Healthy adults and maternal bodies: Reformulations of gender in Australian alcohol guidelines

Abstract

This article examines the formulations of gender and sexual difference in Australian public health texts on drinking, focussing on the 2009 Australian guidelines to reduce health risks from drinking alcohol. These guidelines set a single level of low risk drinking for ‘healthy men and women’, in contrast to the gender differentiated levels found in earlier recommendations. At the same time they demonstrate an increased focus on the risks of ‘maternal alcohol consumption’, recommending abstinence for both pregnant and breastfeeding women. The article argues that this reorganisation of gendered vulnerability to alcohol reflects several shifts that have taken place both in public health discourse and in the social practices and cultural norms of gender. These include the problematisation of conventional masculinity; the constitution of women as economic producers and consumers with a right to equal participation in public life and an intensification of concern about foetuses, infants and children as vulnerable citizens of the future.

Keywords:

• sociology
• gender
• alcohol
• drinking
• pregnancy
• risk