“Not a good look”: Impossible Dilemmas for Young Women Negotiating the Culture of Intoxication in the United Kingdom

Abstract

This paper investigates young women's alcohol consumption in the United Kingdom within a widespread culture of intoxication in relation to recent debates about postfeminism and contemporary femininity. Young women are faced with an "impossible dilemma," arising from the contradiction between a hedonistic discourse of alcohol consumption and postfeminist discourse around attaining and maintaining the "right" form of hypersexual heterosexual femininity. Drawing on a recent interview study with 24 young white working-class and middle-class women in the South-West of England, we explore how young women inhabit the dilemmas of contemporary femininity in youth drinking cultures, striving to achieve the "right" form of hypersexual femininity and an "optimum" level of drunkenness.

‘If I don’t look good, it just doesn’t go up’: A qualitative study of young women’s drinking cultures and practices on Social Network Sites

“…Although young women were not characterised by class (see limitations section), it is important to acknowledge that class is central to their gendered experiences, with working class women's femininity and drinking practices being judged, scrutinised and stigmatised in accordance with middle class notions of respectability (Bailey et al, 2015;Griffin et al, 2013;Nicholls, 2016;Skeggs, 1997). The study provides insight into women's experiences and negotiation of public drinking spaces in a working class environment.…”

“…SNS drinking culture was participated in more by young women and the sharing of drinking photos perceived as a feminine activity by both young men and women (Atkinson et al, 2015;Niland et al, 2014). We focus on how young women talked about their experiences of drinking, and how they negotiated drinking and intoxication in their performance of their femininity on SNS as an extension of public drinking contexts and their social networks, and as an additional space in which gender restrictions are placed upon them (Bailey et al, 2015;Griffin et al, 2013;Hutton et al, 2016;Niland et al, 2014). Drinking spaces and displays of drinking on SNS are thus framed as sites of gender performance and alcohol-related practices on SNS as bound up with socially embedded understandings of how femininity should be performed and accomplished (Butler, 1999;Hutton et al, 2016;West & Zimmerman, 1987).…”

“…The gap between young men's and women's experiences of drinking and intoxication has begun to narrow as women have become more active participants in night life drinking spaces, and as a result, more women are reporting drinking and drunkenness (Atkinson et al, 2012b;Fuller, 2015;Hibell et al, act as sites of control for women and as contexts in which gender and classed restrictions continue to be being placed upon them (Atkinson et al, 2012a;Bailey et al, 2015;Griffin et al, 2009Nicholls, 2016;Niland et al, 2014).…”

“…Consequently, consumer items such as alcohol products, and leisure and consumption practices such as alcohol consumption, drinking practices and intoxication in public drinking contexts, and their display on social media, act as cultural resources and sites of consumption and leisure in signalling and performing identity (Atkinson et al, 2012a;De Visser & Smith, 2007a,b;De Visser & Smith, 2009;De Visser & McDonnell, 2012;Lyons & Willott, 2008;Skeggs, 1997;2004;ThurnellRead, 2012;Kolind, 2011). For example, drinking culture remains highly gendered and drinking spaces, and practices and relations within them, act as important sites of performing gender (Atkinson et al, 2012a;Bailey et al, 2015;Griffin et al, 2012;Measham, 2002;Nicholls, 2016).…”

“…Although research has begun to explore the growing role of SNS in young people's drinking cultures and the role that both SNS and alcohol play in identity formation and self-expression in a neo-liberal context (Lyons et al, 2014(Lyons et al, , 2015McCreanor et al, 2013;Niland et al, 2016), there remains a lack of UK based research exploring young women's own uses and meaning of SNS in their drinking cultures, and the display of drinking in the performance of femininities . As extensions of drinking spaces, SNS are an important area of enquiry, allowing us to explore the ways in which young women display drinking cultures and the difficulties and pressures they face in presenting the 'right' form of femininity in relation to drinking and intoxication (Bailey et al, 2015;Dobson, 2013;Hutton et al, 2016). SNS act as an additional space in which women face pressure to perform 'ideal' and narrowly defined femininity, where they experience the dilemmas in contemporary femininity created by drinking and intoxication, and the gender sexual/double standards placed upon them within contemporary drinking cultures .…”