This paper addresses the discursive and spatial constructions of female masculinities and femininities in separate networks for women forest owners in Sweden. Based on qualitative research conducted with members of six such networks, I explored the spatial negotiations and performances of femininities and female masculinities in relation to hegemonic forestry masculinities. I found that the separate spaces provided by the networks enabled the women to find strategies by which to navigate the spatial relations permeated by hegemonic forestry masculinity, which empowered them to resist the subordinate position of hegemonic femininity and to ‘claim space’. The women claimed this space by asserting alternative femininities and performing embodied female masculinities conceptualized as ‘the tough forest owner’ and the ‘entrepreneurial forest owner’ to gain access to both symbolic and material spaces, including the category of ‘the forest owner’. The performances of female masculinities were largely conducted from other positions of privilege, such as class and heterosexuality, which included performances of hegemonic femininity. Therefore, these performances of female masculinities generated status rather than stigmatisation. Furthermore, the analysis showed how these masculinities and femininities were negotiated and performed in relation to forestry spatiality as well as rurality and urbanity. I argue that the spatial performances of alternative femininities and female masculinities challenge hegemonic masculinities in a way that disrupts the male exclusivity of the category of ‘the forest owner’, although the performances of female masculinities also reinforce the superior position of masculinities in relation to femininities.

Through the lens of feminist political ecology, this paper explores how the neoliberalisation of Swedish forest governance influences the performances and negotiations of gendered subjectivities in six separate networks for women. The study draws on participant observations from network events, qualitative interviews with network members, and textual analysis of the networks’ written material. The analysis shows that the gendered forest-owner subjectivities of the network members are largely formed in relation to the discursive policy construct of ‘the active forest owner’, which should be understood as a masculinist expression of the neoliberalisation of Swedish forest governance. ‘Active’ does not refer to being physically engaged in forestry work but rather to be a knowledgeable entrepreneur oriented towards industrial timber production. Performing ‘the active forest owner’ is a way for women to become recognised as knowledgeable subjects in forestry, but it also makes them compliant subjects in neoliberalised Swedish forest governance. Nevertheless, the networks also provide spaces where the meaning of ‘active’ can be negotiated to also include feminine-coded social and/or environmental values based on an ethics of care that challenges the normative ideals of masculinity and neoliberalism. However, the narratives in the networks and the performances of individual subjectivities are often ambiguous and contain both resistance to and compliance with the status quo. These negotiations enable the formulation of alternative visions for human-nature interaction but only partly lead to changed forest management practices.

Postfeminism has received little attention within feminist geography; therefore, spatialities have been left largely unexplored in postfeminist studies. In this paper, I explore how postfeminist performances by women forest owners are articulated and maintained in relation to their collective action, paying special attention to spatiality and spatial power relations. I base my analysis on semistructured interviews with women forest owners from six separate networks for women, participant observations at network events, and an analysis of the networks’ written material. The women were reluctant to frame their separate networks as feminist and/or gender equality projects, which I argue should be understood as an expression of a postfeminist sensibility traversed by spatial power relations enacted within Swedish forestry, constituting a social and economic space associated with rurality. Feminism and gender equality were partly understood in relation to spatial power relations connected to the urban-rural dichotomy, which contributed to the articulation of individual postfeminist performances, including the use of spatial and temporal discursive moves to reject sexism and marginalisation, and consequently, the preservation of the self as emancipated while rejecting the need for feminist collective action. The analysis further unpacks how postfeminism is articulated and maintained, contributing to a broader understanding of the paradoxes of women’s collective action.