The subject of men and leisure has received scant attention in comparison to the growing literature about women and leisure. Examining men, masculinity and leisure provides insight into how leisure is gendered as well as how leisure can contribute to the quality of life for all individuals.
Leisure is often misunderstood. It has been defined as free time, unobligated time and time away from work. Leisure is used as a noun to mean activity such as playing or watching football, reading, woodworking or hunting. Leisure also is defined as a psychological experience of enjoyment, pleasure or satisfaction, which occurs within the context of time or activity. Further, leisure is an expression of identity and culture regarding what individuals or groups choose, or are socialised, to do in their unobligated time. Leisure can be gendered because some activities, such as team sports, fishing or drinking, are more often associated with boys and men than with women.
Traditionally the study of leisure has been about men’s leisure (Henderson et al. 1996). Some focus has been placed on men, masculinity and sports (McKay et al. 2000), but few efforts have examined leisure related to gender construction and reproduction. Although gender is an important organising principle of society, its influence on boys and men in leisure studies generally has been ignored. Using a gender lens to understand men’s leisure requires an analysis of social change related to hegemonic masculinity and men’s power over women.
Hegemonic masculinity disadvantages men in their leisure in several ways. For example, men’s life expectancy is shorter than women’s. This difference is usually the result of life-style rather than genetics (Sabo 1998). Unhealthy lifestyle practices associated with some men include drinking, risk-taking or failing to take care of physical and emotional health. Another disadvantage is to boys and men who do not fit the ideal image of masculinity—who are not competitive, tough, successful and heterosexual. They may face problems especially with the hypermasculinity associated with sports (Kimmel and Messner 1998; Messner 1992, 1998). The compulsory nature of sports for boys and men may also constrain opportunities for other leisure activities or constrain the quality of the sports experience for boys. Further, boys’ and men’s (leisure) participation in some activities such as violent video games and their consumption of pornographic movies and magazines contributes to the reproduction of particular notions of masculinity (Shaw 1999).
The analysis of men’s leisure as well as of male scholars doing this research is missing in the leisure literature. Many researchers have not thought about leisure in gendered terms, and some do not see a ‘problem’ surrounding men and leisure. Most men have more leisure time than most women (Schor 1991), but that apparent difference may or may not mean that men’s leisure is more meaningful. Some men may unconsciously believe that gender does not make any difference and discrimination should no longer exist. Without specific research, however, the value of leisure cannot be fully analysed for men, and the status quo will remain.
Researchers ought to ask what leisure would resemble if gender, including both femininity and masculinity, was moved to the centre of analysis. The gendered leisure opportunities and constraints of boys and men would be apparent. The contradiction between the way men are supposed to feel and the way many of them do feel in their daily lives (and leisure) would be evident (Brod and Kaufman 1994). They might try new activities and enjoy their free time more if the opportunities were compatible with their interests and not just with the desire to appear masculine.
Changes are occurring in choices surrounding leisure. New activities such as windsurfing, extreme skiing, snowboarding and skateboarding have evolved in opposition to dominant sporting cultures (e.g. soccer, rugby, American football) because they have fewer rules with less formal restrictions and exclusion policies (Wheaton 2000). These sports also combine the (feminine) aesthetic with (masculine) adventure and danger.
Men’s resistance to hegemonic masculinity through leisure needs examination. Leisure participation should be understood not only in factors that reduce or prevent participation (i.e. constraints from participation), but also as factors that cause some activities to become obligatory, and thus act as constraints into participation (Shaw 2001). Examining leisure for men might focus on men’s emotions and personal identity, men in groups, placing men’s experience in structural context, and examining power interactions with one another and with women.
Issues of social identity such as race/ethnic inequalities, social class, sexual orientation and disability status must also be considered since the experiences of leisure are anything but monolithic (McKay et al. 2000). Leisure is related to diverse social contexts and individual subjectivities. In other words, examining how a variety of men ‘do gender’ in relation to how they ‘do leisure’ will provide insights about leisure experiences among men as well as among women, the role of gender as a leisure enabler, the gendered nature of leisure constraints, and the need to examine hegemonic dimensions of leisure for both women and men.
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