The categories of, and distinction between, 'leisure time' and 'work time' was a prominent feature of Fordism, or more particularly, of the ways in which Fordism is conceived and (in current times) re-figured in nostalgic terms as a generalised distinction between the times of not-work and work.

An excerpt from "The Rush Hour: The Character of Leisure Time and Gender Equity", Judy Wajcman (Social Forces):

"Women's specialized responsibility for child care suggests that women have a distinctive experience of time, one that is fundamentally different from men s. Historians have drawn our attention to the link between the development of clock time and the industrial organization of labor (Landes 1983; Thompson 1967). Since men 'specialize' in paid employment, it has been argued that their subjective lives are ruled by linear clock time. Feminist social scientists have conceptualized women's time as predominantly cyclical or task oriented (Adam 1995; Forman & Sowton 1989; Glucksmann 1998; Kristeva 1981; Nowotny 1994). The working times of women as wives and mothers, it is argued, cannot be captured by perspectives that 'separate work from leisure, public from private time, subjective from objective time, and task from clock time' (Adam 1995:95). Research on women's caring and emotional work in particular has shown the limits of a linear conception of time (Gilligan 1982; Hochschild 1983; Larson & Richards 1994). Women's work typically involves coordinating multiple activities -- the 'sequencing and prioritizing of certain times' (Adam 1995:95). The implication of this perspective, therefore, is that women's experience of leisure is also distinctive and is difficult to disentangle from multiple and overlapping activities. Emphasizing the character of women's leisure time, then, suggests a reformulation of the concept of a gender gap in leisure. The crucial issue is not just that women may have less primary leisure time but that women's leisure time may be qualitatively "less leisurely" than men's (Deem 1988)."

"Men have many more hours of pure leisure uncontaminated by combination with unpaid work. In addition, men's leisure is less likely to be interrupted than women's. The fragmentary character of women's leisure changes its quality. Fragmented leisure, snatched between work and self-care activities, is less relaxing than unbroken leisure. It is likely that this fragmented leisure will be experienced as more harried and therefore increase self-reported stress. Indeed, it may well be that the contemporary view of increased 'time pressure' has more to do with this fragmentation than with any measurable reduction in primary leisure time."