Social Time Patterns, Contingency and Gender Relations

The general sense that we suffer from a `lack of time' seems to be indicative of modern culture. It also seems that, rather paradoxically, this lack of time is actually being offset by an increase in the time at our disposal: witness recent increases in leisure time (that is, time not spent in paid employment). This paper proposes to examine the contradictory effects of this development and to discuss the types of experiences which become possible once one has time to spare, i.e.: contingent experiences. There are two main questions to be considered here. First, is the perception of modern time patterns gender-specific? Second, do these different perceptions cause `time collisions' in gender relations?