It began with the death of my mother. I was 23 when she died. What hit me most was the realisation of how little I had actually known her. To me, she had been a strict mother. She had four children, little money and took care of everything in the household. After her death, when I began asking people who had known her about her, a neighbour surprised me by saying that my mother had “liked to fool around”. This made me wonder what my mother actually did when she had time to herself. In search of answers, I began photographing my sister in her free time. She is six years older than me, and in many ways her life resembles that of our mother: she has two children, runs a household and also works. I wanted to see how she spends her free time – in the hope of better understanding our mother's life.
What began as a personal investigation developed into a broader question about free time as a feminist issue. Suddenly, I was paying attention everywhere to what women did in their free time and how they used it. Who actually has the right to take time off? That's how I ended up founding the photo project ‘Women at Leisure.’ Since then, I've learned a lot about the topic. The amount and type of leisure time a person is entitled to depends on their social status. Origin, gender, class – all these factors influence who has the right to real breaks. Women do most of the care work at home, which is why there is always something for them to do. When work is unevenly distributed, so is leisure time. And it's about safety: the same marketplace can feel inviting to one person but dangerous to someone from a different caste or gender. I often think about how women in India cannot go hiking alone because parks and forests are not safe.
Taking time for yourself and staking a claim to your own leisure time is a new form of resistance. It is about allowing yourself to develop freely. In feminist circles, success is often measured according to patriarchal categories and values. We fight for equal pay, equal rights, equal space. All of this is important, but we should broaden the discussion and consider other standards as well. We should be thinking more broadly: what would I do on these streets if I could move around them completely carefree? Leisure time is a prerequisite for individuals to flourish, and that generates new opportunities. Urban planning researchers are also increasingly recognising this. They no longer just look at whether public spaces are safe for women – a standard set by patriarchy – but ask: Are they designed to be inviting? Safety is only a starting point. When people can laugh together or foot around in a public place and just be themselves, then safety is assured.