Men consume more alcohol and experience more alcohol-related harms than women. However, a recent review of 1,267 single-gender alcohol studies by our team at La Trobe University in Australia found more published journal articles on women’s alcohol consumption than men’s over the past decade (2014-2023). That is, although men tend to drink more, recent alcohol research has focused more on women.
Other key findings include very few qualitative studies overall (but particularly on men), a particularly strong focus on young women (18-24 years), and a much higher proportion of studies on mothers than fathers. We also found more medical research on men than on women – a finding not unique to alcohol. Conversely, studies on women were more likely to come from psychology, public health or sociology disciplines. This suggests that when it comes to alcohol, researchers are more interested in men’s health and women’s behaviour. We argue that researchers seem to be interested in understanding the impacts of alcohol on men’s bodies and why women drink the way they do, implicitly holding women accountable for their drinking in a way that is not applied to men. For example, the problematisation of women’s behaviour on the grounds of harms to children, while not acknowledging the role of men in caregiving, in harms to children and even in alcohol exposed pregnancies.
In Australia and the UK, we identified large disparities between who bears the brunt of national estimates of alcohol-related harms (men) and who alcohol researchers study (women). There were also more studies examining an association between women’s consumption of alcohol and their likelihood of being assaulted than there were of the association between men’s alcohol consumption and assaulting someone else. This serves to emphasise the assumption of women’s culpability in assaults perpetrated against them, rather than that of men.
Why does this matter?
This review sheds important light on how researchers’ decisions about who to study and how can shape the way we think about men’s and women’s alcohol consumption. This in turn can influence or change policies, interventions, and treatments aiming to reduce harms from alcohol. It can also potentially shape the gendered way alcohol is discussed and represented in the media. For example, when women’s drinking is studied in relation to the risk of assault or harm, there is a danger of reinforcing victim-blaming narratives. In the UK, this dynamic was starkly illustrated by the widely circulated image of a young woman unconscious on a bench beside two bottles of alcohol. Dubbed “bench girl” by the press, the photo was held up as symbolic of the country’s drinking problem – despite the fact that most alcohol harm occurs among older men, not young women. This kind of focus risks distorting the public’s perception of who is most at risk, and why.
Public responses to alcohol consumption often reflect and reinforce the same gendered double standards found in the research. For instance, the social drinking of two prime ministers – Sanna Marin from Finland and Australia’s Anthony Albanese – drew dramatically different reactions. Marin was castigated both within Finland and abroad after a video of her partying with friends was posted online. Critics slammed her behaviour as “unfitting of a prime minister” and she was accused of acting like a “ladette.” In contrast, Albanese was cheered on by a crowd while he drank a beer, with louder cheers the harder he chugged. There was no outrage, no calls for him to do a drug test or step down, as there were for Marin.
Where to next?
It is our argument that men’s drinking is under-researched and worthy of more focused research. It is important to note that we are not suggesting problematising men’s drinking – but we are arguing that men’s drinking needs to be a foremost focus of alcohol research moving forward. This argument is based on the facts presented in the review, including the overrepresentation of women compared to the harms they experience, the lack of qualitative research with men to help us understand their drinking practices, the very few studies on fathers, the limited studies from psychology, public health and sociology on men, and many other examples.
Studies exploring women’s drinking remain important and worthwhile. But we wish to highlight that the current focus on women’s drinking – including the way we hold women accountable – is a type of problematisation that requires further reflection by researchers.
Conclusion
We hope that this review prompts reflection by researchers on the choices we make when doing research, particularly who to study and how, as well as enabling us to further consider the implications of the research we do for the populations we study.
Written by Dr Megan Cook, Dr Amy Pennay, Professor Sarah MacLean, Dr Gabe Caluzzi, Dr Ben Riordan, Professor Amanda Cooklin, Alex Torney, Associate Professor Sarah Callinan, La Trobe University.
All IAS Blogposts are published with the permission of the author. The views expressed are solely the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute of Alcohol Studies.