The point I wish to stress is that it is crucial to make a distinction between 'Muslim woman' as a discursive category of 'representation' and Muslim women as embodied, situated, historical subjects with varying and diverse personal or collective biographies and social orientations. (Brah, 1996; p.131)

I stopped working when I got married. I did actually want to start work again but with my mother-in-law being very ill, she did need constant care. And at the time, I didn't mind. I just sort of fell into it.

Emma and Nasra both studied fashion at college and it was something that they wanted to develop in terms of design. Nasra however, did not actually finish her course because her father bought a shop for her to open her boutique in, and she left college to run it. The shop closed when Nasra got married. Nasra now has three children and is caring for her father-in-law, and consequently, returning to paid work is not something that she is thinking about for the immediate future (after her mother-in-law died, Nasra's father-in-law became ill and requires constant care). Arguably, her role as care giver to older family members and her responsibility as primary childcare giver and domestic organiser, is evidence of continuing gendered relations. Her husband has a knitwear business and though Nasra is still interested in clothing and design, she is not involved in the business. She and her husband have financial support from their families and although arguably, her own time for leisure, for work, or simply for herself, is not constrained by money, her opportunities are restricted as a result of her position in the family as the main care giver.

Emma has not had the same kind of financial backing available as Nasra, and does not have economic capital to draw on to develop her fashion interests. However, working full time and receiving family credit does give her the opportunity to buy fabric and build up her stock and try out new ideas. In contrast to Nasra, she has not had to give up pursuing her chosen interest due to gendered expectations around care giving and her role as a mother. Clearly, they have some similar interests that have influenced their experiences of paid work. However, Nasra has had access to economic capital that evidently, Emma has not benefited from. They both draw on sources of cultural capital, on a knowledge base that contributes to their experiences of working in fashion in different ways. Nasra for example, drew from her own identity and interests, as well as her location within the South Asian community, to gather ideas and customers.

Similarly, Emma has drawn from her own interests, friends, and a social network based around a local music and club scene. In addition, she has knowledge of, and access to, clothing markets in Camden (London), and has been able to develop an informal network of distribution. She is intending working full time on fashion design when she feels she has both the economic confidence and self confidence to give up her full time paid job. Since becoming a lone mother, Emma has always received family credit to supplement her income when she has been working full time, and has had periods where she was earning cash-in-hand on a part time basis and claimed income support. She feels that any decisions have to be made in relation to her responsibility as a parent.

I mean, I want the fashion thing to work out but I kind of think I'd have to go to London initially. But I can't just pack up and go. I'd have to have a job to start off with, and somewhere to live, I've got a responsibility to make sure things are okay for her (daughter).

Shakila also has a keen interest in fashion but her experience of working in the clothes trade is quite different to Emma's and Nasra. She did not study textiles and tailoring at school or college but was taught by her mother at home and what is also a hobby has been her major source of income at different times. She, like Emma, has no financial backing to invest in sewing, though Emma does have the financial security of owning a house. However, she does not feel in a position to borrow money at this stage. Shakila's experience of paid work is similar to Lisa's and Kelly's in that she has had short term jobs with no employees' rights and benefits, and in between working, she has to rely on income support. She reflects on her education and feels limited by what she achieved.

I'm not very educated. I just went to school and that's my limit...I didn't get many exams or anything but I'd started working more or less as soon as I'd finished school. We didn't stay at school because my mum and dad weren't educated either. You know, they didn't see a need for us to go to college and things like that.

Lisa and Kelly left school with very few formal qualifications and have struggled to find paid work that would make stopping benefits feasible. They have both faced difficulties over affordable childcare, and Lisa has had to take her daughter with her to evening cleaning jobs in the past.

Well, if you're expected there but you haven't got a baby-sitter for that evening, well I just had to take her with me. I mean if you ring up and say you can't do it or anything, well, then they just say 'sorry, end of job'. So you haven't exactly got a choice.

When Shakila started her job in Leeds she faced racist attitudes from white working class Leeds women who assumed she did not speak English because she wears hijab (Muslim headscarf).

When I first came here when I was married, I worked down on Mabgate, you know, in tailoring and stuff. When I went in they were all sort of talking, you know like you do at work, and then they like started whispering and talking around me but not to me and they thought I couldn't speak. Well when I spoke up, and I mean I've got quite a broad Yorkshire accent, well they were gob-smacked, and that soon shut them up!

Keira's job as an assistant in a petrol station means that she is constant contact with members of the public. She controls her responses to racist comments through a form of self policing in which she does not 'rise' to every incident.

I mean you can't think about it all the time, and anyway, it doesn't happen all the time. Most of the time it doesn't happen at all, but that's not the same as it not happening. Quite often I will ask people what their problem is, you know, not in a way that gets their back up. Most of the time, a lot of people don't even realise what they're saying....It's worse when it comes from someone you work with, because that's more permanent, you know, you're going to see them everyday.

I've worked places where a lot of blokes come on their own or in groups after work, and I mean you get hassle off them and stuff.

It has been noted elsewhere that city centre space is constructed via different meanings of work and leisure, and that men's leisure continues to constitute women's work (Scraton and Watson, 1998). This negative experience of paid work has a direct consequence for the mothers' leisure: Lisa is wary of using certain city centre leisure spaces during her leisure time. There are times therefore, when the overlaps between labour and leisure can lead to further constraints on the women's leisure as opposed to opportunities.

Kelly talks about her job with a security firm that she works for one to two nights a week, (in addition to any daytime work she has). She is often not interested in going into town for her own leisure and quite clearly regards the city centre as a place of work.

I don't really go into town, I'm not that interested you know because I've always worked in bars and night-clubs and stuff. I mean I will go to meet my friends for birthdays and dos and things, but I wouldn't go just for something to do, or just to have a drink.

Once at work however, there are some aspects of working on the door at large venues, that are less work centred and give Kelly the opportunity to enjoy herself. She goes on to say,

I mean sometimes it can be fun and you have a really a good laugh. It's always worse at the beginning and end of the night but in between, I mean you can watch the bands and stuff. And it's not just in Leeds, it can be all over, I've seen some great gigs.

Although Kelly and Lisa suggest that working in town puts them off pubs in the city centre, it contributes to their knowledge of the city centre, mainly through familiarity in relation to making choices for consumption. Therefore, the overlaps between work and leisure can in some senses be regarded as empowering. Lisa suggests

You get to know which places are all right, which ones are for students, which clubs are best avoided, that sort of thing. And then when you do go to town yourself for something, I don't know, you just kind of see it as not so scary, you know because it's just...well that there's people working, not just getting out of it.

Evidently, the women 'map out' the city in relation to work and leisure, and this has been identified as a pattern among different age groups of women living in Leeds.5 Another important way in which the mothers map out their use of Leeds is in relation to safety; particularly movement and mobility across the city at night. Only Nasra and Kelly had access to private transport; for the other mothers there were restrictions placed on their choices for both work and leisure. Mapping however also involves an ongoing process of negotiation. For instance, arrangements with friends, sharing taxis and engaging in at-home informal leisure were some of the strategies employed by the mothers. This takes place in the context of spatial patriarchy (Valentine, 1989) and it would appear that women continue to affected by the gendering of city space (Massey, 1994).

Manda works in a recently opened bar which is run by her boyfriend in addition to her job as a part time family social worker. Her description of working in town reflects a mixture of being in a place for work as well as for socialising, and thus represents a number of different levels of work and leisure. Manda sees working in the bar as such a contrast to her daytime job that to her, it is not the same as "work". A number of her friends go to the bar for their leisure and so Manda is able to socialise and catch up as well as work. The bar in some senses offers Manda a focal point through which to be in town with friends. Working in the bar legitimates her presence in the city in a different way to simply 'going out' and needing a baby-sitter. Manda has the support of family members and this contributes to her range of choices around both paid work and leisure. Prior to working in the bar, Manda's boyfriend ran a clothes shop in the city centre where she used to work on Saturdays fairly regularly, "You know, there was the extra money which helped." This comment about earning extra money indicates that Manda does not work for her boyfriend just as a means of supporting him. She is engaged in the work for her own economic needs though clearly there are benefits for her boyfriend in terms of running a business. Manda says

You know like he'll ask me when people can't come in and whatever, and I mean, I usually stay right to the end of a night if I've been working, otherwise we wouldn't be able to go home together. And I mean, things like, new year's eve, you know, if I didn't work at the bar then we wouldn't be able to spend that time together.

Manda has her own professional status as a social worker and therefore, it would be inaccurate to claim that she is being controlled by a sexual division of labour in which her boyfriend as owner is dominant. However, her motherwork is gendered; she is in a care giving role at work, she has her son to support and look after, she is serving and helping with domestic type work in the bar, and she is providing support for her boyfriend's business. She has to negotiate her role as a mother, in making decisions about paid labour and leisure, which clearly provides evidence of her gendered experiences.

Emma uses a lot of what would perhaps otherwise be 'leisure time' to work on her fashion interests. For example, she works in the evenings and often runs a stall on a Saturday. However, this work is not seen in the same context as her paid work between nine and five. She says for example

I mean it is work, I feel that I've got to do it and if I'm doing the stall, then I have to get stuff ready. But it's not the same as my 'job' because I want to do it, I want to do it for the future so that we (her and daughter) can make a go of things.

This example provides further evidence that work can be perceived as pleasurable (in comparison with other commitments). For Keira, there is not quite the same evidence of a blurring of work and leisure. Her job at the petrol station is seen as work and time outside of that, which includes her mothering and domestic responsibilities, is regarded differently.

Like I'm at work all day, she's at school, you know we don't see each other, then it's nice to pick her up and go home and do things together, even if that means doing the washing!

I've always put him (son) first. You know, I've always worked, or made sure we've got enough. I've always tried to give him what he needs, and what he wants as much as possible.

However, individual mothers have different attitudes towards what they can and cannot afford. Tricia for example, talks about not having available money for shopping for 'extras' such as fashion. She says

I mean, there's always enough food, the house is always warm, there's always just the bare basic things and that's it. And when it comes to stuff like fashion, and even shoes and coats and things, I mean you have to make do. There's necessity items and there's luxury items, and sometimes things from the necessity items end up as luxury items, because you can't afford them...but they shouldn't, I mean, you need them.

At the same time however, it has been important to Tricia to provide holidays for her eldest daughter (this is made increasingly less likely now that she has two children).

Limits on disposable income for spending as 'leisure' is a common theme throughout the study. Where money is less of a constraining feature, for example, for Nasra, opportunities are limited as a result of traditional gender roles. Nasra's experience however, is not representative of 'South Asian women' as there is no homogeneous category within which South Asian mothers exist. For example, Keira (lone mother) is working full time and can afford to make some consumption choices as part of her leisure. She does not own a car but does drive and she and her daughter often go away at weekends (in hire cars) to visit friends and relatives.

It is suggested above that there are sites where paid work can have aspects of leisure within it for some of the women, and here, it is also possible to point to instances where leisure is used to generate income. Here we have another example of the overlaps between work and leisure: one that indicates leisure can be about production as well as consumption. Shakila for example, enjoys sewing in her leisure time, particularly now that she is not working full time as a machinist. She also enjoys decorating and making soft furnishings, flower arranging and cooking. These are all activities that are traditionally 'female', are centred around the home, and are arguably, a result of gendered socialisation patterns. However, to Shakila they are means through which to use her creativity, which is important to her, and earn some extra money.

I sew like wedding outfits for friends, and then they want curtains making! And I've just started doing Asian food, you know for people's buffets and stuff. He (husband) didn't like my cooking, in fact, he said I couldn't cook, but he probably never made more than a cup of tea! I'm teaching my son to cook and to sew because they're really useful things, and because he's with me all the time, and he should value the things I do.

Shakila is clearly reifying what, for her, are positive aspects of the gendered position that she is in, as a South Asian mother living on her own with two young children. She is also actively involved in production in her leisure time rather than consumption.

Where there are limits on spending, a number of similar patterns across the mothers emerge. One obvious strategy is to avoid leisure activities that cost money, be that using amenities such as leisure centres and cinemas, eating out (apart from at friends), going into town to shop with children, going into town on their own, and generally not being active consumers. However, another strategy, employed by Lisa, Kelly, Shakila and others, is to decorate at home. They talk about being able to make changes in their immediate environment where they are currently spending a lot of time, either because they are at home with a small child or are at home whilst their children are at school, and during periods when they are not engaged in paid work. They are likely to be at home at weekends as well because this involves less spending. The scale of the decorating depends on financial limits, but the women who talked about it clearly enjoyed the sense of achievement, and to some extent, empowerment around creating their own space. Kelly describes her decorating 'habit'

I just decorate all the time it seems, you know, I've noticed that whenever I feel restless, I start stripping wall paper!...And I've found this really cheap shop so it's not costing me much, I reckon my bedroom cost less than a fiver to paper...and I've bought decorating books, and I spend hours going through them.

Decorating is clearly a form of consumption which can be fairly effectively controlled by the women. The women (literally) make their own space which is evidence of their active engagement in production and consumption within their own homes.

Not going out in the evenings is often a restriction that a number of mothers place upon themselves. Going for a 'night out' is often regarded as an extravagance because it involves wanting new clothes, finding and possibly paying for a baby-sitter, and having enough money for taxis and a 'decent' time once out. Evidently, Manda's work at the bar overcomes these issues in some ways as she is being paid as opposed to spending yet is able to enjoy the company and the atmosphere. Emma goes out fairly regularly because she has some disposable income through working full time and claiming family credit. She feels that she cannot stay in every night to sew because, as she says, "I can't just work ALL the time, and then I'd be awful towards her (daughter), because I'd just be fed up and bloody knackered!". Emma meets friends in student pubs and pubs with live music, whereas Kelly and Lisa, when they do go out, are more likely to go to big pubs (such as Yate's Wine Lodge), and avoid what they see as student pubs. This gives an indication that many of the women have a fairly clear idea of what is suited to them, where they feel comfortable and so on. It provides further evidence of the ways in which women map the city in terms of their own needs and wants as mothers, as consumers, and in relation to paid work and leisure.

Tricia is also limited in her choices for leisure due to financial reasons and spends most of her evenings at home. However, she does visit friends and family locally, and often takes her children with her. Her choices around where to go for a drink without children are made on the basis of her identity as black. She goes to a local club that is central to the West Indian community in Leeds. Rather than saying that she feels excluded from the city centre on the grounds of her black identity, she chooses to go to places where other individuals and groups signify similar experiences to her own. Negotiating leisure choice in this way exhibits elements of both Tricia's individual biography (difference as experience), and how she locates herself in her black community (difference as social relation).

What seems apparent through the interview data is that to a large extent, Leeds city centre, in the evenings, signifies pubs, bars and night-clubs to the interviewees. This has been considered by other researchers who highlight continuities of urban centres being dominated by white males (Bramham and Spink, 1997). Women negotiate this space and as such, are not automatically excluded on the basis of gender. However, for the mothers in this study, their positioning as gendered, and racialised, as well as determined to a large extent by economic capital and status, does impact upon their leisure 'choices'. Shakila is a practising Muslim and does not go to pubs or bars. Nasra, also a Muslim, will go to meet friends in bars and restaurants, as will Keira (Hindu), but neither of them drink or feel particularly comfortable in pubs. There is a context in which individual women make choices not to be involved in certain leisure forms, and to some extent this is in relation to religion. However, it is inaccurate to suggest that it is women's own ethnicity and/or cultural background that limits their choices for leisure. This would merely reinforce harmful stereotypes of South Asian women as passive and constrained by ethnicity.

Manda talks about the ways in which she thinks Leeds city centre has changed and has become more multiracial.

I mean, I think it's changed, you know, even since I was young (25 at interview). There are lots of pubs that were white pubs and there's no way we'd have gone in there. But now, I mean young people are changing, and there are so many different cultures, and like music and dress has made a real difference, it has brought people together in a lot of ways.

A number of the women are involved in active leisure and attend aerobics classes and go to the gym, whilst some of the mothers are not involved in physical activity. For Shakila, Nasra, and Keira, there are severe limits to public and private provision for them to pursue active lifestyles. Messages around physicality continue to be dominated by white, thin, leotard-wearing females, and it is this imagery that is used to promote consumption of 'health' related goods and services, such as gyms and sports clothing (Hargreaves, 1994). Keira has negotiated and resisted this imagery and has attended a private gym in the past. However, she prefers the Asian women's aerobics that she and Shakila have both attended, although this class was struggling to secure a venue.

The concept of 'mapping' has been considered in various contexts throughout the paper, and here again, is evidence of the ways in which women make choices and negotiate barriers in relation to their leisure. They consider what facilities are available and have to make decisions accordingly. Clearly what we must not lose sight of is the fact that there continue to be sites where the mothers in the study are discriminated against on the basis of gender, 'race' and class. Another example of this is the way in which women map the city in relation to safety and perceptions of safety. This is generally in relation to a fear of male (sexual) assault.7


Conclusions.


Research evidence suggests that paid labour for the women in the study is influenced by gender, 'race' and class. The data shows that the kinds of work available, and the experiences women have of that work, result, to a large extent, from a discourse around mothering roles. However, this discourse does not impact upon women's lives in a uniform manner, and different individuals are affected in different ways. For example, some women feel that it is important to work full time in order to provide materially for their children, as well as providing a positive role model of mother-as-breadwinner, whilst other women feel that work needs to be part time and to fit in around the demands of having children. For a number of other respondents, having children has meant that they are not in a position to engage in paid labour outside the home. The centrality of the women as primary care givers to their children, reinforces a discourse around mothering roles and responsibilities and consequently, paid labour for these women must be understood in the context of their experiences as mothers. In attempting to analyse these experiences, motherwork acts as a useful concept through which to develop an understanding of mothers' identities beyond a white, middle class, privatised arena.

Clearly, it is not always possible to separate work and leisure for these women. Rather than concentrating on the ways in which mothers may or may not manage their own leisure in relation to domestic work, this paper has focused on the overlaps of paid work and leisure. The evidence shows that for some women, paid work can contain some aspects of leisure, and this can be due to the fact that the work is outside of the home and involves socialising and being around friends (as well as strangers/new faces). However, for some women, paid labour in a leisure environment remains work centred and reflects continuities of gendered social relations. Other women in the study have been able to combine leisure activities with income generation and rather than paid labour as such, have been able to create work informally. This can alter the extent to which women perceive the activity as leisure, as this is usually affected by how much women are seeking to 'produce' and under what financial pressures. Further research into women's, particularly mothers' involvement in the informal economy may offer valuable insights to how the demands of work and leisure are negotiated and achieved.

The consumption patterns of the women display both differences and similarities. Evidently, material constraints are a key feature for the majority of the mothers presented here. Whereas the women's involvement in paid work needs to be assessed in relation to their mothering roles, so too does their leisure, and hence the use of the term motherleisure. The women are agents and make active choices around leisure consumption, though these must be considered in the ongoing processes of negotiation that appear common to their everyday lives. These negotiations revolve around lack of disposable income, gendered expectations around mothering, both externally produced and internalised by different women, and negotiating racialised social relations.

It is possible to locate both individual accounts of paid labour and leisure as difference-as-experience, and difference-as-social relation. A number of the lone mothers share some commonality of experience, for example, in relation to having childcare problems that can prevent engagement in paid work. This also impacts on their ability to freely choose out of the home leisure. They are represented within a discourse of 'single mothers' that constructs them as deviant, and as dependants on state benefits. However, we must also examine the individual accounts of different women, and how they negotiate their own engagement in paid work, childcare needs, and perceptions of themselves as working mothers. There are some similarities across the experiences of South Asian lone mothers and white mothers, as well as differences.

There must be a recognition that power remains central to how differences are constructed and reconstructed. For example, the South Asian women's experiences of the paid labour market show that 'race' continues to impact upon daily life in an explicit way. Unacknowledged sites of power, for example, whiteness, require further scrutiny. At the same time, level of income, educational qualification and family background, influence opportunities for paid work. Arguably, deconstruction offers a means through which to analyse the complexities of gender, 'race' and class and how they are 'lived out' in mothers' everyday lives. Poststructuralist analysis enables acknowledgement of difference, of negotiation, and agency. However, on the basis of the material presented here, there is every need to consider the ways in which macro, structural processes of gender, 'race' and class, continue to be evident. There is clearly a need to move beyond a deterministic account of women's lives, and recognise the rich diversity of these women's lives. However, the research indicates that there are some persistent limitations to the agency of the individual subjects discussed here, thus differences must be mapped onto broader structural and material relations.

Motherwork and motherleisure are complex and overlapping and require analyses of both public and private arenas. Women use the city in a multitude of overlapping ways; as work, as leisure, as mother, as white, as South Asian, as Black, as young, as single, as consumers, etc. At the same time, these identities are located within a multitude of different contexts; low income, public housing, lack of formal qualifications, poorly paid part time labour markets, lack of childcare, dominant discourses around mothering, familial expectations, racialised work and leisure spaces, and so on. These contexts are actively and routinely challenged and confronted by the women on a daily basis. The mothers leisure lifestyles are an example of what Skeggs (1999; p.229) refers to as "multiple positions and multiple interests" within the city: they are not fixed but shift in relation to gender, race and class. Therefore, in addition to the valuable material that a localised study brings, and the detail that a deconstructionist approach enables, it is suggested that further empirical work be carried out to explore different women's lives across the city.


Notes.