‘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. ‘Women's 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.