Women drinking out in Britain since the early twentieth century

David Gutzke

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780719052651
  9780719052644
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526112422
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

Given recent media coverage of women's drinking habits, it is surprising that a topic of such interest has not produced a comprehensive examination. This book provides not just a survey spanning a century of momentous change, but integrates diverse sources with concepts to offer a new understanding of the changing nature of women's drinking patterns. It challenges traditional assumptions and offers original interpretations about the diverse factors influencing women's consumption of alcohol, including advertising, moral panics, sexism, legislative initiatives, employment, age, ethnicity, technology, new drinking venues and marketing strategies.

What most influenced how women transformed their consumption of alcohol? What beverages did they drink? To what extent did women themselves act as agents of change? These and other questions serve as the basis for analysing women's drinking patterns from a social and cultural perspective. Close attention is also paid to the image of drinking projected in advertising, the mass media and films.

Table of contents

• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of plates
• List of figures
• List of tables
• General editor’s introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 From the late Victorian boozer to the interwar improved public house
• 2 Women, war and drinking
• 3 A tough sell: wooing women in the 1950s-60s
• 4 Bikinis, boots and booze
• 5 The more things change, the more (some) things remain the same
• 6 Drinking habits of their own
• 7 Men are from Mars, women from Venus: understanding the psychology of selling alcohol in the 1980s—90s
• 8 New money, new ideas, new women
• 9 A youth subculture of drinking
• 10 Yesterday’s reforms, today’s bingeing
• 11 Folk devils and moral panics: women and youth across a century of censure
• Conclusion
• Select bibliography of primary sources
• Index