Urban Leisure Spaces and New Femininities

The increasing leisurization and consumerization of lifestyles in metropolises have huge impacts on gender identities. A combination of local and global conditions alongside the physical features of urban sites, produces diversity and fluidity in gender behavioral patterns. Drawing on a tradition of cultural studies and reviewing the urban experiences of young girls and women in Tehran, the present paper aims to show the different impacts of leisure and consumer spaces on feminine identifications. The results show that the girls’ gender displays within the city are variable and conform with a pattern ranging from more autonomy and agency in consuming space to passivity and caution. Social differentiation and physical transformations in Tehran together with the emergence of new lifestyles have produced new behavioral templates which could be called “thin femininities”. Thin femininities which require equalitarian and challenging spatial participations, will inevitably change feminine values and involve important connotations both for their rights to the city and the way they understand it.