Annals of Leisure Research

ISSN: 1174-5398 (Print) 2159-6816 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ranz20

Consuming Alcohol in Bars, Pubs and Clubs: A risky

freedom for young women?

Oona Brooks

To cite this article: Oona Brooks (2008) Consuming Alcohol in Bars, Pubs and Clubs:
A risky freedom for young women?, Annals of Leisure Research, 11:3-4, 331-350, DOI:
10.1080/11745398.2008.9686801

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/11745398.2008.9686801

Published online: 19 Sep 2011.

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 CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS • 331

Consuming Alcohol in Bars, Pubs

and Clubs: A risky freedom for
young women?
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Oona Brooks, University of Stirling, Scotland, UK

AbstrAct • Traditionally, consuming alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs repre-

sents a masculine leisure activity at odds with conventional understandings of
appropriate feminine behaviour. However, contemporary young women appear
to have new freedoms to embrace this leisure activity. This paper focuses on the
views of young women (18–25 years), drawing upon data from a qualitative
study which explored young women’s views, experiences, and behaviours in
relation to their safety when socialising and consuming alcohol in bars, pubs,
and clubs in Scotland. Findings from this study identify socialising and consum-
ing alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs as a central aspect of young women’s social
lives. However, for young women the consumption of alcohol in this context is
also equated with risk, vulnerability, loss of control, and increased responsibility
for their safety. These findings pose significant difficulties for locating women’s
experiences of consuming alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs within a poststruc-
tural framework of freedom and liberation.

Keywords: alcohol, bars, pubs and clubs, young women, femininity, safety

Introduction
It would appear that contemporary young women enjoy new freedoms in rela-
tion to their leisure. It is argued that feminism has resulted in women’s greater
participation within social structures, and their increased use of public space
(Watson, 2000). In particular, women have more opportunities to socialise
and consume alcohol, and there appears to be more social acceptance of them
doing so. The Institute of Alcohol Studies (2008) acknowledge that bars,
pubs, and clubs have become more ‘women friendly’ leisure spaces, and alco-
hol advertising targeted specifically at women depicts alcohol as fashionable,
glamorous, and used by women who are independent, fun-loving, desirable,
 332 • CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS

and in control (Day et al., 2004). This presents a stark contrast with earlier
observations of drinking in pubs as a male privilege, and an expression of
patriarchal society (Whitehead, 1976; Hey, 1986).
Recent research has documented a marked increase in the amount of
alcohol consumed by young women (Richardson & Budd, 2003; Mathews &
Richardson, 2005; McKenzie & Haw, 2006). In the UK, the General Household
Survey (2002) indicates that the vast majority (91%) of young women in
Scotland report drinking alcohol, although women still drink significantly
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less than men (Rickards et al., 2004). Meanwhile, the Scottish Health Survey
(2003) documents a significant increase in alcohol consumption among
young adults aged 16 to 24 years, and a more modest increase in alcohol con-
sumption among women overall (Scottish Executive, 2005). Scottish culture
has been described as one in which heavy drinking is commonplace and two-
thirds of respondents in the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (2004) agreed
that ‘Drinking is a major part of the Scottish way of life’ (McKenzie & Haw,
2006: 22). Scotland has also been described as having a ‘binge drinking’1 cul-
ture, with young adults aged between 18 and 24 years being more likely to
‘binge drink’ than other adults (Moore et al., 1994). Getting drunk has been
described as an integral part of the social scene for young people (Kitzinger
& Powell, 1995), whereby drinking alcohol and intoxication are perceived
as the norm, and as a leisure activity (MacAskill et al., 2001; Engineer et al.,
2003).
However, within media and public health discourses in the UK, much
concern has been expressed about the implications of women’s rising alco-
hol consumption, ‘ladette’2 behaviour and ‘binge drinking’ (Measham, 2006),
which has been dubbed ‘the new British disease’ (Forsyth et al., 2005: 6).
Relying upon conventional notions of respectable femininity, current public
awareness campaigns highlight the consequences of women’s alcohol con-
sumption in relation to their health, physical appearance, and personal safety.
Despite the greater likelihood of men engaging in violent or offending behav-
iour when they have consumed alcohol (Deehan, 1999; Richardson & Budd,
2003), particular concern has been voiced about women’s levels of drinking,
accompanied by substantial media coverage of a growing and problematic
‘ladette culture’ (Day et al., 2004; Jackson & Tinkler, 2007). Paradoxically,
this concern about women’s ‘laddish’ drinking behaviour has been also

1 In the UK binge drinking is defined as the consumption of more than six units of alcohol for
women and eight units of alcohol for men in a single session. It should be noted, however, that
there is no internationally agreed definition of binge drinking.
2 The Oxford English Dictionary describes a ‘ladette’ as ‘a young woman who behaves in a boister-
ously assertive and crude manner and engages in heavy drinking sessions.’
 CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS • 333

accompanied by a focus on women’s vulnerability to sexual violence when

they drink alcohol (Payne-James & Rogers, 2002).
Within public-awareness raising campaigns directed towards young
women, the threat of ‘drink spiking’ and drug-assisted sexual assault has been
given considerable attention. This issue entered the public consciousness in
the UK, primarily through press reports in the 1990s highlighting ‘date-rape
drugs’ such as Rohypnol and GHB.3 While some commentators have ques-
tioned the legitimacy of drug-assisted sexual assault, suggesting that it is no
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more than an urban myth (Kasteel, 2004; Taylor et al., 2004), others con-
tend that women have been sexually assaulted in this way throughout time,
although the development of a discourse to frame this phenomenon is rela-
tively new (Lawson & Crookes, 2003). To this end, alcohol has been identi-
fied as the most commonly used ‘date-rape drug’ (Hindmarch & Brinkmann,
1999; Sturman, 2000; Hindmarch et al., 2001; Lovett et al., 2004). Despite
ambiguity about the nature and definition of drink spiking and drug-assisted
sexual assault, exacerbated by methodological difficulties in establishing the
prevalence of this phenomenon (Fitzgerald & Riley, 2000; Benyon et al.,
2005), considerable media attention and a spate of preventative advice on
this issue has been administered to young women.
It is apparent that significant changes have taken place with regard to
women’s use of alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs, and particular risks have
been highlighted alongside these changes. However, given the public concern
surrounding this issue, surprisingly little is known about the experiences
and perspectives of young women. This paper is based on a doctoral study
that sought to address this gap by considering the views, behaviours, and
experiences of young women who socialise in bars, pubs, and clubs, through
the use of focus groups and semi-structured interviews. Considering young
women’s views on this issue provides an opportunity to examine poststruc-
tural discourses of leisure as a site for liberation and identity formation for
young women, against a backdrop of earlier feminist theorising about the
constraints experienced by young women in relation to socialising and con-
suming alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs. Relevant aspects of these differing
perspectives are outlined below in order to provide a theoretical context for
viewing young women’s responses to these issues.

3 Rohypnol is a member of the flunitrazepam family of sedative-hypnotic drugs used in the

treatment of anxiety and insomnia. It has a pronounced amnesiac effect that is beneficial
in a medical context, as it can be given to combat the effects of unpleasant procedures such
as changing dressings of burn victims and the realignment of broken bones. GHB (gamma
Hydroxybutyrate acid) is a central nervous system depressant that was initially developed as
an anaesthetic (Finch & Munro, 2005).
 334 • CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS

Young women and alcohol: Conventional constraints or new-

found liberation?
Constraints on women’s leisure and women’s unequal access to leisure oppor-
tunities, imposed by patriarchal structures, formed a significant focus of early
feminist theorising within leisure studies (Deem, 1986; Green et al., 1987;
Wimbush & Talbot, 1988). Arguably, issues surrounding women’s access
to leisure activities and their use of public space are heightened when they
seek to socialise in bars, pubs, and clubs; women who enter these spaces
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are subject to heightened (wanted or unwanted) male attention (Snow et al.,

1991), and there is a conventional cultural belief that attending a public bar
is unfeminine (Cavan, 1966). As such, drinking in pubs has been identified as
a masculine leisure pursuit (Green et al., 1987), and relatively little research
has focused specifically on women’s use of bars, pubs, and clubs. Research
which has focused on the way in which women occupy drinking establish-
ments, concludes that women in these settings, from the vantage point of
men, constitute ‘fair game’ (Snow et al., 1991: 428), and are expected to be
‘available’ (Green et al., 1987: 86). Cavan (1966) notes that although numer-
ous public places can be the setting of a ‘pickup’, public drinking places are
infused with such expectations.
Further, for many women, alcohol consumption is not related to respect-
ability; male disapproval and displeasure is particularly marked in relation to
women drinking, and negative consequences exist for women who ‘contravene
the commonly accepted limits of appropriate or “decent” behaviour’ in leisure
venues such as night clubs (Green et al., 1987: 85). There is evidence to sug-
gest that these consequences include disbelief, or even blame, should a woman
experience a sexual assault after consuming alcohol (Parks et al., 1998). A
woman’s right to withhold her consent is frequently challenged should she fail
to meet the standards of ‘appropriate femininity’ as depicted in social mores
and cultural discourses of morality (Malloch, 2004: 111). From a feminist per-
spective, it is argued that one of the dangers for women who step out with
the ‘normal parameters of male control’ is that they are frequently denied
the kind of protection afforded by the legal system to ‘innocent’ or ‘decent’
women (Radford, 1987: 43). Quite simply, Arbarbanel (2001: 23) states that,
‘Incapacitated victims who have voluntarily ingested alcohol or drugs are often
viewed as “asking for it”,’ or are at least viewed by men as being more available
for sexual acts because they are of lower character than women who do not
consume alcohol (Schwartz & DeKeseredy, 1997; Abbey et al., 2001).
Women who deviate from accepted standards of social and sexual respect-
ability (e.g. by drinking heavily or dressing in a ‘provocative’ way) may also
risk social exclusion by other women. Sexual reputation is deemed to be an
 CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS • 335

important criterion by which young women assess their own and other wom-
en’s actions (Kitzinger & Powell, 1995). As such, the risks which women
encounter when socialising and consuming alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs
are multi-dimensional; it is not only their physical safety which may be threat-
ened, but also their sexual and moral reputation. Stanko (1997: 481) suggests
that women are aware of these risks:

Woman — as subject, multiply positioned and fluid — recognises that what is

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at risk is more than just an encounter with men’s violence, it is also a risk of
self, a fear of being judged to be imprudent or to be exposed as being beyond
prudence. Safekeeping, I argue, is ‘performative’ (Butler, 1990) of respectable
femininities.

Feminist theorists within leisure studies and beyond have argued that women’s
awareness of the risks associated with ‘imprudent’ behaviour has a profound
effect on their use of public space, ultimately acting as a measure of social
control over women (Smart & Smart, 1978; Deem, 1986; Green et al., 1990;
Valentine, 1990; Wesley & Gaarder, 2004). Green et al. (1987: 79) define
social control as ‘an ongoing process, one element in the struggle to maintain
male hegemony which sets the limits of appropriate feminine behaviour.’ In
this context, it is argued that social control can rely on norms of ‘respect-
ability’ and accepted standards of femininity to control through consent, as
opposed to coercion (Green et al., 1987). Given the traditional alignment of
drinking in public places as a masculine activity with negative connotations
for a woman’s ‘reputation’, theories of social control initially articulated by
feminists in the 1970s provide a useful backdrop for reflecting upon the expe-
riences of contemporary young women in bars, pubs, and clubs.
More recently, however, poststuctural theorists have highlighted the
opportunities that leisure experiences may offer women for liberation by pro-
viding a means to contest cultural discourses around conventional feminine
identities. In contrast with the tradition of leisure studies and the associated
concern with macro, structural analysis, recent contributions from social and
cultural geographies have highlighted micro-analysis of daily life, situating
leisure within the cultural concepts of consumption, risk, and identity for-
mation (Aitchison, 2004). This transition reflects an examination of post-
structural ideas which embrace the multiple subjectivities of women and the
transformatory possibilities that leisure offers for ‘rewriting masculine and
feminine scripts’ (Wearing, 1998: xi).
From this perspective, leisure can be situated as an activity which can pro-
vide young women with a means to contest cultural discourses around femi-
 336 • CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS

nine identities, allowing them to utilise choice and self-monitoring to fashion

identities and develop self-esteem (Green & Singleton, 2006). Implicit within
the belief that women can fashion their own identities, subverting dominant
gender discourses, is a sense of agency. On this point, Aitchison (2004: 109)
argues that, ‘This scope for agency allows us to see leisure as a continually
evolving landscape with space for resistance, contestation, disruption and
transgression of dominant discourses and wider hegemonic social, cultural
and leisure relations.’
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Alongside the logic that agency can be utilised in this way by women,
parallels can be drawn with the poststructural feminist work of Butler (1999),
which suggests that gender is accomplished through repeated performances
that allow for the feminine to be reconstructed beyond male-dominated cul-
tural definitions. Belief in the ability of individual women to move beyond
notions of prescribed, oppressive femininity to embrace new femininities
is routed in a sense of optimism. Drawing upon a hybrid of interactionist
theory and Foucault’s ideas on power, subjectivity, discourse, and resistance,
Wearing (1998: 144) applies this optimism to women of the 1990s: ‘women
in the postmodern world means a diverse range of women of the 1990’s who
have a new self-confidence to challenge the givens of their existence, to resist
what they have been told they are and to reach what they should be.’
However, the extent to which this transformation has occurred, or can
occur, for women in the early twenty-first century requires further explora-
tion, particularly in relation to the consumption of alcohol in bars, pubs,
and clubs, as a conventionally masculine leisure pursuit. This paper explores
these questions from the vantage point of contemporary young women who
engage in this leisure activity.

Methodology
This paper draws upon the preliminary analysis of data from a qualitative
study, which explored young women’s views, experiences, and behaviours in
relation to their safety when socialising in bars, pubs, and clubs. The term
‘young women’ is a somewhat ambiguous term and can be used to refer to
a range of different age categories. For the purpose of this study, however,
‘young women’ were defined as women between the ages of 18 and 25 years.
This group form a key population within bars, pubs, and clubs, and there
has been an upward trend in alcohol consumption among young women in
this age group (Richardson & Budd, 2003; Mathews & Richardson, 2005;
McKenzie & Haw, 2006). Recent research has also highlighted the vulner-
ability of young women to sexual assault (Myhill & Allen, 2002), particularly
in licensed premises (Schwartz, 1997; Sturman, 2000; Moreton, 2002). As
 CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS • 337

such, young women have been identified as the primary audience for safety
campaigns about socialising and consuming alcohol in these settings.
Since the aim of this study was to understand the views and experiences of
young women, a qualitative strategy was used to ‘access the world’ in terms of
those being researched (Stroh, 2000: 197). Focus groups were used as a con-
textual method (Wilkinson, 1999), to examine the way that young women
discussed safety in bars, pubs, and clubs within a peer group (Bryman, 2001).
Individual semi-structured interviews were used to elicit participants’ personal
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experiences of socialising in bars, pubs, and clubs, their safety concerns and
safety strategies in these settings. While focus groups excel at generating data
through group interaction, individual interviews allow greater exploration of
individual biographies (Barbour & Kitzinger, 1999). As such, it was antici-
pated that individual interviews would provide a more appropriate means for
young women to disclose experiences which may be particularly personal or
sensitive to them (e.g. sexual assault), should they wish to do so.
Four focus groups and 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted
with young adult women in Scotland. In total, 35 young women, between the
ages of 18 to 25 years, participated in this study. Of these 35 women, 6 chose
to participate in a focus group only, 20 participated in an interview only, and
9 participated in both an interview and a focus group. Research participants
were recruited primarily through universities, colleges, and youth groups.
Information leaflets about the study were also distributed in locations where
young women tend to congregate (e.g. cafes, leisure centres, clothes shops),
while personal contacts and snowball sampling (Arber, 2001) were used to
recruit unknown others. Of the 35 women who took part in the study, 23 were
university students, 8 were college students, 1 was in full-time employment,
1 was unemployed, and the occupation of 2 participants was unknown. All
but 3 participants identified themselves as white British, Scottish, or Irish and
almost all of the participants identified themselves as heterosexual, with only
1 participant identifying themselves as bi-sexual. At the time of taking part in
the study, all participants were living in Scotland; 9 participants were living
in the south-east of Scotland, 11 were living in the south-west, 12 were living
in central Scotland, and 3 were living in the north of Scotland. Participants’
experiences related primarily to socialising in urban bars, pubs, and clubs
across Scotland. Due to the geographical spread of participants, experiences
of socialising in four out of Scotland’s six cities formed the main focus of
discussion, although some participants also referred to their experiences of
socialising in smaller towns.
For the purpose of this paper, all focus group and interview extracts
which referred to alcohol consumption were selected for detailed analysis,
 338 • CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS

using the qualitative data analysis software package NVivo. This included
instances where participants referred to their own alcohol consumption, that
of others, and their views on contemporary drinking culture more gener-
ally. Key themes within this subset of data were then identified and inter-
preted within the context of a feminist theoretical framework, sensitive to the
gendered meanings attached to consuming alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs.
In reviewing the key themes which emerged from the data, particular atten-
tion was given to situating women’s views and experiences within feminist
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structural and poststructural theoretical perspectives. Based on this analysis,

findings suggest that socialising and consuming alcohol in bars, pubs, and
clubs is a central feature of young women’s leisure. Participants’ responses
will be used to illustrate this point, before discussing further findings under
three headings: perceptions of women who consume alcohol; alcohol, loss of
control, and vulnerability; and responsibility for women’s safety. Where par-
ticipants’ responses have been quoted directly, pseudonyms have been used
to protect their anonymity.

Consumption of alcohol: A central and accepted feature of

young women’s leisure?
To a certain extent, findings from this study challenge the construction of
alcohol consumption in bars, pubs, and clubs as a primarily masculine leisure
pursuit, by identifying it as a central feature of young women’s leisure. Young
women described socialising and consuming alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs
as a normal, and in many cases, predominant leisure activity:

Louisa: I don’t really go to any other places, any other leisure places. Yeah that’s
about it, it’s all around drinking! [laughs]

Judith: Well I think it’s . . . it’s everything to a social life. I mean, if you try and
think of the occasions where you meet somebody that doesn’t involve going
out into a bar and involving alcohol, I think that’s really rare. Really rare. I
mean . . . you know, you can go and meet someone for a coffee, but in general
if you go out anywhere after five o’clock it’s gonna be for a drink.

In keeping with recent research, which demonstrates that alcohol consump-

tion by young women is increasing (Richardson & Budd, 2003; Mathews
& Richardson, 2005; McKenzie & Haw, 2006), young women frequently
referred to a rise in alcohol consumption by women. This was often described
in terms typically employed in media descriptions of women drinking such as
‘ladette’ culture and ‘binge drinking’:
 CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS • 339

Debbie: . . . you hear about women and the binge drinking thing and the fig-
ures are just getting higher and higher for that, and it is so normal to be able
to do it from quite young ages now, male or female. It’s just normal in society.
It’s weird. It’s not a good thing, but it is what’s happening.

Increased social acceptance of women consuming alcohol was noted by

young women, and drinking was equated with sociability, fun, and enjoyment
by some, although this remained subject to certain limitations and restric-
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tions. In the context of discussing women’s safety in bars, pubs, and clubs,
young women in this study discussed the implications of their own alcohol
consumption, and that of other women, in two main ways: perceptions of
women who consume alcohol, and a reduction in women’s ability to protect
themselves from sexual harassment, assault, or drink spiking. These findings
and their implications will now be discussed in more detail.

Perceptions of women who consume alcohol

Despite the identification of alcohol consumption in bars, pubs, and clubs as
a normal leisure activity for young women, and an awareness that it is now
more socially acceptable for women to consume alcohol, young women in
this study were acutely aware that different meanings are attached to men and
women who consume alcohol:

Suzanne: I think obviously girls are allowed . . . I mean you’re allowed to do

anything really, but I mean it’s just not as acceptable for a girl to get drunk still
. . . and I think sometimes with certain people I do feel a little bit ashamed ‘oh
no, I wasn’t, no, I wasn’t drunk last night’, you know, still . . . you still say that . . .
’cause I think it’s just viewed as unattractive by some people, but I don’t know.

Here Suzanne highlights the tension between ‘girls’ ‘being allowed to do

anything really,’ and remaining conscious that drunkenness may be viewed
as shameful and unattractive for ‘girls’. This contradiction resonates with
notions of informal social control over women, which rely upon norms of
appropriate femininity and respectability to regulate women’s behaviour
without recourse to formal or violent sanctions (Smart & Smart, 1978; Green
et al., 1987; Connell, 2005). The following exchange between Fiona and Ruth
during a focus group highlights how this process may operate in practice:

Fiona: I don’t know if it’s just in my personal experience, but I think I’m more
likely to hear people saying, em, slagging off a drunk girl than a drunk guy.
You know, you hear people saying . . . ‘What’s she doing?’, or, ‘She needs to go
 340 • CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS

home’. I don’t think you really hear that about a guy as much. But, that’s maybe
just my experience.

Ruth: No, I agree. They’re more likely to say, ‘Oh, look at the state of her’,
rather than, ‘Oh, look at the state of him’. The guys would just be look, ‘Oh,
you were so drunk last night’, whereas the girls would be, like, ‘You were really,
really bad last night’, as in, ‘Sort yourself out’. Yeah. It’s more seen as funny . . .
if a guy’s really drunk. For a girl it’s, they should be ashamed.
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It would seem that although the consumption of alcohol by women is per-

ceived to be generally more acceptable, these young women were very much
aware of the differing attitudes towards men and women who consume alco-
hol, particularly when they are seen to be ‘drunk’. Further, in keeping with
the earlier findings of Green et al. (1987), women’s consumption of alcohol
remains inextricably linked with notions of sexual promiscuity and lack of
respectability:

Esther: For me, if I see a girl really . . . I mean, if it happens once OK, but if you
see a girl really getting drunk every weekend, for me it says something about
her personality that she is . . . probably . . . I don’t know if it’s very fair to say,
but maybe she’s more willing to do things, yeah.

Marion: I think if a girl’s wearing skimpy clothes and she’s drank a lot, you do
tend to . . . I mean, me and my friends are quite . . . we don’t . . . we do maybe
drink a lot when we go out, but we don’t tend to wear like little clothing . . .
but I know if we see a girl who’s really drunk and she’s wearing next to noth-
ing, you do sort of think, ‘Oh God, what’s she like?!’

This statement from Marion highlights one of the ‘conditions’ of a woman

or girl being drunk; that it is particularly unacceptable if she is also wearing
‘revealing’ clothing. This was a recurrent theme in young women’s descrip-
tions of acceptable behaviour when drinking, and an area where women’s
judgements of ‘other’ women were particularly acute. The way in which
drunk women are evaluated by men was also identified as a concern by young
women, particularly in terms of ‘attracting’ unwanted sexual attention:

Evelyn: I know friends that do have a big cleavage and the guys are just like
‘hi’ and then the drunker they get, the more the guys seem to take an interest.
They’re not interested when you’re sober but as soon as you start getting drunk
. . . it’s ‘how are you getting home?’
 CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS • 341

Susan takes this point further by describing the way in which a woman who
is drunk may be targeted by men for sexual assault:

Susan: If a girl is obviously like a bit drunk, and they think that might . . . that
maybe like they could get away with it like more easily, she won’t resist so
much because she’s had a lot to drink and things like that. Maybe also if like
the combination of being dressed like say a bit trashy or something and, um, if
she’s like downing drinks one after the other then they might think, ‘Oh, she’s
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easy’ and like would just, I don’t know, when she comes outside, try and per-
suade her to come back with us and just kind of force her, even if she doesn’t
really want to ’cause she might just kind of give in or something like that.

It is suggested by Susan that from the vantage point of men, women who have
had a lot to drink will be less likely to resist, and are more likely to be sexually
available, a view reinforced by the particular clothing that she may be wear-
ing. On the basis of the assumption that a woman’s likelihood to consent to
sexual acts will increase in line with her alcohol consumption, some women
identified men plying women with alcohol as a deliberate strategy to make
women more amenable to sexual advances. However, in line with findings
from other studies, ‘loosening-up’ women with alcohol was not necessarily
perceived to be socially unacceptable, despite the implications that this may
have for their capacity to consent to sexual activity (Mosher & Anderson,
1986; Finch & Munro, 2003).

Alcohol, loss of control and vulnerability

Young women in this study articulated particular concerns about their ina-
bility to remain ‘in control’ when they consumed alcohol. These concerns
related primarily to the deterioration in their ability to remain vigilant to
potential threats to their safety, unwanted male attention, and drink spik-
ing. All the women were aware of the potential risk of drink spiking, and the
majority incorporated strategies to ‘watch their drinks’ as a routine activity
when consuming alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs. Drink spiking and higher
levels of alcohol consumption by women were identified as key contributors
to risks, which women may currently face. Rachel and Judith describe these
changes in the following ways:

Rachel: The thing that kind of happened about, whenever it was, about 15
years ago, the whole kind of ladette culture with girls kind of going . . . going
out and drinking as much as kind of guys were. And then also with the kind
of . . . date rape drugs, all that kind of thing going on. I think that you do have
 342 • CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS

to be kind of a lot more aware of what you’re drinking, where you’ve left your
drink, kind of what’s going on . . . Yeah, it’s definitely changed.

Judith: I definitely think the biggest problem is that women aren’t . . . a lot
of the time when women are out they’re not really in control of what they’re
doing and so it’s much, much easier for people to take advantage of them.
Obviously like, you know, women were being like, you know, assaulted or
whatever, you know, before when there wasn’t so much alcohol consumption,
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but I think it just makes . . . it just puts them in such a vulnerable position, it’s
so easy for people to . . . to take advantage of them, I think.

Here, Rachel and Judith allude to the new freedoms that women have to go
out and consume alcohol in the same way that their male counterparts do.
However, a sense of vulnerability is embedded in these new freedoms, which
manifests itself in women occupying a state of vigilance during their leisure
time in bars, pubs and clubs:

Eve: I do go out and enjoy myself and I can get drunk and stuff, but I’m always
watching what’s going on round about me.

Rachel: You just kind of learn really quickly that, I don’t know, that drunk
people are harmful, basically, and you kind of always have to . . . watch your-
self . . . and, you know, as soon as you’ve had a bit of hassle in a club from some
pissed guy, I think you kind of realise that you have to kind of keep it together,
which doesn’t always mean that you do, but I think . . . you all know that you
do . . . which, again, is rubbish! Guys don’t have to think about this.

Debbie: I think it’s worse to see a woman really drunk than it is to see a man
drunk, just because you don’t know if she can look after herself.

Young women’s sense that they should remain ‘vigilant’ and ‘in control’ reso-
nates with the concepts of ‘self-surveillance’ and ‘self-policing’, which have
been used to describe the ways that women regulate their behaviour in public
(Mitchell et al., 2001; Wesley & Gaarder, 2004). The restrictions of occupy-
ing a state of ‘hypervigilance’ (Wesley & Gaarder, 2004), have been acknowl-
edged in terms of the limitations on women’s opportunities and the mitigation
of their use of leisure space for pleasure, enjoyment, and relaxation (Gardner,
1990; Snow et al., 1991; Seabrook & Green, 2004; Wesley & Gaarder, 2004)
 CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS • 343

Responsibility for safety

Women repeatedly highlighted the perceived vulnerability of women who
consume alcohol, particularly if they are drunk, in terms of a reduction in
their ability to remain vigilant to unwanted sexual attention from men and
drink spiking. Some women resented and resisted this imposition on their
own freedoms, although for most women taking responsibility for their own
behaviour, and that of men around them, was normal and inevitable.
Women employed a plethora of safety strategies when socialising and con-
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suming alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs including: watching drinks, only
drinking out of bottles, covering the tops of bottles, taking drinks to the
toilet, not dressing provocatively, going out in a group, staying with friends at
all times (including going to the toilet), limiting alcohol consumption, pre-
tending to be engaged to be married, seeking protection from male friends,
leaving bars pubs and clubs to escape unwanted male attention, humouring
men, wearing shoes that you can run in, pretending to spill drinks bought for
you, and not accepting drinks from unknown men.
For most of the young women these safety strategies were ‘just what you
do,’ and many had difficulty in articulating how they had learned to adopt
these strategies, although the media, family, and friends were cited as sources
of information about how to stay safe while drinking in bars, pubs, and clubs.
Melissa describes the way in which safety concerns and strategies are com-
municated to her by her mother:

Melissa: I think if I’m at home then mum will usually say keep your hand on
your drink. If you’re going to get a drink, get a bottle, don’t leave your drinks
or if you do leave your drinks then make sure that you don’t drink it again,
just get another drink, or if you think that your drink’s spiked or if you’re start-
ing to feel drunker than what you think you are or even if you are starting to
get drunk, don’t drink any more, drink water, and just kind of like the usual
common sense advice that you hear every day. Most of the time you just switch
off because you’ve heard it about 20 times before. But it’s always sitting in the
back of your mind when you’re sitting there in the pub and you’re thinking
‘should I really be drinking this?’

Some of the tensions associated with socialising, having fun, and the need for
women to remain vigilant are highlighted here by Melissa. It is also interest-
ing to note that Melissa, and many of the other women interviewed, described
safety strategies as ‘common sense’. Arguably, adopting safety strategies such
as having shoes that you can run in and taking your drink to the toilet with
you are only ‘common sense’ measures for women, not men. The range of
 344 • CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS

safety strategies employed by women highlights the way in which assuming

responsibility for their safety is embedded in their consciousness. Women
were also conscious of the potential for blame to be attributed to women in
the event they were sexually assaulted when they had been drinking:

Annabelle: I would be really scared of getting my drink spiked and getting

attacked, because — I know this is going into some weird other issue here —
but if you did get attacked, there’s no guarantee it would make it to court and
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there’s no guarantee the guy would be convicted because you’d been drinking.
You know, the like ‘oh, well, she was asking for it wasn’t she? She shouldn’t
have been drinking, she shouldn’t have been wearing a skirt’. But I think a lot
of people would probably say that.

Further, some women were in agreement that women should take responsi-
bility for their own safety:

Judith: Like . . . I would never say like, oh, you know, if a woman went out and
she was totally drunk and she got raped it was her fault, but, you know you
do have to look at, well if you are putting yourself once or twice every week
in a position where you’re really vulnerable, you know, women also have to do
something about that.

Young women’s perceptions that they may be held at least partly responsible
if they are raped after drinking alcohol, particularly if they were drunk, con-
curs with recent UK research. A survey of public attitudes towards sexual
assault conducted by Amnesty International UK (2005) indicated that prob-
lematic attitudes towards women and the use of alcohol persist in the UK; for
example 30% of respondents thought that being drunk makes a woman in
some way responsible for being raped. Meanwhile, some media commenta-
tors have contended that ‘Alcohol is being paraded as the new short skirt’.4
In stark contrast to women’s increased responsibility for their safety after
they have consumed alcohol, men were accorded less responsibility for their
actions when they had consumed alcohol. This phenomenon was implicitly
bound in judgements about the intentions rather than the outcomes of men’s
behaviour:

Suzanne: I suppose there must be people in clubs — and I think that is bad
— that there’s really drunk girls and they, you know, they think ‘Oh, there’s
an opportunity’, type thing. And I think that must happen quite often, and I
4 Julie Bindel, ‘We must rethink rape’ in The Guardian, 30 March 2006.
 CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS • 345

would feel sorry for someone in that situation, but I don’t think that then that
guy should get arrested. Well, unless he’s really, you know, unless it’s really
kind of premeditated and he’s thought, ‘Right, I’m gonna go out and get some-
body tonight that’s really drunk’, and he is, like, stone-cold sober, then I think
that would be bad.

When asked whether men were aware of the impact that their behaviour may
have on women in bars, pubs, and clubs, young women seemed reluctant to
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attribute any responsibility to men for behaviour, which women could feel
intimidated by:

Debbie: No, because they’re too drunk to know what they’re saying half the
time. I think some of them might do it on purpose just to get attention. I think
they might say something horrible or something that they shouldn’t say just to
get attention because that’s what they want.

Heather: So I don’t think they’re always aware that they’re making you feel
uncomfortable . . . I suppose if they’ve had a lot to drink as well they’re una-
ware of how you’re sort of . . . what signals you’re giving off, maybe, they’re
kind of dulled down to that. But . . . I think they need to pay a bit more
attention.

Tessa: So sometimes I think it’s maybe just like drunkenness and ignorance
and . . . I don’t know, sometimes it probably is something a little bit more sin-
ister. I’m not saying like they actually want to do anything, but . . . maybe they
think it’s a bit funny or something, you know?

Male behaviour which may make women feel uncomfortable, or threaten

their safety, was frequently attributed to men being unaware of what they
were doing due to the effects of alcohol consumption. The implications of
this phenomenon are significant in the context of considering culpability in
sexual offence cases where victim and offender have been drinking. Following
a study, which examined the responses of a mock jury using focus groups and
trial simulation, Finch and Munro (2003: 13) report that intoxication, par-
ticularly by alcohol, had a significant impact in attributing responsibility for
rape: defendants were apportioned less blame if they were intoxicated while
‘the intoxication of the victim was generally used as a basis for denigrating
her behaviour and absolving the defendant of responsibility for the inter-
course that followed.’
 346 • CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS

Conclusion
Analysis of young women’s talk in interviews and focus groups about their
experiences of consuming alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs offers an oppor-
tunity to evaluate the extent to which this ‘new freedom’ can be theorised as
a poststructural signifier of women’s liberation and freedom to participate in
a conventionally masculine leisure pursuit. In keeping with poststructural
discourses, it could be argued that the centrality of socialising in bars, pubs,
and clubs within young women’s lives is a prime example of the way in which
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young women are subverting conventional cultural discourses around appro-

priate feminine behaviour. However, a more complex picture exists. Despite
a consensus among young women in this study that there is now more social
acceptance of women drinking alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs, and a sense
that women can ‘do anything really,’ young women in this study were acutely
aware of the gendered risks involved in consuming alcohol in this context.
Young women’s understanding of these risks relate, in the first instance, to
negative perceptions attached to women who drink alcohol, particularly
those who are seen to be ‘drunk’. More specifically, it is understood that
women who are drunk risk being viewed as unfeminine, unattractive, and of
questionable sexual character. This in turn heightens their risk of receiving
unwanted sexual attention from men, who may view them as less likely to
resist their sexual advances. These risks are exacerbated if women are also
judged to be wearing ‘revealing’ clothing while drinking, due to the perceived
association with promiscuity.
Arguably, young women’s awareness of these gendered risks acts as an
informal regulator of their behaviour. Indeed, young women in this study
described a multitude of safety strategies, which they consciously and sub-
consciously employ in bars, pubs, and clubs as normal ‘common sense’
behaviour. For young women, the consumption of alcohol is equated with a
reduction in their ability to effectively implement these strategies, and remain
in control and vigilant. Occupying a state of vigilance was deemed neces-
sary for fending off unwanted male attention and the threat of drink spiking.
In this regard, women assume responsibility for their own behaviour and
that of others around them. Paradoxically, greater responsibility for safety is
attributed to women following alcohol consumption, while less responsibility
is attributed to men for behaviour which may threaten women’s safety, if it
occurs when they have been drinking.
These findings pose significant difficulties for locating women’s experi-
ences of consuming alcohol in bars, pubs, and clubs within a poststructural
framework of freedom and liberation. The young women in this study were
by no means passive dupes of patriarchy; indeed they were very much aware
 CONSUMING ALCOHOL IN BARS, PUBS AND CLUBS • 347

of the gendered meanings attached to men and women in bars, pubs, and
clubs, and some young women voiced their frustration at this ‘double stand-
ard’ (Smart & Smart, 1978). Nonetheless, echoing the findings of earlier
feminist studies in this area, women’s behaviour in these venues is ultimately
constrained by their continual negotiation of risk, including risk to their
sexual reputation. In this regard, drinking in bars, pubs, and clubs could at
best be described as a ‘relative freedom’ (Wimbush & Talbot, 1988), if not a
risky freedom for contemporary young women.
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Kate Cavanagh, Margaret Malloch, and the two anonymous
reviewers for their encouraging and helpful comments on earlier drafts.

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