Women and their Right to Rest and to Exist
Women resting or enjoying their leisure time is a rare sight to the eyes. Even today, a woman enjoying her leisure time is considered someone who avoids or neglects her responsibilities. In this article, we will try to portray “Women and Leisure” as a way to fight age discrimination, moral policing, and prejudice towards a particular unit of society.
Instagram pages such as “Basanti: Women at Leisure” is providing us with the daily dose of dopamine by just looking at women enjoying simple tasks of painting their nails, laying by the seashore enjoying the waves, and taking a break at work to read a newspaper. Archives like these represent the beauty of just being while it also highlights how oppression made societies neglect the basic right and desire of women to rest. Capturing women while they enjoy themselves is now seen as a way to capture their desire for freedom, their desire to rest, and not worry about fulfilling their duties as wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters even for a moment. In fact, women at the bottom of the ladder of resource allocation suffer the most. They spend their time making money and taking care of their households in order to feed their families, making their right to rest or enjoy leisure a luxury.
Nowadays, the meaning of leisure is different for women across the ladder of resource allocation compared to those below it who often spend their time visiting the fairs and temples or merely laying under the sun, while those at the top of the ladder enjoy their time at Zumba classes, socializing, attending parties, etc. For both types, indulging in leisure is a self-care activity and it represents an opportunity to be seen as an individual that is separate from the usual duties. On the one hand, men are often found enjoying their time resting outside the industries, at cafes, in parks, or on couches, as a reward for their visible hard work and labor. On the other hand, female labor, both within the household and beyond, remained unrecognized, making them risk their chance to secure some time for themselves and resulting in time-poor workers. To explain more, a housemaker’s 8-9 hours of labor often go overlooked since this unpaid labor is perceived as the expected duties of a “good” wife, mother, and daughter. Similarly, to which an earning woman will be required to come back from work and pick up on the household chores, while her husband rests after a long day.
Moreover, spaces for leisure pose an obstacle for women; public places come with the baggage of inhospitable environments that are filled with social, cultural, and prejudicial hurdles. Safe spaces for leisure are also seen as an issue for society as it would allow and motivate more women to slip away from their households since it offers them an escape from their responsibilities. This approach restricts women’s mobility and robs them of the right to socialize and enjoy leisure in the public sphere. The desire of society to control women’s bodies has left public places unsafe for them to exercise this right in order to embrace the luxury of being at rest. Unfortunately, while men enjoyed their freedom of occupying space, women are often looked down on for their aspiration to do the same.
Let us dive into history and see if women ever had the luxury to loiter around the streets or to spend time resting.
Women at Leisure: Socio-Cultural Leisure Spaces for Women in the 1920s Soviet Union
Previous findings show that gender segregation played a vital role when it comes to leisure time. According to the Soviet economist Strumilin, men in the early 1920s had a rest time of 140 hours per month, followed by homemakers 131 hours per month. In contrast, working women had only 93 hours of rest time per month. Women in Soviet Russia spent significantly more time on leisure activities like going to churches, singing, dancing, and more. However, in the late 1920s, the government was interested in involving women in the production industry. Thus, women's liberation from the family atmosphere was caused by an intention to make them work.
After Civil War ended, women were assigned temporarily to jobs that were initially taken by men. Yet, a double load was on women who were married and were forced to work overtime and take care of households at the same time. Moreover, the Bolsheviks’ new leisure policy fought against the traditional ways of leisure. The new Soviet ideologies also criticized worthless leisure activities - like purposeless walking, meaningless chattering, or socializing. Furthermore, most traditional or classic leisure activities that include dancing, walking, going to church, shopping, and getting cosmetics were considered by the Soviet Union deviant in the sense that it will become an obstacle to nurturing a real Soviet worker. Therefore, they encouraged women to take up male leisure activities instead. Only then, women were motivated to learn science and law as a leisure activity, which will eventually make them more skilled and resourceful. Afterward, the government tried to regulate, quite severely, the emancipation of Soviet women, who had to keep the balance between conventional patriarchal values, revolutionary ideas, and everyday routine, which in theory, granted the right to leisure, but gave no time, no money, and no freedom in reality.
Are women free to exist? Let us read about 21st-century Afghanistan and women under Taliban rule.
Women Under Taliban Rule in Afghanistan: Fighting for Basic Rights in the 21st Century
Parks are now the newest spots where women are not welcome in 21st-century Afghanistan. Not only are they banned from playing sports, writing, presenting news, or getting an education but also from visiting Parks. Unfortunately, for women under the Taliban regime, spending time at a park is a luxury. In recent times, women’s rights are already under attack in Afghanistan. For instance, although there is no official ban on sports, women specifically are prohibited from playing sports. They are not allowed to bathe in public or take swimming exercises. Women in the new Afghanistan are “advised” to not travel alone and must have male company at all times. They must follow a strict dress code and must cover their heads and wear Hijab as part of the compulsory policies. Despite the initial promise made by the Taliban that women will be free to exercise their rights based on Sharia law, women and girls are systematically excluded from public life. No female in Afghanistan is allowed to work or get an education past sixth grade. In brief, women under Taliban rule are stripped of their basic rights of existing as equal beings. The UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous, declared “Decades of progress on gender equality and women’s rights have been wiped out in mere months. We must continue to act together, united in our insistence on guarantees of respect for the full spectrum of women’s rights”.
These circumstances bring us to question the reason why women wanting to take space is such a big issue for some societies. Why does the sight of women simply being so strikingly dangerous? Is it a threat to society when women exercise their rights? Women are now ready to protest against the violation of their rights while refusing to compromise. On top of that, both labor and leisure are terms that should no longer be only associated with masculinity. Additionally, leisure is not only limited to learning science, and going to clubs, it includes also dancing in the rain, chatting in front of markets, combing hair, and climbing trees. In this new era, women are ready to take up space and coin new meanings to freedom and power, often challenging caste patriarchies. The rebellious women who challenge these norms are mesmerizing to watch being at rest.
References:
In focus: Women in Afghanistan one year after the Taliban takeover | UN Women – Headquarters. (2022, August 15). UN Women – Headquarters. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/in-focus/2022/08/in-focus-women-in-afghanistan-one-year-after-the-taliban-takeover
Singh, D. (2021, March 26). The Right to rest: Women at leisure. The India Forum. https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/right-rest-through-women-leisure
Instagram.(n.d.). https://www.instagram.com/women_at_leisure/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
Instagram.(n.d.-b). https://www.instagram.com/voadeewa/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
About the author:
Prerna Jha, a distinguished 23-year-old alumna of Journalism, presently serves as a political analyst. Apart from her writing endeavors, she diligently devotes her time to professional commitments and cultivates a collection of literary works for future perusal.
