Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - I drink, therefore I'm man
T2 - gender discourses, alcohol and the construction of British undergraduate masculinities
AU - Dempster, Steven
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - This article provides insights into the discourses that legitimate and perpetuate male undergraduate drinking cultures and considers the role of alcohol in communicating hegemonic masculinity within one British university. Taking laddishness as a template of hegemonic masculinity, the article contends that male students’ heavy alcohol use is partially motivated by discourses that position drinking as a ‘normal’ part of studenthood, but also by discourses that reinforce drinking as a ‘laddish’ behaviour or a male preserve. While interviewees recognised the importance of drinking in constructing masculinity, running parallel to this were attempts to disassociate themselves from the extremities of alcohol-induced laddishness and considerations that male peers who drank too much were lesser men. However, in their resistance to these extremities, interviewees demonstrated complicity towards more general attributes of hegemonic masculinity, such as independence and the strength to say no. This highlights the complex and somewhat contradictory processes individuals go through in the construction of gender identities, yet also offers a means through which male undergraduates’ risky alcohol use might be challenged.
AB - This article provides insights into the discourses that legitimate and perpetuate male undergraduate drinking cultures and considers the role of alcohol in communicating hegemonic masculinity within one British university. Taking laddishness as a template of hegemonic masculinity, the article contends that male students’ heavy alcohol use is partially motivated by discourses that position drinking as a ‘normal’ part of studenthood, but also by discourses that reinforce drinking as a ‘laddish’ behaviour or a male preserve. While interviewees recognised the importance of drinking in constructing masculinity, running parallel to this were attempts to disassociate themselves from the extremities of alcohol-induced laddishness and considerations that male peers who drank too much were lesser men. However, in their resistance to these extremities, interviewees demonstrated complicity towards more general attributes of hegemonic masculinity, such as independence and the strength to say no. This highlights the complex and somewhat contradictory processes individuals go through in the construction of gender identities, yet also offers a means through which male undergraduates’ risky alcohol use might be challenged.
KW - hegemonic and complicit masculinities
KW - laddishness
KW - higher education students
KW - alcohol
U2 - 10.1080/09540253.2010.527824
DO - 10.1080/09540253.2010.527824
M3 - Journal article
VL - 23
SP - 635
EP - 653
JO - Gender and Education
JF - Gender and Education
SN - 0954-0253
IS - 5
ER -