Negotiating shame: An exploration of the body experience among young South African women who have attended or are attending University

Spyker, Jessica Grace

Title: Negotiating shame: An exploration of the body experience among young South African women who have attended or are attending University
Creator: Spyker, Jessica Grace
Subject: Shame
Subject: Body image in women
Subject: Body image Social aspects
Subject: College students Social conditions
Subject: College students Attitudes
Subject: Feminist aesthetics
Subject: Self-perception in women
Date Issued: 2021-10-29
Date: 2021-10-29
Type: Academic theses
Type: Master's theses
Type: text
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294880
Identifier: vital:57265
Description: Guided by phenomenological and feminist phenomenological perspectives, this research aimed to explore the ways in which young South African women, who were attending or had recently graduated from university, navigated body shame. It interrogated the socially situated ‘lived body’ and the way it was impacted by restrictive appearance ideals. Fifteen in-depth interviews were conducted, mostly through the video conferencing website Zoom. It became evident that women experienced their bodies in complex ways. There was evidence of conformity to as well as resistance against the “regime of shame”. Conformity and resistance often happened simultaneously. Both of these kinds of experiences were viewed as valid and explored in their own right. External messages around women’s bodies and how they should look had greatly influenced participants experiences of their own bodies. This included messages from discourses such as postfeminism and the body positivity movement, which informed the ways in which they navigated shame.
Description: Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2021
Format: computer
Format: online resource
Format: application/pdf
Format: 1 online resource (81 pages)
Format: pdf
Publisher: Rhodes University
Publisher: Faculty of Humanities, Sociology
Language: English
Rights: Spyker, Jessica Grace
Rights: Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike" License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)

Hits: 2002
Visitors: 2123
Downloads: 147

Collections

Gender Action Forum (GENACT)

RU Department of Sociology

SDG 05. Gender Equality

		Thumbnail	File	Description	Size	Format
View Details Download			SOURCE1	SPYKER-MA-TR21-347.pdf	348 KB	Adobe Acrobat PDF	View Details Download