At present, there is speculation that women's alcohol use is a growing biomedical concern. Whilst not dismissing the potential health problems from excessive alcohol use by women that the evidence suggests, this thesis does not necessarily take the view that women's alcohol use/abuse is merely a reflection of a biomedical concern. Drawing predominantly from feminist tools of analysis, this thesis examines the discourse of alcohol use/abuse and reveals that mainstream interpretations of the epidemiological evidence are informed by an underlying sexism inherent in the research process itself. However, it is also argued that although popular interpretations can be contested on the grounds of sexism, there is a significant body of evidence that suggests women suffer more alcohol-related biological harm than men do. Given that epidemiological researchers are evidently observing something organically manifest, something perfectly correlative with the popular representation of a female vulnerability to alcohol related harm, this investigation cannot be reduced to the realm of cultural analysis and interpretation. The question then emerges, how can cultural assumptions that guide interpretations of the evidence become biologically manifest? Upon deeper reflection, this investigation turns its attention to relations of power and reveals the biological body and the discourses that produce it to be more closely aligned than generally presumed. This thesis argues that nature (the body) and culture (discourse) are not inherently oppositional, thus, the way we "conceptualise" the world must be inseparable from the "matter" under investigation. Based on this revelation, it is reasonable to consider that normalising discourse, which founds the meaning-making process of alcohol use, is not simply a re-presentation of the natural/organic world, but is constitutive of, and inherently writing the biological world it describes. Thus, rather than erecting material/conceptual borders that reinforce the polarisation of the nature/culture division, this thesis proposes a way to think difference more generously, in a way that allows for a closer reconciliation of the historical division between the "theory" and the "lived" experience.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/257502 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Clayton, Belinda, Social Sciences & International Studies, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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