PRACTICES OF LEARNING, EARNING AND INTIMACY IN WOMEN’S DRINKING BIOGRAPHIES A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2017 LAURA FENTON SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Contents Abstract 4 Declaration 5 Copyright Statement 6 Acknowledgements 7 Chapter 1 8 A first sip Introduction 8 From moderation to intoxication? 9 Responding to gaps and deficiencies in existing approaches 11 Research questions 13 Key contributions 14 An outline of the thesis 17 Chapter 2 22 Understanding the role of alcohol in women’s lives Introduction 22 Establishing the context 22 Researching drinking as a socio-cultural practice 31 Researching women and alcohol 34 Theoretical perspectives and resources 44 Conclusion 49 Chapter 3 50 Researching women’s relationships to alcohol Introduction 50 Research Questions 50 Constructing drinking biographies 51 Key terms and concepts 58 Sampling and recruitment 64 Ethical reflections 70 Analysis 71 Conclusion 73 Chapter 4 75 Learning to drink Introduction 75 Narrating family histories around alcohol 77 Alcohol in the transition from childhood to adulthood 86 Re- and un-learning to drink in adulthood and later life 99 Conclusion 110 2 Chapter 5 112 Earning a drink? The alcohol-work connection in women's drinking biographies Introduction 112 Earning a drink? 113 Drinking ‘careers’ 115 On not earning a drink: working class participants’ experiences 124 Conclusion 134 Chapter 6 135 Practices of Intimacy and the Moral Regulation of Women's Drinking Introduction 135 Negotiating moral discourses on alcohol through ‘doing’ intimacy 139 From strangers to lovers? 146 Drink, friendship and practices of intimacy 154 Conclusion 158 Chapter 7 160 One for the road Introduction 160 Key contributions of the thesis 160 Critical reflections on the study’s limitations and gaps 168 Conclusion 171 References 172 Word count: 68,638 3 Abstract This thesis explores how women use and make sense of alcohol in their day-to-day lives. Drawing on 38 life history interviews with women born between 1939 and 1995, the thesis examines how women from different generations and social classes navigate a key contradiction underpinning the place of alcohol in British society: while on the one hand alcohol is highly visible and celebrated in popular culture, its use is also an object of moral regulation. The moral regulation of alcohol is gendered and shifts both over the life course and historically. Women’s alcohol use is particularly subject to moral judgement at specific points of the life course, principally when they are single young adults, and when they are pregnant or involved in providing care for children. Moral discourses on women’s drinking have changed considerably over the past 50 years in line with wider changes in women’s lives. Despite these changes, moral discourses surrounding the health and personal safety risks of drinking alcohol continue to position women as ‘maidens at risk’ or as ‘mothers in ruin’. The thesis investigates how women negotiate contradictory norms and expectations arising from popular cultural scripts that represent alcohol as pleasurable and moral discourses aimed at regulating their drinking. Through engaging interactional, relational and life course approaches to the study of social life, the thesis argues against the tendencies of existing perspectives on women’s alcohol use to interpret drinking as instrumentally driven toward intoxication, and as a site for the reproduction of dominant social norms through the construction of gendered and classed identities. I argue that existing approaches underplay the significance of personal relationships in providing contexts for women to experience and negotiate the meanings of alcohol across the life course. The opportunities, demands and practical constraints and requirements of ‘doing’ relationships shape how alcohol is encountered and how its meanings are interpreted and evaluated. The logic of women’s relationships to alcohol exceeds both an instrumentalist orientation to intoxication and the imperatives to reproduce dominant social norms of gender and class. Though the desire for intoxication and negotiations with gender and class scripts can at times play a part in how women use and make sense of alcohol, the uses and meanings of alcohol in women’s day-to-day lives are shaped and conditioned by their personal relationships. The thesis further argues that changes in the relative significance of personal relationships over the life course lead to changes in how women approach alcohol. 4 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. 5 Copyright statement The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=24420 ), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/ ) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses. 6 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my committee, Professor Penny Tinkler and Dr Gemma Edwards, for their insightful advice and support throughout my PhD. Thank you as well to other friends and colleagues at Manchester. You have been a fantastic support. Morrin and Oman get a special shout out for just about keeping me sane, as does my grande amiga (so to speak), Annalise Weckesser. I am grateful to the women who participated in this research for sharing the story of their lives with me, and for being so generous with their time. I would also like to thank my parents and my partner, Nigel, and children, Adam and Dylan. Thank you for all your love and support. I look forward to being able to spend weekends with you again. This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Mary Kathleen Fenton (1918-2008), who didn’t drink often but when she did was always up for giving us her rendition of Danny Boy. 7 Chapter One: A First Sip In British society, women’s alcohol use has conflicting moral and cultural meanings (Ettore, 1997; Waterson, 2000). On the one hand, women’s drinking is an object of moral regulation, particularly when it comes to young women’s public displays of drunkenness (Patterson et al, 2016), and when drinking is seen to impinge on women’s responsibilities as prospective mothers (Waterson, 2000; Armstrong, 2003), or as mothers of young children. In public discourses, not to mention the representations circulating through the tabloid press (Patterson et al, 2016), women are often portrayed as “maidens at risk”1 or “‘mothers in ruin”2. On the other hand, drinking is celebrated in popular culture (Grube, 2004; Austin and Hurst, 2005; Grube and Waiters, 2005; Sumnall et al, 2011; Griffin et al, 2013; McCreanor et al, 2013; Watts, 2015), and is associated in varying degrees with pleasure, sociability and relaxation. Drawing on life history interviews with 38 women born between 1939 and 1995 who reside in the North West of England, this thesis explores how women navigate the contradictory cultural and moral meanings of alcohol in their day-to-day lives in and through their personal relationships. Through engaging interactional, relational and life course approaches to the study of social life, the thesis argues against the tendencies of existing perspectives on women’s alcohol use to interpret their drinking as instrumentally driven toward intoxication, and as a site for the reproduction of dominant social norms through the construction of gendered (Measham, 2002; Emslie et al, 2015) and classed identities (Skeggs, 2005). I argue that existing approaches underplay the significance of personal relationships in providing contexts for women to experience and negotiate the meanings of alcohol across the life course. The opportunities, demands, practical constraints and requirements of ‘doing’ relationships shape how alcohol is encountered and how its meanings are interpreted and evaluated. The logic of women’s relationships to alcohol exceeds both an instrumentalist orientation to intoxication and the imperatives 1 My use of this term is inspired by Moore’s and Valverde’s (2000) analysis of discourses surrounding date-rape drugs in the 1990s. Certain public discourses and representations in popular culture position young women who are not accompanied by men as particularly at risk when drinking in the night-time economy (see also Demant and Heinskou (2011), Mackiewicz (2015), and Patterson et al (2016)). 2 As I discuss in Chapter Six, ‘mother’s ruin’ originally refereed to gin.