Gender and alcohol: the Swedish press debate

Abstract

The dominant approach to gender in alcohol research still conceives of gender in terms of binary roles and looks for explanations for gender differences in drinking. This paper challenges the binary approach, and instead analyzes the categorization of gender as created in Swedish newspaper stories about alcohol, published between 2000 and 2008. Specific categories examined include ‘responsible mothers’, ‘responsible parents’, ‘party girls’, ‘career women with drinking problems’, ‘violent men who drink’ and ‘beer-drinking, sexist male athletes’. Based on this examination, the paper discusses how the media stories do and/or undo gender and how they encourage readers to act by the categories of drinkers that they describe. The study shows that the Swedish media stories produce multiple ways of interpreting drinking. Some of the stories undo gender through linking ‘male’ behavior (drinking heavily) to female bodies, while others undo gender by treating parenthood as more important than gender. Importantly, however, other stories reproduce the discourse of heteronormativity and gender binarism. The study suggests that analyses of media texts need to take the complexity of ‘undoing gender’ into account, for example by avoiding the assumption that gender is either undone or reproduced.

Keywords:

• doing/undoing gender
• media
• alcohol
• discourse
• policy
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

This research is financed by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (grant 2007-2112 and grant 2007-2131) and the Alcohol Research Council of the Swedish Alcohol Retailing Monopoly (grant 07-12:1).

Notes

1. The grand total does not add up to 148 because of the substantial thematic overlap in some of the articles (for example, the articles about drinking, pregnancy and breastfeeding).

2. Expressen 28 January 2000, Expressen 19 October 2000, AB 8 May 2001, DN 8 May 2001, GP 8 May 2001, GP 8 September 2002, DN 21 February 2003, DN 27 February 2003, DN 11 June 2003, Expressen 11 June 2003, AB 12 June 2003, DN 12 June 2003, SvD 12 June 2003, AB 3 March 2004, DN 15 March 2004, Expressen 11 November 2004, DN 14 July 2004, SvD 16 November 2004, GP 9 March 2005, SvD 18 October 2005, AB 5 August 2006, AB 9 November 2006, DN 30 June 2007, Expressen 24 August 2007, AB 30 November 2007, AB 2 August 2008, SvD 22 September 2008, AB 4 November 2008, SvD 4 November 2008, GP 11 November 2008.

3. AB 4 May 2002, Expressen 12 June 2003, DN 15 June 2003, Expressen 15 June 2003, Expressen 18 June 2003, Expressen 4 March 2004, Expressen 10 April 2004, DN 9 July 2004, GP 16 July 2004, Expressen 20 July 2004, DN 9 September 2004, GP 10 September 2004, SvD 10 September 2004, Expressen 27 August 2005, AB 17 October 2005, AB 18 October 2005, DN 18 October 2005, GP 18 October 2005, SvD 19 October 2005, Expressen 29 October 2005, Expressen 26 August 2007, Expressen 12 November 2007, DN 11 March 2008, GP 11 March 2008, SvD 11 March 2008, DN 12 March 2008, Expressen 12 March 2008, SvD 12 March 2008, Expressen 13 March 2008, Expressen 29 March 2008, AB 4 November 2008.

4. Expressen 21 April 2000, Expressen 15 August 2000, AB 24 August 2000, GP 25 August 2000, Expressen 18 October 2000, Expressen 25 March 2001, Expressen 13 January 2002, Expressen 21 April 2002, Expressen 5 May 2002, AB 30 January 2003, Expressen 24 February 2003, AB 20 May 2003, SvD 25 July 2008, GP 26 November 2008.

5. Alna is an organization for the prevention of drinking and drug problems in the workplace.