Raced and Gendered Reactions to the Deviance of Drunkenness: A Sociological Analysis of Race and Gender Disparities in Alcohol Use

Abstract

Research has consistently documented race and gender disparities in alcohol use. In this article, I refine the “time-out” hypothesis while arguing that these longstanding disparities in use are in part due to the impact of gender and race on deviance categorization. Public drinking behaviors operate within social spaces that may or may not be hospitable to a given person's gender and/or race status. I explore how formal and informal modes of social control influence alcohol use behavior. Findings are based on semistructured interviews with 78 American Black, White, male and female college students. Grounded theory was used in the development of three themes: (a) Acute awareness of women's otherness: multiple jeopardy and the multiple standard of alcohol use; (b) the gendered violence of women's marginalization; and (c) fear of violent victimization: alcohol and the dangerous Black male. Each theme illustrates how social inequalities structure alcohol use and reactions to alcohol use differently, depending on the intersections of race, gender, and situated contexts.