158 research outputs found
Learning to deal with freedom and restraints:Elderly womenâs experiences of their husbands visiting a Menâs Shed
This article explores the effects of activities in Menâs Sheds on elderly women. Specifically, it investigates the opportunities that are made available for women when their husband/partner becomes active in the Menâs Shed movement; focussing on âempowermentâ, âgender identityâ and âwell-beingâ. Five focus group interviews and eight individual interviews with elderly women were conducted and subsequently analysed through a content analysis, guided by the concepts of âempowermentâ, âgender-as-performativeâ and âwell-beingâ. The result indicates that the notions of âself-fulfilmentâ and âself-sacrificeâ are central to understanding how menâs participation in Menâs Sheds has affected elderly womenâs empowerment, gender identities, and well-being. When men visit Sheds, it empowers women and offers them a sense of freedom and independence due to the women feeling less concern for their partners and a concomitantly eased bad conscience for leaving the men home alone with nothing to do when the women leave the household to pursue their own activities. Simultaneously, âSheddingâ provides new avenues for women to reproduce traditional feminine gender roles where they are primarily responsible for the socio-emotional work within their marriage. This was demonstrated by the womenâs extensive engagement by which they, practically and emotionally, prioritised their husbands/partners and their new Shedding experiences
Conceptualising feminist resistance in the postfeminist terrain
PurposeIn this paper, women entrepreneurs are seen as leaders and women leaders as entrepreneurial, making both groups an easy target of postfeminist expectations, governed by calls to embody the entrepreneurial self. Acknowledging that the entrepreneurial self has its roots in the universal, rational and autonomous subject, which was shaped in a male form during the Enlightenment, the purpose of this study is to conceptualise feminist resistance as a process through which the autonomous subject can be de-stabilised.Design/methodology/approachEmpirically, this study draws on an extensive research project on womenâs rural entrepreneurship that includes 32 in-depth interviews with women entrepreneurs in rural Sweden. This study interpreted expressions of resistance from the women by using an analytical framework the authors developed based on Jonna Bornemarkâs philosophical treatise.FindingsFeminist resistance unfolds as an interactive and iterative learning process where the subject recognises their voice, strengthens their voice and beliefs in a relational process and finally sees themselves as a fully fledged actor who finds ways to overcome obstacles that get in their way. Conceptualising resistance as a learning process stands in sharp contrast to the idea of resistance as enacted by the autonomous self.Research limitations/implicationsThis study helps researchers to understand that what they may have seen as a sign of weakness among women, is instead a sign of strength: it is a first step in learning resistance that may help women create a life different from that prescribed by the postfeminist discourse. In this way, researchers can avoid reproducing women as âweak and inadequateâ.Originality/valueThrough the re-writing of feminist resistance, the masculine entrepreneurship discourse including the notion of the autonomous self is challenged, and a counternarrative to the postfeminist entrepreneurial woman is developed. Theorising resistance as a learning practice enables a more transforming research agenda, making it possible to see women as resisting postfeminist expectations of endless competition with themselves and others
Sisters doing it for themselves?:A Postfeminist critique of Entrepreneurship
Within this paper, we critically analyse the intertwined discourses of neo- liberalism, entrepreneurship and postfeminism. Given its foundations upon autonomy, individualism and self-responsibility, entrepreneurship has been positioned as central to the contemporary neo-liberal turn with its focus upon developing an enterprising self in a context of choice and possibility. This echoes the postfeminist agenda where women, emancipated through access to education, employment and positive cultural representations of liberated, economically independent actors, are being encouraged to create new ventures as independent business women. We critique the notion that entrepreneurship is a natural conduit for the postfeminist women to exploit the opportunities offered by encroaching neo-liberalism. Using policy discourses from two contrasting advanced economies, Sweden and the UK, aimed at encouraging women into enterprise, we illustrate how the poststructuralist message is articulated through an aspirational rhetoric of opportunity whilst reproducing gender inequalities
How the Menâs Shed idea travels to Scandinavia
Australia has around 1,000 Menâs Sheds â informal community based workshops offering men beyond paid work somewhere to go, something to do and someone to talk to. They have proven to be of great benefit for older menâs learning, health and wellbeing, social integration, and for developing a positive male identity focusing on community responsibility and care. A Menâs Shed is typically selforganized and âbottom-upâ, which is also a key success factor, since it provides participants with a sense of ownership and empowerment. Menâs Sheds are now spreading rapidly internationally, but the uptake of the idea varies with the local and national context, and so too may the consequences. Our paper describes how the Menâs Shed travelled to Denmark, a country with considerably more âsocial engineeringâ than in Australia, where Sheds were opened in 2015, via a âtop-downâ initiative sponsored by the Danish Ministry of Health. Using data from the study of the web pages of the Danish âShedâ organizations, from interviews with the central organizer, and from visits and interviews with participants and local organizers at two Danish Menâs sheds, we describe how the idea of the Menâs Shed on the Australian model was interpreted and translated at central and local levels. Preliminary data indicate that similar positive benefits as exist in Australia may result, provided that local ownership is emphasized
Timeout : The Role of Family-Friendly Policies in Business Start-Up Among Mothers
This article explores why an increasing number of Swedish mothers are becoming entrepreneurs; this choice appears counterintuitive given the prevailing social welfare system prioritizes the rights of employed women. Using an interpretative stance, we analyzed the life stories of 18 Swedish mothers who created new ventures while caring for young children. The value of the time afforded by parental leave policies was identified as vital to the business creation process. Hence, we argue that time is a critical entrepreneurship-relevant resource; this is illustrated by the positive effect of the Swedish welfare system upon entrepreneurship entry and the timing of this decision
Motivation in adult education: a problem solver or a euphemism for direction and control?
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