"Connecting Over A Bottle of Wine?": Negotiating Femininities and Friendships Through Alcohol Consumption and Sobriety

Drawing on Dr. Nicholls' research involving both women who drink and former female drinkers in 'early sobriety', this talk will consider the role that alcohol consumption can play in the negotiation of female friendships and femininities. Drinking can be used to build intimacy and trust between female friends, and as a way to collectively display feminine identities through particular drinking choices and practices. But what might the implications of such findings be for those who do not participate in these dominant ‘cultures of intoxication’? The talk will highlight some  of the ways in which former female drinkers negotiate and resist some of these pressures to ‘do’ femininities and friendship through – for example – portraying the intimacy established through drinking as inauthentic and fake. 

 

 

Dr Emily Nicholls is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Portsmouth. Her areas of expertise include gender and femininities and alcohol consumption, and she has recently published a monograph based on her research around how gender is negotiated on a 'girls' night out'. Her current project - 'Sobriety Stories' - explores women's experiences of early sobriety in the UK.