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Learning to deal with freedom and restraints: Elderly women’s experiences of their husbands visiting a Men’s Shed
Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, HLK, Lifelong learning/Encell.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2045-7716
Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, HLK, Lifelong learning/Encell.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9367-7472
2019 (English)In: Australian Journal of Adult Learning, ISSN 1443-1394, Vol. 59, no 1, p. 76-93Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This article explores the effects of activities in Men’s Sheds on elderly women. Specifically, it investigates the opportunities that are made available for women when their husband/partner becomes active in the Men’s Shed movement; focussing on ‘empowerment’, ‘gender identity’ and ‘well-being’. 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 ‘empowerment’, ‘gender-as-performative’ and ‘well-being’. The result indicates that the notions of ‘self-fulfilment’ and ‘self-sacrifice’ are central to understanding how men’s participation in Men’s Sheds has affected elderly women’s 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, ‘Shedding’ 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 women’s extensive engagement by which they, practically and emotionally, prioritised their husbands/partners and their new Shedding experiences.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Adult Learning Australia Inc. , 2019. Vol. 59, no 1, p. 76-93
Keywords [en]
empowerment, elderly women, external well-being, internal well-being, gender roles, gender identity, Men’s Shed
National Category
Gender Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-45123ISI: 000471601400005Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85070761205OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-45123DiVA, id: diva2:1331136
Available from: 2019-06-26 Created: 2019-06-26 Last updated: 2019-09-30Bibliographically approved

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Hedegaard, JoelAhl, Helene

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CiteExportLink to record
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