"I wanna be toned I don't want to be muscular" : dominant discourses and women's exercise choices
Date
2011
Authors
Sheriff, Constance
University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Kinesiology, c2011
Abstract
This thesis explores how women who exercise regularly frame their involvement in
exercise with regard to discourses of femininity, fitness, consumerism, and healthism,
and how these contemporary discourses impact women’s exercise choices. Sixteen semistructured
interviews were conducted with women who exercise regularly. The objective
was to elicit detailed information about the types of exercise these women were involved
in, how they came to exercise in particular ways, and with what rationales. A Foucaultian
discourse analysis of the interview transcripts was undertaken to uncover commonalities
and differences in how the sometimes competing discourses of femininity, fitness,
consumerism, and healthism affect the types of exercise engaged in. By examining the
interplay between discourse, power/knowledge, surveillance, discipline, subjectivity, and
the resultant construction of normative feminine and health ideals, this thesis attempts to
determine how women are constructed, and construct themselves, as regular exercisers
and how this construction impacts the ways in which the women chose to exercise.
Description
vii, 149 leaves ; 29 cm
Keywords
Physical fitness for women , Women -- Health and hygiene , Excercise for women , Body image , Women -- Psychology , Dissertations, Academic