Matter out of place: visibility and sexualities in leisure spaces

Abstract

This paper draws on longitudinal ethnographic research conducted between 1981 and 1992 with white working class women (published as Formations of Class and Gender, Skeggs, 1997) and preliminary research begun in 1997 (with Les Moran and Carole Truman), later funded by the Economic and Social Research Council entitled Violence, Sexuality and Space, which compares the use of space by three different groups: gay men, lesbians and straight women in two different cities. Both these projects have Manchester's 'gay village' as a context, enabling exploration of the signi cance of homosexualized leisure space for understanding how identities become spatialized and how political claims are made and not made. The paper analyses the contrasts between a group of white working class women whose identity is based on dis-identi cation, dissimulation, mis-recognition and a desire for invisibility, and group of lesbians who form their identity through visibility, recognition and territorialization. The comparison between how different groups use leisure space begins an investigation into an empirical understanding of the relationship between leisure space, sexuality, identity and legitimation. The paper explores the consequences of these different processes for 'the politics of recognition'. It puts together a range of cross-disciplinary work, from feminist theory, political theory, cultural studies, cultural geography, sociology, leisure studies and queer theory. FrameworkAn understanding of entry and restrictions on space is absolutely central to understanding how and why certain places can and cannot be used for leisure (see Mowl and Towner, 1994;Deem, 1996a;Scraton and Watson, 1998). The paper builds upon the foundational work on women and leisure (Deem, 1986;Green et al., 1990) aimed at understanding how sexuality intersects with gender in speci c spaces, asking what are the political consequences of this gender/sexuality matrix. As Scraton and Watson (1998, p. 123) argue:The challenge for leisure studies is to complement its already multidisciplinary base by drawing on work that opens up the complexities of space, not merely in the recognition of 'new' lifestyles and the conspicuous consumption of leisure but also, as a site for the maintenance and reproduction of complex power relations.It also speaks to debates in lesbian/gay theory and queer theory which have begun to map out the signi cance of certain spaces to the development and maintenance of visible communities: such as Mapping Desire (Bell and Leisure Studies 18 (1999) 213-232 0261-4367

Women students’ perceptions of crime and safety: negotiating fear and risk in an English post-industrial landscape

“…Firstly, fear is viewed as an 'inborn quality of women' (Koskela, 1999: 112) expressed in a similar, uniform way. Secondly, other identity positions are often ignored and gender is viewed as the primary factor shaping these experiences (Scraton and Watson, 1998;Skeggs, 1999;Pain, 2001). Some writers have challenged the notion of the fearful woman (Koskela, 1997;Gilchrist et al 1998;Starkweather, 2007).…”

“…Women's fear differs both qualitatively and quantitatively from men's (Pain, 1991) and includes a fear of sexual violence which men in general do not experience (Valentine, 1992). Furthermore, subtler male behaviours such as harassment and the appropriation of space, also negate women's relationship with public space (Kelly, 1987;Kelly and Radford, 1996;Stanko, 1996;Skeggs, 1999). However, there is a danger that work in this field essentialises gendered fear (Starkweather, 2007).…”

“…It is underpinned by a recognition of the salience of gender 1 in shaping women's experiences of space, fear and safety. These themes have been covered extensively in feminist literature and research which focuses on how gender structures, sexual violence, harassment, ideology and discourses of victimisation perpetuate fears and render public space differential and problematic for women (Gordon et al 1980;Riger and Gordon, 1981;McDowell, 1983;Davidoff and Hall, 1987;Kelly, 1987;Stanko, 1987;Painter, 1992;Ruddick, 1996;Kelly and Radford, 1996;Skeggs, 1999;Bondi, 1998;Pain, 2001). However, one cannot assume that all women experience gender in the same way and recognising 'difference' (Maynard, 1994(Maynard, , 2002 amongst women is central to understanding how gender interlocks with other identities to produce diverse gender experiences.…”

Navigating the field : an examination of rhetorical spaces in the Journal of sex research.

“…Consider, for example, how zoning laws are invoked to ensure that sex-related businesses such as strip clubs and adult bookstores are kept at a distance from middle-and upper-class schools and neighborhoods because they are perceived as contributing to "neighborhood deterioration" (Hubbard, Matthews, Scoular, and Augustin, 2008); how states' often appeal to rhetorics of territorial "invasion" to oppose same-sex marriage (Webster, Chapman, and Leib, 2010); how women's movement in public spaces is constrained by sexual threats (Skeggs, 1999); issues of gay gentrification and ghettoization (Knopp, 2007); how governments change landscapes to thwart "indecent" activities (Kelly & Munoz-Laboy, 2005); and how sexuality is constructed around various binaries and boundaries -public vs. private. These spatial practices illustrate how spatiality functions as a form of social control as well as rhetorical devices that create and transmit cultural discourses that structure power relations and enforce sexual social control.…”

“…As a discourse, the safe haven construct draws on rhetorics of "safety" and "community," but differently than the rhetoric of space has been used in heteronormative discourses in offline spaces. Rhetorics of safe space often, though not exclusively, support straight-privilege, for example, by creating and assigning blame for sexual victimization when marginalized and exploited others move out of spaces designated as "safe" (Skeggs, 1999). In the context of the sexological discourse I examined for this chapter, however, rhetorics of safe cyberspace presented the Internet as safe haven from difficulties associated with constructing sexual identities and desires.…”