Frightening or Foolish? Gendered Perceptions of Public Intoxication Among Youths and Adults in Norway and Finland

Abstract

Background: What people define as acceptable alcohol use may differ between social situations and depend upon on who is drinking as well as who is evaluating the situation. Objective: The aim of the study was to explore how Norwegian and Finnish youth and adults perceived the acceptability of situations involving public intoxication and how gender and alcohol’s harm to others were made relevant in their reflections. Methods: We conducted eight focus groups among adolescents (N = 44) and eight among adults (N = 38), using photos and stories of drinking situations as stimuli for the discussions. Results: Youths’ and adults’ perceptions of public intoxication were characterized by ambivalence: negative evaluations were often nuanced and negotiated while positive evaluations typically were followed up with reservations. To some extent, their evaluations depended upon the gender and age of the drinker. Although a norm of gender equality was emphasized, women were typically criticized for their looks and for foolish behavior when drunk, while drunk men were often perceived as frightening. Age was a prominent dimension in evaluations of the acceptability of women’s alcohol use, while it was seldom mentioned when discussing intoxicated men. Youths seemed to have somewhat more restrictive attitudes towards public intoxication than adults, reflecting perhaps how they related to the situations with more general conceptions of drinking and harms from drinking, picked up from public debate or from school. Conclusion: Perceptions of alcohol’s harm to others were clearly gendered, in that intoxicated men were seen as frightening while women were seen as foolish.

Keywords:

• Public intoxication
• attitudes
• gender
• age
• alcohol’s harm to others
• focus group interviews

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to Ingeborg Lund at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health for useful comments on a previous draft of the article.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article

Additional information

Funding

This was funded by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It was developed during workshops funded by The Joint Committee for Nordic Research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS) (project nr. 238504/F10).