Traînant les vestiges du passé, notre société actuelle est de fait marquée du sexisme lequel est repérable dans tourtes ses structures et ses stratifications, y compris l'appareil judiciaire. Sous ce prisme, nous avons voulu vérifier in globo si l'introduction du SPM en cour, que ce soit à titre de défense ou qu'il soit utilisé contre la femme en situation de demanderesse/défenderesse, pouvait s'inscrire dans ces pratiques d'oppression contre les femmes. De quelles représentations sociales des femmes et de leur cté participe cette agence de contrôle social? Pour éclairer cette zone d'ombre, il fallait nécessairement mettre en lumière ce que la reconnaissance du syndrome prémenstruel (SPM) par les tribunaux signifiait et impliquait autant pour les femmes directement impliquées dans le processus judiciaire que pour celles en général. De ces considérations, il s'agissait enfin de se positionner par rapport à la pertinence du SPM dans le champs de la transgression et de son usage en cour sous quelque forme que ce soit. À cette fin, nous nous sommes servi/e/s de 6 transcriptions judiciaires, relevant des instances criminelle et civile, à l'intérieur desquelles nous avons effectué une analyse documentaire. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Les études portant sur la criminalité des femmes se sont souvent attardées sur les causes de leur déviance. Nous avons voulu aller au-delà des explications de leur criminalité en axant notre recherche sur les représentations des femmes criminelles. Plus précisément, notre objectif de recherche est d'examiner le discours médiatique afin d'en ressortir les images populaires d'une femme "maricide", c'est-à-dire d'une femme qui tue son conjoint. Ce travail fera l'examen du traitement médiatique des femmes "maricides" dans une période historique donnée: soit la fin du XIXe siècle jusqu'au début du XXe siècle. Nous voulons retracer et reconstruire l'image médiatique des femmes qui ont tué leur conjoint à cette époque. Il s'agit d'une analyse journalistique des cas de sept femmes qui ont été condamnées à mort pour le meurtre de leur conjoint en Ontario de 1871 à 1946: l'objectif de recherche étant de dégager comment se construit l'image de la femme "maricide" à travers les médias. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Objectives. To describe the support needs of high risk women; and to develop and evaluate a decision aid to meet their decision making needs. The Ottawa Decision Support Framework was the conceptual framework that guided the needs assessment and decision aid development and evaluation. Setting. Urban breast health clinic for women at high risk of breast cancer. Methods. The support needs of high risk women were identified using a self-assessment survey completed before and a satisfaction survey completed after a consultation visit with breast health practitioners. Guided by six key considerations for the development of decision aids, a breast cancer prevention decision aid was designed to address high risk women's informational and decisional support needs. The evaluation included a pre-test with 10 high risk women using the decision aid alone and a before/after study with 17 high risk women using the decision aid combined with decision support counselling. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The purpose of this study is to understand how individual characteristics and traits in high ability women with eating disorders interact with contextual factors such as the family, social context and culture. The participants in the study are four high ability women. Three at the time of data collection, have been suffering from an eating disorder and one participant has been in recovery for a number of years. The qualitative design of the study allows for the emergence of common themes among the participants. Through in-depth interviews, experience sampling methodology and artifacts an understanding emerges of the individual and contextual factors that each perceived was associated with the development of her eating disorder. Results of the study indicate that high ability women possess the following individual factors that contribute to the development of their eating disorder: caring and nurturing others but not themselves, hypersensitivity, over-excitability, perfectionism, harm avoidance, reward dependence, shame, guilt and a sense of ineffectiveness and the lack of an identity. The most significant finding of the study is that individual factors in all the women were discordant with the family context in which they were raised. Specifically, the family features of emotional inexpression, a high achievement orientation, an enmeshed style of parenting and a chaotic environment. The poorness of fit between each woman and her family was associated with the development of her eating disorder. Finally what emerged from the present study was that the reciprocal interaction among individual and contextual factors explained the development of each woman's eating disorder. The concluding chapters present and discuss the common themes that emerged regarding the factors which interacted in each woman's life, leading her to turn to an eating disorder in order to cope. Recommendations are made to educators, psychologists and parents to work to create a goodness of fit in the lives of all women, in particular those with high abilities.

Through extracting accurate formalized versions of the subject's actions, motive, and experiences to describe and explain their retirement phenomenon, this study attempted to capture the substance and nuance of the opinions of women athletes now retired who competed in the Olympic canoeing discipline of sprint racing as members of the Canadian National Canoe Team between 1984 to 1998. Whether smooth or problematic, retirement necessitates a degree of adjustment which is thought to be dependent on the individual's perception of retirement itself. In this regard, the qualitative methodology, borrowing from phenomenology and free from predetermined theories, concentrated on the subject-experience and assumed the importance of understanding the retirement experience, as it is known to, and in the words of the women who lived the experience. In addition, the choice of focusing on only one National Team permitted a fuller contextualization of the retirement phenomenon within a specific sport environment. A short demographic questionnaire was initially given to the study participants to ascertain basic information. This was followed by an open-ended in-depth interview, using a semi-structured format, to obtain information pertaining to the specific reasons and circumstances affecting their retirement, as well as the manner in which they reacted to, and deal with their retirement from the National Canoe Team. Data collection and analysis were undertaken simultaneously which ensured a systematic effort to verify and refine existing themes. Data were submitted to a systematic process which enabled the reduction of the vast quantity of data into manageable segments. Coding of the data served to separate, compile, and organize the data, while comparing the events, experiences, actions, and interactions for similarities and differences. Through content analysis, both inference and interpretation were used to give meaning to the transcripts. The end result was the emergence of themes from the data, each theme internally consistent but distinct and separate from all other themes identified. The inductive examination of the relationships present within and among the identified themes allowed for developing interpretations and explanations of the phenomenon under study. In an effort to capture and understand the essence of the retirement experience, a schematic representation was drawn which encapsulates the major patterns found in the women's narratives regarding their retirement experiences. The patterns are located on a continuum which reflects the inter-relationships of the experiences and reactions. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This thesis explores the meaning of embodied existence in the discourse of difference feminism and in the articulation of feminist theological ethics. Specifically, the analysis centres on the embodiment of maternity, both as it has been depicted in the tradition of philosophical and theological thought and as contemporary feminists debate its significance. The salient question guiding this inquiry springs from a set of questions that have been energetically explored throughout the history of philosophy. What is the significance of the female body to the enterprise of intellectual discourse? To spiritual transcendence? To the capacity to reason? To the way in which ethics is perceived and "done"? In general, the tradition has tolerated the inclusion of female embodiment only insofar as it gave flesh to expressions of human depravity. Building on the work of Mary O'Brien, principally in The Politics of Reproduction, this thesis extends the original questions by exploring the meaning of maternal embodiment within the theoretical and structural creations of Western thought. The first chapter outlines the contemporary debate among several feminist writers regarding the place of difference in feminist theorizing. Each of these authors is particularly concerned with the dualistic encoding of Western society that has relegated woman to the periphery of meaning-making. The analysis reveals that, from differing standpoints, motherhood emerges in their work as the inscribed and fundamentally subverted foundation of patriarchal ethics. In chapter two, the thesis details Mary O'Brien's philosophy of birth as itself a dialectical encounter with the traditional themes and methodologies of masculine theory construction. The analysis reveals how Mary O'Brien retrieves a universal experience as a theoretical and concrete basis for feminism without rendering it static and resistant to change. O'Brien reworks some of the seminal concepts of philosophy and ethics in order to validate the material experiences with which women are variously familiar. The third chapter compares each feminist account with Mary O'Brien's work, drawing on strengths and weaknesses and on the complementary links that can be deduced. The use of predecessor theory, the tension between material existence and abstraction, and the feminist quest for subjecthood and autonomy feature prominently in this dialectical encounter. Finally, chapter four compares a traditionally inspired "theology of the body" by Benedict Ashley with feminist theological views of embodiment offered by Beverly Wildung Harrison and Lisa Sowle Cahill. Harrison and Cahill, it is revealed, bridge Ashley's quest to theologize embodied existence with Mary O'Brien's affirmation of birth as a resource for profound ethical insight. The thesis also draws out important links between Mary O'Brien's understanding of maternity and the clarion wisdom of feminist theological ethics.

Lesbians face oppression in their daily lives and in the health care system due to both their gender and sexual orientation. Nurses, as front line workers, have a vital role to ensure appropriate, high quality care as well as health promotion. This research responds to the lack of culturally sensitive care for lesbians and more specifically lesbian couples. The purpose of this study is to explore the meaning that the lesbian couple relationship has for the lesbian couple and how this relationship contributes to their mutual and individual sense of health. A phenomenological feminist approach captured a rich description of the lived experiences of lesbian couples, all of whom were middle class, Caucasian and well educated. Purposive sampling garnered seven lesbian couples. Two flexible, minimally structured interviews were conducted with each couple. Increased knowledge of lesbian couple relationships as a resource for the women's sense of health, will help care professionals use health support systems for lesbians and ease the burden of oppression. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The interaction between coaches and their athletes has been investigated by researchers in sport pedagogy over the last 20 years (Pieron, 1994). The majority of these studies have used systematic observation techniques to gain insight into the behavior of coaches during games and/or practices. Although studies on coaches' behaviors have provided a portrait of how coaches intervene (e.g., Trudel & Cote, 1994), information on the subject matter being taught by coaches is relatively new. The importance of including the subject matter in the study of teaching was underlined by Shulman (1986). The purpose of the present study was to investigate the content of coaches' instruction provided to female ice hockey players (12-15 yrs.) during games. More specifically, the questions to be answered were: (a) What was the content of instruction? (b) When was the instruction given? and (c) How was the instruction communicated to the player(s)? A unique coding system was developed in order to answer these questions. Although the results revealed differences between cases, and even variability between games within the same case, many similarities emerged between coaches. The coaches in the present study referred to emphasize team tactics, over individual tactics, individual techniques, and rules. Many of the interventions by the coaches were short duration prompts, communicated while the play was in progress. The relatively low percentage of specific information given to players during games indicates that the coaches did not fully utilise opportunities arising in games to instruct players.

The purpose of this research was to conduct a feminist analysis of campus foot patrol/walk home services. The recent proliferation of this type of program has prompted some concern from the feminist community regarding the implications of this type of response to women's fear. Feminist scholars contend that these programs maintain and foster fear of the outdoors as well as reinforce women's dependency on others for protection. In reality women have substantially greater risks of being assaulted within their homes or other safe places by someone known to them. Feminist scholars state that an effective response to properly dealing with women's fear lies in education and awareness efforts focused on the perpetrators of violence against women/men. Fear is fostered in women throughout their lives through experiences of both public and private abuse at the hands of men. This reality, contextualised within the realm of our patriarchal society, has led feminists to conclude that long-term social change can only be effectuated through measures directed at men in society. Representatives of campus foot patrol/walk home services from four universities in the Ottawa-Montreal region were interviewed regarding their respective programs. The results showed that while foot patrol/walk home services may indeed be victim-control oriented and reproduce women's dependency on others for protection, they serve to fulfil a present, compelling need for many women: to be able to be out after dark without fearing for their safety. Evidence of the possible potential for long-term social change exists in all the programs, as each has educational and awareness components compulsory for all their volunteers. These components differ greatly in content and length however, and thus further research would be needed to determine the actual impact on volunteers. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Le but l'etude etait d'identifier les facteurs qui nuisent et ceux qui contribuent a la presence des femmes comme entrai neures de soccer recreatif ou competitif, mais a un niveau moindre que le niveau elite. La methode de recherche, l'entrevue de groupe semi-dirigee, a permis d'investiguer le vecu, les sentiments, les perceptions et les attitudes des participantes en ce qui concerne l'occupation d'entrai neure. L'echantillon de l'etude etait compose: d'entrai neures potentielles, soit d'athletes impliquees en soccer recreatif ou competitif ou bien d'athletes ayant joue a ce niveau mais ayant depuis arrete (n = 14); d'entrai neures actuelles d'equipes de soccer recreatif ou competitif (n = 18); et d'anciennes entrai neures d'equipes de soccer recreatif ou competitif (n = 20). L'echantillon total comprenait 52 femmes francophones des regions montrealaise, outaouaise et des Cantons de l'est. Les resultats de l'etude indiquent que se sont les facteurs de type organisationnel, plutot que de type personnel ou social qui nuisent le plus a la presence des femmes entrai neures au soccer et ce sont egalement ces facteurs qui aideraient le plus a la presence de femmes entrai neures en soccer. Tous types confondus, les principaux facteurs qui nuisent a la presence des femmes comme entrai neures sont relies a la critique et l'absence de reconnaissance, la lourdeur des exigences administratives et logistiques, le manque de confiance en soi et de preparation et la discrimination et la devalorisation et l'attitude negative des joueuses. Les resultats de l'etude indiquent egalement que tous types confondus, les principaux facteurs qui contribuent a la presence des femmes comme entrai neures sont relies a: l'atteinte d'objectifs d'equipe, l'amour du role d'entrai neure, la presence de situations facilitatrices, le desir d'implication sportive secondaire et l'appui logistique et technique.