Working-class women and physical activity: constraints, territorial resources and agency for self-care

We analyze physical activity in leisure time among adult women who live in a working-class neighborhood in the periphery of Metropolitan Buenos Aires, Argentina, drawing on a qualitative study we conducted with focus groups. They achieve emotional and mental well-being through exercising regularly. To improve health conditions and control body weight are also motivations, as well as socializing. They seek to exert temporal agency for self-care when facing the demands imposed by domestic reproduction and paid work. Although public spaces for physical activity and state-subsidized facilities facilitate regular practice, there are territorial restrictions on access to them. State abandonment of some areas hinders and discourages women to exercise in public spaces. The experiences of insecurity and interpersonal violence also impose barriers, especially for the youngest women, showing gender-based restrictions on the appropriation of public space.