What gender does to tourism (and vice versa). Introduction

Abstract

The theme chosen for this issue of Mondes du tourisme is scientifically and symbolically important. It aims to examine tourism, in all its forms, from a variety of disciplinary approaches (in the social sciences and management sciences), in the light of gender issues. Questioning social relations of domination through the prism of gender relations is a crucial issue (and not only when studying tourism, of course). It is also a complex subject. It is a question of revealing the social mechanisms of societies' norms by showing the other side of the coin, where patriarchy often remains an unthought in the mode of "it goes without saying". The aim is, therefore, to characterise the historical, social, spatial, and economic logics that make it possible to negotiate, transgress, or even overturn social norms that are often based on processes of male domination. Tourism is one of those social practices which, depending on the configurations and contexts, undoubtedly allow for the spontaneous questioning of the social behaviours that are consciously and unconsciously adapted and subjected, under the guise of evidence and doxa, to dominant social norms. The articles in this dossier insist on the persistence of inequalities and the permanence of social roles assigned to women and men. Studying gender mechanisms in tourism, therefore, takes into account the social processes of production, legitimisation, transgression, or even contestation of hierarchical sexed differences between women and men in the dynamics of practices and representations specific to tourism. The words and discourses of tourism, the images of tourist destinations, the professional uses within tourist economic systems, and the practices and gestures of tourists themselves are thus potentially at the heart of social mechanisms of gender. These mechanisms work all the better because they are unthought and invisible to the women and men involved in tourism interactions. 2Gender studies is a multidisciplinary field of research that studies socially and culturally constructed relations, not only between the sexes, but also within groups (relations between women, between men, of different sexual affiliations, but also class What gender does to tourism (and vice versa). Introduction Mondes du Tourisme, 23 | 2023