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Item Drunk feminine bodies : an exploration of young women's embodied experiences of intoxication : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Psychology at Massey University, Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand(Massey University, 2014) Ramsay, Alison JoyYoung women’s frequent heavy drinking in New Zealand has increased substantially in recent years and is one of the country’s leading health problems. Theorising drinking as an embodied experience bound up in social relationships offers valuable insights into the maintenance of this behaviour. This research utilised a theory of embodiment to better understand the physical pleasures and sensations involved in becoming drunk, and how experiences of being a physical body are intertwined with the social environment while drinking to intoxication. Five friendship discussion groups were conducted in Wellington and Dunedin with 23 women aged 19-26, and were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis revealed that the women’s accounts of their drinking were highly contradictory, and two major contradictions were identified which demonstrated how the women negotiated different performances of femininity while drinking. Firstly, there was a strong emphasis on being heterosexually attractive in the discussions, which contradicted the idea that getting drunk allowed them to forget other people’s judgements. Secondly, the importance of sharing the pleasure of drinking with friends was contradicted by descriptions of drunkenness as embodied and individual. The women also described two intricate and precarious ‘balancing acts’ they engaged in when drinking heavily. They discussed balancing between performances of acceptable feminine behaviour and risking ‘looking tragic’ when drinking to intoxication. Managing the physical effects of drinking heavily so as not to appear ‘tragic’, or have a hangover was also described as a well-learnt balancing act, which the women were expected to expertly perform following years of training. This research offers valuable and novel insights into the social and embodied aspects of drinking that maintain young women’s heavy drinking. It extends on previous research into the gendered nature of drinking practices and the embodied experience of intoxication, and how this assists in decisions to stop or slow drinking, and highlights the importance of understanding drinking from an embodied, gendered and social perspective. The findings could contribute to the establishment of more effective approaches to changing young women’s harmful drinking practices.Item Femininity and the female body : a discourse analysis of young women's talk : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University(Massey University, 2000) Eagle, Natasha AnneThis research looks at how 11 women aged 18-25 talk about femininity and the feminine body. The analysis is based on interview data collected in 2000, in Palmerston North and Napier, New Zealand. A discursive approach was used in analyzing the texts. The main assumption was that the meanings the women give to events and people when talking about femininity are likely to be related to their constructions of their bodies. Four main areas were looked at: the first was how the women talk of their bodies in relation to their evaluative sense of self; the second was how the women talk about the standards of beauty that are presented to them in the media; the third being how the women talk about themselves as consumers of fashion and beauty products; and the last was how the women talked about their understanding of femininity. Women generally constructed their physical appearance as relating closely to their sense of self, particularly their self-esteem. Beauty standards, especially those portrayed in the media were constructed as standards of physical attractiveness that are impossible to live up to. As a result of this, the women talked about depression and anxiety. In order to attempt to live up to these standards of beauty, women also talked of the ways they altered their appearance, particularly in regards to weight-loss, as well as the use of fashion and cosmetics. The concept of femininity was difficult for the women to talk about, as many had never given the idea much thought. Stereotypic notions of femininity as passive and self sacrificing were usually used, along side new ways of thinking about the concept, which often involved adopting valued masculine traits, such as independence and describing them as now relating to being a woman.Item Becoming strong women : physicality, femininity and the pursuit of power : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology at Massey University, Palmerston North, Aotearoa New Zealand(Massey University, 2002) Bell, Martha GuinnWomen outdoor leaders are often told that they are too aggressive and strident and that they risk being too strong to be role models for their students. They experience competition, hostility, misogynist epithets and sexual advances, as well as coercion to prove themselves from their male students and colleagues. Many of these women report self-doubt and low confidence about their competence and that they do not advance in their careers because they take time to perfect their physical skills. Cultural feminist analyses recommend that activities for women ought not to require intense physical strength and women outdoor leaders should not be so competent that ordinary women cannot aspire to be like them. Prescriptions for all-women groups encourage non-competitive learning experiences which enhance the development of women's inner strengths and protect their psychological safety in the outdoors. Non-separatist remedies agree that women-only courses ensure women are not intimidated by men's physical superiority and argue that they should prepare women to re-enter mixed outdoor programmes with more confidence. These suggestions, however, do not account for the relations of the physical through which women and men socially and subjectively embody physicality. This project takes up corporeal feminism in order to examine in a group of women outdoor leaders their lived experiences of physicality and embodied identity and how these effect often contradictory gendered subjectivities. It responds to the literature by arguing that heterogendered norms are sustained when the performance of prowess is rejected as the 'male model.' In contrast, I argue that women in this study who embrace the 'hard, physical' as masculinity are allowing a non-normative bodily strength to reinscribe their feminine subjectivities. Other women who desire an "acceptable" femininity, whether "big and boisterous" or "staunch," are expanding the possibilities for gendered subjectivity. Strong women know what their bodies can do and often enthusiastically want others to experience this. Their physical prowess makes visible the social conditions through which normative femininity is inscribed as limited physical strength. When they reinscribe femininity with a lived power of strength, endurance and bodily control, they become more effective at challenging gender heteronormativity through alternative physicalities.