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Primary Research Approach

My approach is mainly qualitative, using critical analysis to explain the data that I extract from the sources. Using a critical analysis requires the researcher to put the data into a specific context to explain what the research findings mean within the scope of the research and in the greater framework of society. A critical analysis can be applied to patterns and trends identified within textual and visual data or even quantitative/numerical data, to explain the way that the data support specific social structures and social institutions, and the ideologies upheld within these social systems.

A critical discourse analysis specifically examines the discourses that circulate within a society. Discourse is a way of thinking and speaking about a certain topic that is rooted in language practices. A critical discourse analysis examines the oral, textual, and visual discourse for changes or continuities that are congruent with the practices found in the social systems that make up a society. A critical discourse analysis looks for both explicit and implicit messages that are held within the structure of the discourse, and identifies tensions that can be found between the various elements of the discourse. For example, a critical discourse analysis can expose the variables between the message being sent through an image, and a contradicting message being sent through the verbal language that is connected to the image.

Much of my work is rooted in Foucauldian theories of discourse, i.e., the way that social discourse reproduces power-knowledge relationships that ultimately support those with the power and are representations of overarching, hegemonic ideologies in society. Other people who have heavily influenced me are Norman Fairclough, whose work focuses on how to analyze discursive practices within a society; Erica Dyck, a Canadian author who specializes in analyzing the eugenics practices in Canada; and Shannon Stettner, another Canadian author who has written extensively about the history of abortion in Canada.

Projects

The Nation State and the nation's state:

a critical discourse analysis of biopower as an effect of gendered nationalism in twentieth century Canadian public health information

Primary source

I performed a critical discourse analysis based on Foucault's idea of biopower on a 1935 health guide published by the Winnipeg Health Supply Company. I acquired this source when I received a suitcase full of old things from my grandparents house. When I read through the guide, I knew it told an important story about the history of Canadian healthcare.

I wanted to understand how the population expansion of English-speaking Caucasians perpetrated by the Canadian government during the early 1900s had affected Canadians as a whole. To tackle this project, I had to allow for the intersectionality of various social and racial groups to better grasp the experiences of the individuals who identify within these communities.

I examined the text and the images in the guide for the messages they contained. The booklet features heavily gendered messages that are both explicit and implicit. Here, the text clearly states that beauty is a sign of health. Since the image accompanying the text is of a feminine woman, the implicit message here is that there is a socially constructed assumption that females should be beautiful and feminine, which ultimately determines their place in society and the expectations placed upon them by that society.

Men are explicitly characterized as strong and powerful, well-known traits that depict masculinity, through both word and image associations found within the guide. Throughout, men are held to standards of mental and physical fortitude, which also sends a message about how males should behave in society. The text and images also portray characteristics associated with heterosexual identities, supporting socially constructed ideas of heteronormativity, which also tells us that individuals in Canadian society at this time were held to expectations of behavior based solely on their biological gender.

There are also no representations of racial minorities within the text of the booklet. All of the portrayals are markers of what one would expect to see in a typical, English speaking, Caucasian family. The health guide contains images and language that support overarching hegemonic, patriarchal ideologies that are pervasive in Canadian society and that, at the time of this publication, guided the Canadian government’s strategy for increasing the population of English-speaking, Caucasian Canadians. Similar to other Canadian publications at this time - magazines like Chatelaine, Good Housekeeping, and the Blue Books by Dr. Helen MacMurchy - the Handy Home Doctor health guide promoted the ideal, Canadian family as English-speaking Caucasian, ignoring ethnic and racial minorities and anyone who identified outside the heteronormative social standards. As a result of this exclusion, Canadian publications during the 1920s and 1930s can be seen as clear representations of the Canadian government’s biopolitical agenda of population expansion.

Defining the Dissemination of Reproductive and Sexual Health Information:

an examination of online, Canadian reproductive and sexual health discourse

Primary sources

This project was inspired by a reproductive justice history seminar and by my own, personal experiences with sexual and reproductive health within the Canadian healthcare system. The two-part study that I conducted used Canadian, government, sexual health websites as primary sources. I used a critical discourse analysis to examine the websites text and images, analyzing the inclusiveness, comprehensiveness, and validity of the sexual and reproductive health information provided on the websites. I assessed the websites' use of language and who was being addressed, as well as the composition of the images such as who was visible, to determine the level of inclusivity. I looked at the information provided on the websites to evaluate the comprehensiveness, following every hyperlink and noting the ease or difficulty of access to particular information, the amount of information included on each topic, and what type of information was included. The validity of the information was measured by comparing the inclusiveness and comprehensiveness of the information with the real-life sexual and reproductive health needs of the various social/racial communities in Canada.

Finally, I compared the information on the government sites to information provided on the website of a nationally recognized sexual health organization. This completed a snapshot of the sexual and reproductive health information that is currently available to Canadians and helped to identify gaps in the information provided on the government websites.

Method and Methodology

I used a two-part approach to this study, completing the two parts over two sixteen-week periods. This allowed me to expand the scope of the research to include samples that represented all of the ten provinces and three territories in Canada, one national website, and one nonprofit website. I applied a critical discourse analysis based on Foucault's theory of power-knowledge relations produced within discursive structures of society to online, sexual and reproductive health information. I focused specifically on a Canadian context and examined government controlled and/or funded information sites.

In the first part, I analyzed seven websites: one national website, and six websites from the Western Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. I took screenshots of the website pages to use for reference, and I also wrote a detailed analysis for each separate website. I organized the extracted data from these seven websites into three themes that mirror the way that sexual and reproductive health, sex, and sexuality are thought about and talked about in Canadian society. These themes were present to varying degrees on each website, with some sites exhibiting certain themes more strongly than others. These themes are: 1) Overrepresentation of females that places all the responsibility of sexual health and reproduction on females: i.e. being informed; contraception; pregnancy risk; 2) Underrepresentation of ethnic and sexual minorities: overrepresentation of middle-class Caucasians in comparison to an underrepresentation of racial minority groups such as African-Americans, Philippines, and Asians, and no representation of Indigenous peoples; no representation of lower-class socio-economic individuals; underrepresentation of LGBQTTAAI+ individuals, and males; and 3) Reproducing rationality: negative stigma around abortion (i.e. shame; guilt; lack of respect); valuation variances, biased representations of women who choose to parent their child and women who choose to terminate a pregnancy.

In the second part of the study, I analyzed eleven more websites, ten that were representative of the other six Canadian provinces and three territories, and one that represented a national nonprofit, sexual health organization, taking screenshots for reference and writing a separate analysis for each site. The eleven government websites also exhibited the same three themes that were present in the first seven government websites, however the nonprofit site provided more information for various social and racial minority groups, as well as more thorough information overall. Finding the themes consistently within online, Canadian sexual and reproductive health information reveals so much about the sexual and reproductive health experiences that various individuals can and do have within the Canadian healthcare system. The way that sexual and reproductive healthcare is framed for specific social groups is vital to the way these people see their sexual and reproductive health choices.

I combined the data from both studies to produce the final research paper and conclusions. Below is a detailed outline of each theme identified by the study, and conclusion.

Theme One: Overrepresentation of females that places all the responsibility of sexual health and reproduction on females: i.e. being informed; contraception; pregnancy risk

Females were much more visible on the government sexual and reproductive health information sites than males, outnumbering the males by a ratio of at least 2:1 in many places. Also, many images included only females, however, almost none of the images included only males. Most of the time, if males were in an image, they were placed in images also containing females. Moreover, the images with males and females were more likely to have the females in the front of and central to the image composition, while males mainly appear to the side or in the background and are often blurred out. Additionally, even in places where the information explicitly applies to both males and females, only females appeared in the images accompanying the information. For example the images below are found on title pages for information that pertains to everyone, no matter your biological sex, gender, sexual orientation, or sexual identity. The high visibility of only females on these websites suggests that health professionals consider this information is more important for females than for males. The fact that the websites feature mainly females also implies that the information is being targeted to females and assumes the websites attract a larger female audience than male audience. The key issue here is that males also need to be educated about sexual and reproductive health. Targeting males with information on subjects like contraception, pregnancy, sexual health care, and consent has been proven to improve and increase sexual health and reproductive rights for females.

Theme Two: Underrepresentation of ethnic and sexual minorities: overrepresentation of middle-class Caucasians in comparison to an underrepresentation of racial minority groups such as African-Americans, Philippines, and Asians, and no representation of Indigenous peoples; no representation of lower-class socio-economic individuals; underrepresentation of LGBQT2AI+ individuals, and males

The images on the government websites mainly featured individuals who can be considered Caucasian, heterosexuals belonging to the middle class. These images do not represent the entire Canadian population and leave out many social and racial minority groups. The ratio of Caucasians to other races in the images is a minimum of 2:1, and can be much higher on pages where there are a larger number of images; however the ratio of heterosexual representation to representations of LGBQT+ individuals is so great, it is difficult to express numerically. For example, the first six images below are taken from the same site. The first three are from pages on the site that discus sex and all of the complexities that accompany sex. These pages give general information about sex, however the images are explicitly representative of hetero sex. Much of the text is also gendered toward a heterosexual audience. The next three images are from pages that offer information specifically to the LGBQT+ community, however these images are much more obscure than the images of hetero individuals. The poses of the people representing the LGBQT+ community are less intimate and less sexual than the images representing hetero sex. The images and text indicate that heterosexuality is still more openly accepted as the societal norm in Canada, revealing the way that sex and sexuality are typically thought of and talked about in Canadian society. Additionally, there is far more information about females and their bodies than can be found about males and the male body. Overall, these findings point to serious gaps in government-regulated, sexual health information.

Theme Three: Reproducing rationality: negative stigma around abortion (i.e. shame; guilt; lack of respect); valuation variances, biased representations of women who choose to parent their child and women who choose to terminate a pregnancy

The information on pregnancy and abortion provided on Canadian government, sexual health websites is quite biased in favor of continuing pregnancy over abortion, and this is evident through the presentation of the information. Pregnancy is depicted as a happy time, represented by smiling, feminine women, with advocation for self-care to ensure the health of mom and baby. There is a lot of information for pregnant females, with separate links to detailed handbooks, information lines, and support groups. A large number of colorful images accompany the pregnancy information. In comparison, abortion is not accompanied by many images, and the ones that are used are somber and lack color. There is less information about having an abortion, and overall there is very little discussion of post-abortion self care. The information that is given about post-abortion care is delivered in a very clinical manner and does not contain the reassurances or caring tone of pregnancy care information. Many times, there is an assumption on the websites that abortions cause grief, as well as regret and depression, and most self care information is directed toward those assumptions. Further, almost every page with abortion information contains explicit reminders that parenting and adoption are also options for pregnant individuals. The text also often raises the question of the rationality of persons choosing abortions by implying, or even outright stating, that they might not be sure of their choice. Some websites had no information about abortion. The individuals represented on the information pages for both pregnancy and abortion can mainly be considered heterosexual females, leaving out many other individuals who may identify differently but are still able to become pregnant. This information presentation supports the way that pregnancy and abortion are usually perceived in the broader context of Canadian society, and reinforces the ideas about sex and sexuality that permeate many constructs of Canadian social institutions.

Non-profit Comparison

By comparison to the government information websites, the site for the national, non-profit, sexual and reproductive health organization contains inclusive and comprehensive information that pertains to all genders, biological sexes, and sexual orientations and identities. No-one is left out, and the information is extremely broad, covering a wide variety of topics about sex and sexuality, as well as reproduction. On the non-profit site, sex is more than just a reproductive act that causes pregnancy and the information provided covers all aspects from sex for pleasure, to relationships and sexuality, to the consequences of having sex and how to be safe. The text is never gendered and does not make assumptions about the audience, such as those people with penises identify as males and those with vaginas as females. When compared to the information on the non-profit website, the sexual and reproductive health information on the government sites is sorely lacking.

Conclusion

In modern society, individuals are encouraged to blindly put their trust in people who are considered professionals in their field. Professionals have knowledge that the public does not have, and this creates a knowledge hierarchy that produces a power-knowledge relationship between those who know and those who do not know. This relationship requires the public to take the information they are given at face value and places the control of the information in the hands of the knowers, making the individuals who do not have this knowledge vulnerable.

How information is presented is crucial to the way that information is thought about. How the public receives and perceives information is paramount to the way they see their choices with regard to certain situations. When sexual and reproductive health is presented in specific ways, this will affect the way that the public understands sexual and reproductive health and the choices that go with it. The options an individual has access to ultimately determine the course of action that person will take to solve a problem or seek answers. When it comes to sexual and reproductive health, the knowledge being disseminated and the way that knowledge is disseminated have lasting effects on the general population and how they see their sexual healthcare choices. When a particular social group is not included in the conversation about sexual health, the individuals in that group are at risk of not having their sexual health needs met. Access to sexual and reproductive health information and care is everyone's right, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preferences, or geographical location. Sexual health is an important part of Canada's healthcare system, and it is vital that all Canadians have equal opportunities to make healthy choices about sex and sexuality.

This study did answer most of my questions, however it also raised more questions about the way that sexual and reproductive health, and healthcare choices are presented by groups or even individuals who are deemed to be the Canadian professionals on health and healthcare. I would like to continue this line of research and further investigate the role of geo/socio-politics in the sexual and reproductive healthcare experiences of various Canadian social groups from across Canada.

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