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

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Gendered ideologies
• singlehood
• women’s leisure
• third wave feminism
• creative analytic practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janet K. L. McKeown

Janet K. L. McKeown is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Her research focuses on examining the intersections between women's intimate and personal relationships and leisure.

Diana C. Parry

Diana C. Parry is a Professor in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo. Utilizing a feminist lens, Diana's research explores the personal and political links between women's leisure and women's health, broadly defined. Diana's research privileges women's standpoints and aims to create social change and enact social justice by challenging the medical model of scholarship.