Performing female masculinities and negotiating femininities: challenging gender hegemonies in Swedish forestry through women’s networks

Abstract

This paper addresses the discursive and spatial constructions of female masculinities and femininities in separate networks for women forest owners in Sweden. Based on qualitative research conducted with members of six such networks, I explored the spatial negotiations and performances of femininities and female masculinities in relation to hegemonic forestry masculinities. I found that the separate spaces provided by the networks enabled the women to find strategies by which to navigate the spatial relations permeated by hegemonic forestry masculinity, which empowered them to resist the subordinate position of hegemonic femininity and to ‘claim space’. The women claimed this space by asserting alternative femininities and performing embodied female masculinities conceptualized as ‘the tough forest owner’ and the ‘entrepreneurial forest owner’ to gain access to both symbolic and material spaces, including the category of ‘the forest owner’. The performances of female masculinities were largely conducted from other positions of privilege, such as class and heterosexuality, which included performances of hegemonic femininity. Therefore, these performances of female masculinities generated status rather than stigmatisation. Furthermore, the analysis showed how these masculinities and femininities were negotiated and performed in relation to forestry spatiality as well as rurality and urbanity. I argue that the spatial performances of alternative femininities and female masculinities challenge hegemonic masculinities in a way that disrupts the male exclusivity of the category of ‘the forest owner’, although the performances of female masculinities also reinforce the superior position of masculinities in relation to femininities.