‘I never promised you a rose garden’: gender, leisure and home-making

Abstract

This paper explores the importance of contemporary gardens as leisure sites and argues that leisure in general, and the garden in particular, play an important role in the process of homemaking. We also consider how the contemporary garden reflects wider social relations by examining how gender relations imbue gardens and gardening. The gendered meanings of gardens and the garden as a place where gender power relations are played out, are highly significant in the social construction of ‘home’. Using primary research data, the paper looks at what it is about the domestic garden that is important to both men and women, and how it contributes to homemaking. The findings show that there are conflicting uses and meanings of gardens which help to reveal the changing nature of gender relations in late modernity.