Connolly, John (2021) "Pints or half-pints": Gender, functional democratization, and the consumption of drink in Ireland. The British Journal of Sociology, 72, (5), pp. 1246-1259. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12903.
External website: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-4...
This paper examines the relationship between the gender power balance, changes in the consumption of alcohol and changing social interdependences. The empirical setting is Ireland circa 1900 up to the present. Drawing from the works of Norbert Elias, I explain how a lessening of the power inequality between men and women was more moderate and limited up to the 1960s. The effect of this was that emancipatory changes around drinking were mainly confined to women from specific social cohorts. As the reduction in gender power inequality accelerated post 1960 it initially increased tensions between the genders, reflected in new power struggles over the social spaces in which drinking occurred and in the type of glass one should drink from. Despite the emergence of less unequal power relations, men continued to have a model setting function in relation to alcohol consumption. A central contention of the paper is the need to give greater consideration to the nature of social interdependences for they can generate a lessening of power inequalities for some social cohorts while failing to generate such a dynamic for other similar social groups.
B Substances > Alcohol
J Health care, prevention, harm reduction and treatment > Risk and protective factors > Risk factors
L Social psychology and related concepts > Interpersonal interaction and group dynamics > Peer relations / social networks > Level of substance use among peers
T Demographic characteristics > Woman (women / female)
T Demographic characteristics > Gender / sex differences
VA Geographic area > Europe > Ireland
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