This research examines women's ways of understanding health and illness as well as their means of maintaining wellness. It attempts a women-centred approach to explaining health behaviours. The research consisted of in-depth interviews with seven women from Southern Ontario between the ages of 50 and 70. A grounded theory approach guided the analysis. The study shows that perceptions of power and control may be at the root of many attitudes toward health care and various health behaviours. By researching health issues from women's perspectives, this research provides a glimpse of the way these seven women experience midlife, and suggests the existance of perspectives that differ from mainstream views on health and illness. It further demonstrates how theories of agency can be used to shift the focus of sociological research from over-socialized accounts of health-related behaviours to more empowering, woman-centred explanations. It shows that women strive to maintain control of their health and that they pursue wellness in a manner that enables them to keep that control. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This study focuses on three young women in their final year of school using data gathered during a year-long process of individual conversational interviews, the contents of which were largely determined by their interests. Three themes arise from critical incidents during this year - the debutante ball, teenage pregnancy and dieting. These themes are used to focus wide ranging explorations of what it is to be a young woman at this particular time. The broader cultural production of discursive positions available to, and developed by, these young women as part of their identity formation is discussed. Methodological issues concerning power relationships between research participants are also the focus of critical attention. It is considered that young women's bodies and bodily practices are central to understanding the processes involved in their identity formation. It is in this context that the focus turns to bodies that matter. In contemporary Western cultures 'adolescent bodies' could be said to matter 'too much' in the sense that they are increasingly the focus for disciplinary practices in institutions such as schooling, the church, the family, health care, health promotion and the media. This disciplining is legitimised because adolescence is socially constructed as a 'becoming'. In this case it is a matter of 'becoming woman'; a sort of apprenticeship which allows for knowledgeable others to provide not only guidance and nurturance, but discipline. Using insights gained from feminist poststructuralist theory and cultural feminism this thesis argues that the discourses and practices generated within and across institutions, which are normalised by their institutional base, are gender differentiated. The focus is on young women's embodied subjectivity and how the discourses and practices they engage with and in work to construct an ideal feminine body-subject. The discursive production of a gendered identity has a considerable impact on young women's health and their health-related behaviours. This is explored specifically in the thesis in relation to sexuality and the cultural production of the 'ideal' female body. It is argued that health education and health promotion strategies which are designed to influence young women's health related behaviours, need to consider the forms of power, knowledge and desire produced through young women's active engagement with institutionalised discourses of identity if they are to have an ongoing impact