“Kitchen Cupboard Drinking”: A Review of South African Women's Secretive Alcohol Addiction, Treatment History, and Barriers to Accessing Treatment

Abstract

How Black ¹ women are represented, conceptualized, and researched in the field of psychology has dramatic and far-reaching effects on arriving at an understanding of personality and psychopathology. This point becomes especially salient as researchers try to develop alternative strategies for researching gendered experiences and for generating meaningful information about African women's experiences of alcohol misuse. On the African continent, there is a paucity of research on Black women's access to alcohol treatment. Therefore, this review has implications for research and practice with the potential to stimulate future health disparities research affecting Black African women. The article focuses on a South African population and explores the importance of theorizing alcohol misuse and sex by discussing the history of alcohol misuse in South Africa, women and alcohol misuse in South Africa, and women's treatment history; interpreting women's experiences of treatment; and addressing recommendations for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• South African women
• secretive drinking
• barriers to alcohol treatment
• alcohol misuse

Notes

1. During the apartheid years (1948–1993), all South Africans were classified in accordance with the Population Registration Act of 1950 into “racial groups,” namely, “Black/African” (people mainly of African descent), “Colored” (people of mixed descent), “White” (people mainly of European descent), or “Indian” (people mainly of Indian descent). The provision of services occurred along these “racially” segregated lines. The disproportionate provision of services to different “race groups” led to inequities. Information is still collected along these “racial” divisions in order to redress these inequities. In no way does the author subscribe to this classification.