The drinking at home woman: Between alcohol harms and domestic experiments

Abstract

This article examines the figure of the ‘drinking at home woman’ as she appeared in the particular cultural and historical location of the Australian COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. It draws on media accounts of women’s drinking which featured in Australian publications during this time. Using the notion of figuration as developed by Claudia Castañeda, the article argues that the woman who drinks at home is enacted as a feminised problem subject, whose alcohol consumption is both a response to harm and a cause of anticipated future harm. More broadly, the drinking at home woman functions as evidence of the harms of moderate drinking in general. The article then explores how a narcofeminist prioritisation of women’s pleasure can sensitise us to the restrictive gender norms which are built into this figure.