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. / vii, 149 leaves ; 29 cm
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:ALU.w.uleth.ca/dspace#10133/2582 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Sheriff, Constance, University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science |
| Contributors | Helstein, Michelle T. |
| Publisher | Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Kinesiology, c2011, Arts and Science, Department of Kinesiology |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Relation | Thesis (University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science) |
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