Acknowledgements

I have many people to thank, as I could not have done this alone. Thank you to Dr. Noëlla Piquette, my supervisor, for helping me to secure funding, for guiding me in the expansion of this project, and for steering me when I became lost. Thank you for believing in me and for the time you invested in helping me complete this project. Thank you to my committee member, Dr. Toupey Luft, for discussions, support, friendship, moral support, and continued employment. And thank you to Dr. Kaitlyn Hillier and Dr. Jeffrey MacCormack for your support in starting my research proposal.

Many friends and family have provided so much essential support. To Rylan Spenrath, thank you for support in almost every way imaginable, including endless discussion, reviewing, and moral support. You know more about this project, and the many ideas that were ultimately not included in it, than anyone else. To Iroh, thank you for your faithful feline companionship during the writing process, particularly when Covid-19 forced me into isolation at home. To Cody Fong, thank you for generally taking care of me during this entire process. Thank you to my cohort members, Aliza Dadani and Shaylah Swan, for helping to keep me accountable and for supporting me in the decision to transition from a thesis to a project. Thank you also to the many, many women who helped me conceptualize important ideas by sharing their stories and insights with me, especially Évéline Poirier and Linda Cataldo.

This project would not have been possible without financial support or the work of research in sexual medicine. Thank you to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Alberta Advanced Education, the Rupertsland Institute, the Métis Education Foundation, and the Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge for your generous scholarships. And finally, thank you to the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health for your tireless and revolutionary work in women’s sexual health and sexual dysfunction.