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THE TEXTUAL CONSTRUCTION of FEMININITY in WOMEN's FITNESS MAGAZINES by TRACY LYNN RUNDSTROM WILLIAMS Presented to the Faculty

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THE TEXTUAL CONSTRUCTION of FEMININITY in WOMEN's FITNESS MAGAZINES by TRACY LYNN RUNDSTROM WILLIAMS Presented to the Faculty THE TEXTUAL CONSTRUCTION OF FEMININITY IN WOMEN’S FITNESS MAGAZINES by TRACY LYNN RUNDSTROM WILLIAMS Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON December 2007 Copyright © by Tracy Lynn Rundstrom Williams 2007 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I sincerely thank Dr. Winnie Orr for the guidance, support, and friendship during my years at The University of Texas at Arlington, and in particular throughout the writing of this dissertation. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you and learning from you, and I am inspired by your intelligence and enthusiasm. To my committee members, Dr. Don Burquest, Dr. Charla Markham Shaw, Dr. David Silva, and Dr. Laurel Stvan who have been my mentors and who have worked with me to pursue this degree on a part-time basis, I thank you. I am also grateful to Dr. Mark Ouellette for his interest and input as a shadow committee member. In addition, I thank my supervisors at Texas Christian University, Dr. Larry Adams, Dr. Bonnie Melhart, and Dr. Jane Kucko, for giving me not only the flexibility but also the support to pursue this degree. This accomplishment could not have been completed without the love and support of my friends and family. To Susan Layne, who has been my cheerleader, your interest and encouragement have been unparalleled. To my parents, Jim and Lynn Rundstrom, who have been my greatest champions, I am thoroughly grateful. And most importantly, to my husband, Andy Williams, who has been more patient, supportive, helpful, and encouraging than I ever could have hoped for, I am humbled by and grateful for your love. October 11, 2007 iii ABSTRACT THE TEXTUAL CONSTRUCTION OF FEMININITY IN WOMEN’S FITNESS MAGAZINES Publication No. ______ Tracy Lynn Rundstrom Williams, PhD. The University of Texas at Arlington, 2007 Supervising Professor: W. F. Winnie Orr Women in the first decade of the 21st century encounter competing ideologies of traditional femininity and empowered femininity. Language, in particular Discourse Analysis, provides a means for investigating what these ideologies, or discourses, are and how they are perpetuated. One source of language which encodes and perpetuates ideologies of femininity is women’s magazines. As pervasive, monthly texts directed specifically at women, women’s magazines provide a rich source of contemporary ideologies of femininity. Given the rise of health and fitness magazines over the past 20 years, it appears that one primary focus of contemporary femininity is the body. Previous research has found that the idealized female body today – an extremely thin body – iv encodes traditional femininity in that it represents social values of beauty, smallness, and others-orientation, but it also encodes empowered femininity in that it represents will- power, dedication, and strength. Using one fitness instructional text from eight different women’s fitness magazines, an analysis of the rhetorical structure, clauses, and lexicon demonstrates how these texts perpetuate a hybrid discourse which actually integrates traditional and empowered femininity. This hybrid discourse appears as a seamless combination of the two “parent” discourses by placing itself in the middle of a continuum between traditional femininity and empowered femininity: emphasizing achievement but to a limited degree, and celebrating beautification and objectification. The hybrid discourse also supports a sociological trend of many women wanting to balance competing demands of portraying highly valued but traditionally male traits while still being seen as traditionally feminine. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT............................................................................................................... iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS..................................................................................... x LIST OF TABLES..................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ……................................................................................ 1 1.1 Why Study Language?............................................................................. 5 1.2 Why Study Femininity? ........................................................................... 7 1.3 Why Study Women’s Magazines?........................................................... 12 1.4 Why Study the Body? .............................................................................. 20 1.5 Limitations………….. ............................................................................. 21 1.6 Summary…………….............................................................................. 23 2. DOING GENDER: ENACTING FEMININITIES THROUGH LANGUAGE…………… ............................................................................ 24 2.1 Ideology and Critical Discourse Analysis................................................ 24 2.2 Gender Discourses………. ...................................................................... 28 2.2.1 Linguistic Research on Traditional Femininity ........................ 33 2.2.2 Linguistic Research on Empowered Femininity....................... 41 vi 2.2.3 Linguistic Research on the Integration of Traditional and Empowered Femininities.......................................................... 46 2.3. Summary……………............................................................................. 53 3. FEMININITY PORTRAYED THROUGH WOMEN’S MAGAZINES...... 57 3.1 The Making of Women’s Magazines: ‘A Recipe for Femininity Itself’ . 57 3.2. Domestic Magazines and Traditional Femininity Ideology.................... 63 3.3. Feminist Magazines and Empowered Femininity Ideology ................... 67 3.4. Fitness Magazines and the Body............................................................. 72 3.5. Summary……………............................................................................. 80 4. IDEOLOGIES OF FEMININITY USING THE BODY............................... 82 4.1. Symbolism of the Slender Body Ideal .................................................... 89 4.1.1. The Slender Body and Traditional Femininity ........................ 89 4.1.2. The Slender Body and Empowered Femininity....................... 93 4.2. Managing Competing Ideologies of the Body ....................................... 96 4.3. The Missing Piece: Linguistics............................................................... 109 5. METHODS AND MAIN FINDINGS............................................................ 111 5.1. Goal of the Project….. ............................................................................ 111 5.2. Selection of Texts…… ........................................................................... 111 5.3. Method of Analysis.. ............................................................................... 112 5.4. Research Heuristics…............................................................................. 115 6. RHETORICAL AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS ............................................. 120 6.1 The Process………... ............................................................................... 122 vii 6.2 The Product………... ............................................................................... 125 6.3 Hybridity on the Rhetorical Level ........................................................... 127 7. CLAUSAL AND LEXICAL ANALYSIS ..................................................... 132 7.1 Hybridity in the Process...................................................................... 132 7.1.1 Clauses in the Process............................................................... 133 7.1.2 Agents in the Process................................................................ 135 7.1.3 Verbs in the Process.................................................................. 140 7.1.4 Summary: the Process............................................................... 142 7.2 Hybridity in the Product...................................................................... 142 7.2.1 Clauses in the Product............................................................... 143 7.2.2 Agents in the Product................................................................ 145 7.2.3 Verbs in the Product.................................................................. 148 7.2.4 Patients in the Product .............................................................. 152 7.2.5 Adjectives in the Product.......................................................... 155 7.2.6 Qualifying Expressions in the Product ..................................... 158 7.2.7 Summary: the Product............................................................... 159 7.3. Summary……….. .............................................................................. 160 8. CONCLUSION: A HYBRID DISCOURSE OF FEMININITY.................... 162 8.1 Coverage and Linguistic Details ......................................................... 162 8.2 Convergence……................................................................................ 164 8.2.1 Limited Achievement................................................................ 165 8.2.2 Celebrating Objectification....................................................... 169 viii 8.3 Agreement………..............................................................................
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