Strong, active women: (Re)doing rural femininity through equestrian sport and leisure

Abstract

Horse-riding is a popular leisure activity within rural Britain. Straddling two masculinised social contexts -rural, land-based society and sport/physical recreation -horse-riding is a feminised, yet mixed-sex, milieu. This article presents data from an ethnography of the social world of horse-riding to consider how women within this context do and redo gender in ways that may begin to challenge ideas about what women are and are capable of, within rural and sporting contexts.Equestrianism is revealing about elements of rural life, particularly the role of women and women's leisure. Women's active leisure in the countryside has been rendered largely invisible for decades, yet women's sport/physical recreation forms an important part of rural leisure worlds. This study of women and horse-riding offers examples of how feminine identities help shape the rural leisure landscape in ways that begin to redefine gender relations and gender identities within the British countryside in small, yet potentially significant, ways.

Legitimizing leisure experiences as emotional work: A post‐humanist approach to gendered equine encounters

“…This is still evident in today's society, where horses are used for the Cavalry Guards, mounted police forces and farming/ranching, which are mostly professions that are considered to be dominated by men. However, Dashper (, p. 351) notes the shift in humans using horses in ‘agriculture, warfare, and transport’ to being ‘predominantly a partner in human sport and leisure’.…”

“…As part of this shift away from work towards leisure pursuits, the human–equine relationship has also changed with an inclusion of more women, who have increasingly become involved with horses through recreation, riding as a sport or hobby. This has signified a ‘feminisation of horse riding and the horse industry’ (Dashper, , p. 351). A British Horse Society (BHS, ) survey supports this argument, suggesting that 73 per cent of riders within the UK are women, which demonstrates a shift in gender relations with horses.…”

“…It also helps to develop self‐esteem and confidence (Traeen & Wang, ). As Dashper (, p. 361) argues, ‘Equestrianism offers women many opportunities to redo feminine gender roles in small ways that open up feminine identities that are active, physically capable, and knowledgeable.’ Within her analysis of the psychology of women and horses, Toth () notes that women and girls enjoy the power and speed of horses; however, they also enjoy the closeness of physical and emotional contact with a horse and tend to seek an intense one‐to‐one relationship as a friend and confidant. She mentions that boys also ride, but it is girls who spend hours grooming and pampering horses, illustrating one of the fundamental gender contrasts between men and horses and women and horses.…”

“…This externalizing of the internal can be seen as political, especially when examining

essentialising discourses that position women's subjectivities as ‘naturally’ more emotional than men (more caring and less rational) and opens up questions about how emotion is gendered through the embodied performance (doing) of self–other relations in everyday contexts. (Fullagar & Pavlidis, , p. 8)

Dashper () also acknowledges that caring and nurturing aspects of horse welfare are usually performed by women. Despite the many challenges to conventional gender roles and binary identities by equestrianism, she argues that women tend to be positioned as ‘natural carers’, which is undervalued in opposition to men's so‐called ‘rational expertise’ (Dashper, ).…”

“…This research draws together post‐disciplinary concepts related to gender identity and performance (Fullagar & Pavlidis, ), leisure as labour (Rojek, ) and human–animal emotional bonds (Dashper, ). Theoretical frameworks have been adopted and adapted to intersect post‐humanism (Wolfe, ) from feminist perspectives (Haraway, ) with critical animal studies (Adams & Donovan, ) in the contexts of emotional recreation (Danby & Hannam, ).…”