Bibliography: leaves 540-587.

Bibliography: leaves 540-587 / xxii, 587 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, 1988

Objective: The study examined alcohol consumption among college women ages 18 to 24. It helped to answer who, when, what, why and how much college women drink. It also examined how "girls gone wild" kinds of portrayals influence college women in excessive drinking and "outrageous" behaviors. Theory: A combination of drench hypothesis (Greenberg, 1988) and social cognitive theory (Bandura, 2001) was used as the guiding framework to understand the dynamic relationship of environmental and personal factors in learning and imitating behaviors seen in the media. Method: Two online studies were conducted. The first study was a structured interview conducted with 38 women and 29 men. Study 2 was a survey. A total of 449 college women took part in the survey. Some men (N=174) also took part in the study to provide men's opinions and some perspective on women who drink and behave outrageously. Results: The survey results show that 42% (N=169) of college women in the sample engage in heavy episodic drinking every weekend at house parties. As a result, some have gotten into fights, missed classes, experienced hangovers and vomiting, and have driven drunk. Nearly 14% (N=55) of the women in the study reported being sexually assaulted while they were drunk. In addition, the findings of the study shows that "girls gone wild" kinds of portrayals are perceived in different ways by different college women. Most college women view the behaviors as negative. However, some college women do evaluate the portrayals as positive. These women are likely to engage in similar outrageous behaviors. The "girls gone wild" kinds of portrayals are less likely to influence alcohol consumption among college women. A multiple regression analysis showed that outrageous behavior correlated with self-control, sexual outcome expected, positive evaluation of the "girls gone wild" portrayals and sensation seeking tendencies. Drinking on the other hand correlated only with sensation seeking tendencies and how much value was placed by the respondents on being social. The findings of the study also show that men assess drunken women as vulnerable and "easy." Conclusion: Interventions that include strategies for better self-regulation and explaining of potential negative outcomes are likely to be effective in drinking and drinking-related behaviors. Media literacy programs might help in critical evaluation of media content and thus reduce its negative influence. / Mass Media and Communication

Contemporary young women would appear to enjoy greater freedoms to consume alcohol and socialise in bars, pubs and clubs than their predecessors. However, concern about women’s level of alcohol consumption, drink spiking and drug-assisted sexual assault have contributed to a renewed focus on safety advice for young women in these social settings. This thesis examines the views, experiences and behaviours of 35 young women in relation to their safety in bars, pubs and clubs using qualitative data from interviews and focus groups with young women (18-25 years) in Scotland. Exploring the divergent claims made within feminist structural and poststructural perspectives, this thesis develops a nuanced understanding of young women’s safety in bars, pubs and clubs by drawing upon the theoretical concepts of power, resistance and social control. Constraints on women’s leisure imposed by patriarchal structures, safety concerns and notions of ‘appropriate femininity’, formed a significant focus of early feminist theorising in this area. More recently, however, poststuctural feminist theorists have highlighted the opportunities that leisure experiences may offer women for liberation by providing a means to resist conventional cultural discourses around feminine identities. To a certain extent, the findings from this study challenge the conventional construction of consuming alcohol and socialising in bars, pubs and clubs as a masculine leisure pursuit, by identifying this leisure activity as a central aspect of young women’s social lives. However, young women’s experiences and behaviours within bars, pubs and clubs remain significantly structured by gender and young women perceive the risks that they experience in these settings to have increased over time. The continuing salience of gender is evident in the way that women access bars, pubs and clubs, their safety concerns and experiences, and ultimately their behaviour within these venues. Young women’s safety concerns in this context are overwhelmingly related to the fear and reality of sexual violence, lending credence to social control theories espoused by radical feminists. These concerns and the individualising discourse embodied within safety literature results in women normalising and taking individual responsibility for preventing sexual assault. This reflects the positioning of sexual violence as an inevitable fixed reality, thus evading the need to question the behaviour of men who choose to sexually assault and harass women in bars, pubs and clubs. Safety behaviours adopted by young women in bars, pubs and clubs are complex and contradictory in that they simultaneously adopt, resist and transgress those advocated within safety literature. Since these safety behaviours are inextricably linked to normative femininity and gendered expectations of women’s behaviour in bars, pubs and clubs, they are more adequately theorised as ‘accommodating techniques’ than ‘resistant practices’. These findings pose significant difficulties for locating women’s experiences of consuming alcohol in bars, pubs and clubs within a poststructuralist framework of liberation and freedom; in some respects, it would appear that women’s behaviour within these social spaces is subject to heightened regulation and control. While poststructural theorising about power and resistance is of some assistance in illuminating the process of how safety concerns regulate women’s behaviour, alongside the possibility of resistance, understanding young women’s safety is best served by an appreciation of feminist structural perspectives which highlight the salience of gender, and in particular the power of gendered norms and taboos which continue to operate with regard to women’s sexuality. Ultimately, bars, pubs and clubs remain a social space infused with gendered expectations and risks.

The purpose of the study was to develop a better understanding of the barriers faced by Latinas when confronted with domestic violence.