Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Plate 2.1:
Disneyland, California, is a
popular family setting for tourism and
recreation. Personal security is a
hallmark of its atmosphere.
basis and public access to land more widely. Some of the complex arguments associated
with these new approaches to making recreational access to land more widely available
relate to health goals, for promoting exercise, reflected in the growth of footpaths and
walking. For example, as Mather (2003) suggests, it is estimated that in the 1990s, 300
million walks a year took place in the Scottish countryside (which generated £300 million
and supported 20,000 full-time equivalent jobs). Even so, Mather (2003) suggests that the
opening of land for recreation will not lead to massive increase in recreational activity.
GENDER AND SOCIAL CONSTRAINTS
The influence of gender on recreation remains a powerful factor influencing participation,
a feature consistently emphasised in national surveys of recreational demand. As Argyle
(1996) argues,
there is an influential theory about this topic, due to a number of feminist
writers, that women have very little or no leisure, because of the demands
of domestic work and the barriers due to husbands who want them at
home…[and] that leisure is a concept which applies to men, if it is
regarded as a reaction to or contrast with paid work.
(Argyle 1996:44; see also Deem 1986)
Thus women with children appear to have less time for recreation, while those in full-
and part-time employment have less time available than their male counterparts (see
Argyle 1996 for more discussion of this topic). These general statements find a high
degree of support within the recreational literature, with gender differences in part
explained by the male free time occurring in larger blocks and in prime time (e.g.
evenings and weekends) (Pigram 1983). Even so, studies by Talbot (1979) explore this
