Another vital aspect of understanding these Sofian women‘s leisure meanings is the analysis of constraints on women‘s leisure. This section presents the findings about women‘s perceptions about the different kinds of constraints they face in their daily lives. The negotiated constraints theme consists of four sub-themes: temporal constraints, economic constraints, lack of opportunities and the ‗ethic of care‘ derived from the data.
Firstly, women were asked to state their occupation and how many hours they work per week. Table 21 shows the approximate time women spend in paid work in their respective occupations. The analysis and interpretation of these answers, along with some women‘s conceptualisation of leisure, resulted in the conclusion that most of these Sofian women experienced temporal constraints on leisure. Furthermore, some women claimed economic constraints and, surprisingly, lack of opportunities was not mentioned at all. On the contrary, most women seem to believe that there are more opportunities for leisure (mostly in terms of access to sport facilities) compared to the past. The ‗ethic of care‘ is also seen to constrain leisure in the form of perpetuation of the ideology of femilism, and the caregiving role of women. The different constraints are examined further in this sub-section.
Table 21: Women's occupation and time spend in paid work Pseudonym
of
interviewees
Occupation (as described by participant)
Hours spend in paid work (per week)
Paula I work as an office manager and, I do all kinds of
administrative work.
40 h per week. The standard in Bulgaria, everyone works at least 40 h per week.
Maria I am a solicitor and a legal advisor for a firm that organises gambling games and lotteries.
More then 40, maybe even 50/55 per week. I say at least two more hours after the official working hours, which is a lot.
Victoria Now I’m a project management assistant
Officially, I work 8 h per day. From 9 am till 6 pm, but often I stay after hours. The overtime is not paid…
176 Nikol I am sales expert at an
electricity providing company
Normally, I work 40 hours. The usual working hours are from 9 am till 5 pm. Often, I stay after 5 pm though… but normally they don’t pay overtime.
Sasha I work as a PR and advertisement consultant, in a company that
organises music event.
Normally, I work 40 hours per week, and I have overtime when there is an event going on or we’re organising it. I work Saturday and Sunday
sometimes and that is not paid.
Kalina I work as an order manager in HP.
40 per week. And sometimes I do the holiday shifts because we work with other international
companies and it is inevitable, sometimes we have to work at Christmas or Easter and so on.
Savina I am an administrator for a construction firm that deals with projects within the energey sector.
I normally work 40 hours per week. I stay after work from time to time. If there is a deadline that needs to be met, I have to stay after hours.
That depends, if we have an event, up to 55 hours per week. I don’t really know but more than the standard 40 hours for sure. That time is not paid, unfortunately. If I work Saturday or Sunday then these hours are paid.
Tanya I work in the sphere of public relations. I’m an accounts manager.
Minimum 40 hours per week, sometimes I work more than that. That depends to a great extent on the type of work that has to be done, and the way it’s organised.
Daniela I’m an attorney-at-law. More than 40 for sure.
Anna Now I’m a PR expert for Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia in a cosmetics company.
40 +, but not too much anymore.
Maya I’m an architect. Officially 40 hours per week. Unofficially 50-60 hours per week. This is because we’re a small team and the organisation within the firm is not good.
Angelia I work in the HR
department of a company. I mainly do administrative work
40 h per week. I rarely work overtime, because it is not paid and I as soon as it get 6 pm, I’m off.
Sveltana I work as a media analyst in a foreign-owned company.
According to the contract 40 hours per week, but surely more than that. It’s not a habit of mine to stay after work every day, but it happens from time to time.
Ivanka I’m an investigating police officer
Officially 40 hours per week. However, we’re also working additional shifts during the week or during the weekends. These shifts can last maximum of 24 hours, and they are paid in addition to our salary.
An officer can work a couple of these per month.
Source: Author‘s work
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Almost all interviewees, regardless of their occupation, claimed to commit more than 40 hours per week to paid work, with some women claiming up to 60 hours per week. Most women, with the exception of Angelia, often stayed after hours, even though their employers did not pay overtime. Some women worked even during the weekend, which was usually unpaid too. Another exception was Ivanka, whose profession allowed additional shifts that were paid. Judging from the references in Table 21, it is possible to claim that these Sofian women were disadvantaged with regards to time for leisure due to personal commitment to their employment. In fact, some women use work to define their leisure in terms of unobligated left-over time, for example:
Ivanka: … My leisure is the time I‘m not working. I mean, besides the extra shifts, from Monday to Friday from 5.30 pm onwards and in the weekends.
Daniela, Nikol and Maria whose leisure is structured and influenced by their paid work expressed similar views:
Daniela: … Well, I‘ve got two days off work per week, which I consider leisure and after work during the week as well…. even though during the week, time after work is rarely free, you know…
Nikol: … My leisure is very structured. I know what I‘m going to do every day.
I go to work, than after work I need to get groceries, have dinner, maybe browse social media before bed and that‘s it… the same thing the next day.
Maria: … For me that‘s all the time I‘m off work. I don‘t have much leisure time, though… I‘m too busy at work sometimes…
Clearly, the temporal constraints appeared to be a major factor that influenced meanings of leisure in terms of leisure conceptualisation, and developing a pattern for structured leisure time. What is more, some women though that it was impossible to have more leisure when in full-time employment:
Paula:… If I want to have more leisure time… well, nowadays that is not possible… to have more leisure time, in my view… If I want more leisure, I would have to change my job. But even then, I don‘t think that would help because the new job will probably take up even more time than the present one…
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It would appear that the longer hours in the workplace have a negative impact on other aspects of full-time employed women‘s lives, regardless of their life situation or occupation.
For some women, the additional work hours meant that their leisure was quite structured and for others it influenced the allocation of time for unpaid work (household and child-care responsibilities) within their time for leisure. Additionally, the notion of longer hours in the workplace appeared to affect some women‘s perception of employment as constraining and even oppressive.
Furthermore, only one woman reported economic constraints as barriers to leisure engagement and participation, even though her profession as a police investigator allowed additional income through extra shifts. This claim appeared unusual as a lack of leisure due to time limitations would have been more logical constraint. Still Ivanka stated:
Ivanka:…Nowadays, money is the thing that matters the most in relation to leisure, I reckon. If I earned more money, in the first place I would do more interesting things in my leisure. For example, I finish work at 5.30 pm; I could go to Vitosha to snowboard at 6 pm, just in time for the evening sessions. I could go every night if I wanted to.
In contrast to Ivanka, who appeared unsatisfied with her salary, Daniela appeared content with it and spent a lot on leisure:
Daniela:…Most of my money go to leisure pursuits and experiences. I tend to spend a lot of money for leisure…I like earning my own money and spending it as I wish. So, at this point I‘m happy with what I do.
Although economic constraints are generally cited as a barrier to participation because of women‘s lack of economic power and lower earnings compared to men, only one participant stated money as a constraining factor. Moreover, that person can be considered as a member of a higher level occupation, which assumes a higher wage too.
Similarly, lack of opportunities or facilities were not reported as constraining leisure, on the contrary, in Savina‘s opinion, there are plenty of opportunities for leisure and sport in particular:
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Savina:… We play sports and engage in sport activities much more than them [our parents]. I‘m not sure if it‘s going to stay that way, but there are much more opportunities for us to get into sports that there used to be. Now there are many more opportunities to get into sport in the city and not just to train and become a professional athlete but for amateurs too. I remember when I was younger, I used to practise volleyball and it was always about being a professional athlete, now I can play just for the sake of playing. I think that was the case with most people at the time, you either train or become a professional athlete or you don‘t train at all. Now, there are a lot of leisure centres that are available for the sport enthusiasts and there is demand for facilities too. All classes are full… dancing, or yoga or volleyball or badminton or whatever. These are all working people too...
Savina believed that there was an increase in leisure opportunities and new sport facilities were available for people in full-time employment as opposed to the early years of the
‗transition‘ (the early post-totalitarian years). Her view being that in the past sport activities were only practices as a profession and not as a hobby or leisure activity because of lack of facilities and opportunities.
Furthermore, along with these ‗objective‘ constraints (e.g., money, time and facilities) the
‗ethic of care‘ was identified as a ‗subjective/gender‘ constraint. Evidence of the ‗ethic of care‘ can also be found in the way the some participants conceptualised their leisure and the way some viewed it in simply as the absence of work, housework and childbearing responsibilities. For example, Paula‘s leisure (as a single mother in full-time employment) is constrained by the care for her child and that is how she defines leisure:
Paula: …For me leisure is doing what I want, without having to worry about other people. I mean, not being dependent on anybody in this period of time.
Not caring about the circumstances, it‘s my time.
As the primary caregiver in her family, her access to time on her own is limited but she did not felt unentitled, on the contrary she declared it – ‗it‘s my time‘. In addition to her view of her leisure is constrained by paid work and care for her child, Paula expressed anger about women‘s role and position in society as well:
Paula:… Primary role? All of her roles are primary in my view? It‘s not like in the past. Women‘s role was cooking and cleaning, doing the laundry and
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serving. I mean, all her roles are primary nowadays. Going to work, raising the children… all of these things are primary. A woman has to prioritise sometimes but I don't think there is a main role. I don‘t think we‘re still a patriarchal society.
StefanI: What do you mean by that?
Paula:… I mean, women are heads of the family nowadays. We do all the work, not men.
Paula‘s case is an interesting example, because her family commitment reifies her primary role as a mother/caregiver. However, the ‗ethic of care‘ is generally associated with lack of entitlement to leisure, which is not present in this case. On the contrary, it can be argued that Paula‘s ‗we do all the work‘ attitude comes from a place of self-assertion, rather than constraint. In conclusion, this attitude can be interpreted as an attempt to resist the ideology of femilism. This aspect is further considered in section 6.2.6 Leisure as resistance.