Women and alcohol: A ‘policy dilemma’

Abstract

This paper uses a range of primary and secondary documentation along with interviews with service providers, researchers and officials in the Department of Health to examine the specific social and historical circumstances within which concerns over women's alcohol consumption became an issue of public concern and gained a place on the policy agenda in the 1980s. After outlining briefly the emergence of concern over women's alcoholism in the 1970s, the paper traces the ‘policy dilemma’ which arose from the uncertain status of women's drinking as a ‘problem’, the ‘outsider’ status of the interest group pressing for policy action and the feminist ideology underpinning activists’ arguments. The effect of changes in the interest constituency around issues of women's drinking is discussed and factors contributing to a shift from an ‘outsider’ to a ‘threshold’ position are examined. The paper concludes that, despite gaining a tenuous place on the policy agenda, policy responses to women's alcohol consumption continue to present dilemmas arising from the tension between differing demands for action emanating from different ideological standpoints.