessible screening services may improve this. However physician recommendation is important in overcoming womens inhibitions. Primary care physicians serving rural areas need to be aware of barriers preventing women from attending mammography screening and provide women with information and advice in a sensitive way so women can make informed decisions regarding breast caner screening.

On‐line leisure: Gender, and ICTs in the home

Abstract Research into office automation originally acted as a catalyst for research into gender perspectives on information technology. Whilst a fuller picture of womens use of ICTs is emerging, there has been little research on womens leisure use of ICTs, particularly within a domestic setting. Added to the way in which the leisure studies discipline has discovered gender as a variable, this is somewhat surprising. In this paper we argue that current debates on ‘virtual culture’ would be enriched by analysing the gender dimensions of the use of ICTs for leisure. In addressing personal agency we see women as active agents rather than passive victims of existing structures. The paper addresses negotiations around leisure and the use of technology in the home and how this illuminates the construction of gender identities. The ways in which work and leisure seep into one another are examined through a consideration of electronic mail and the World Wide Web. Although we conclude that womens leisure access...

Screening for breast cancer : medicalization, visualization and the embodied experience

Women’s perspectives on breast screening (mammography and breast awareness) were explored in interviews with midlife women sampled for diversity of background and health experience. Attending mammography screening was considered a social obligation despite women’s fears and experiences of discomfort. Women gave considerable legitimacy to mammography visualizations of the breast, and the expert interpretation of these. In comparison, women lacked confidence in breast awareness practices, directly comparing their sensory capabilities with those of the mammogram, although mammography screening did not substitute breast awareness in a straightforward way. The authors argue that reliance on visualizing technology may create a fragmented sense of the body, separating the at risk breast from embodied experience.