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Women, Alcohol and the Public Health Response: Moving Forward from Avoidance, Inattention and Inaction to Gender-Based Design

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Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis in Public Health

Abstract

This chapter discusses the need for sex-, gender- and diversity-based analysis to be brought to bear on the topic of women and alcohol, the uptake to date by public health and much-needed directions forward. The eighteenth-century public health discourse about women and alcohol in Canada, as described in Drink in Canada (Warsh, “Oh Lord, pour a cordial in her wounded heart”: The drinking woman in Victoria and Edwardian Canada. In C. K. Warsh (Ed.), Drink in Canada, historical essays (pp. 70–91). Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 1993), is rich with paternalism. Included in the historical discourse are the criticism of women entering the workforce and drinking in public (the ‘fallen woman’), the disparagement of women who drink and neglect their husbands and children (the ‘bad mother’) and the conflicted role of the medical profession in dispensing of tonics and encouragement of alcohol use while breastfeeding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Nancy Poole

  2. CanFASD Research Network, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Nancy Poole

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  1. Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Jacqueline Gahagan

  2. Department of Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Mary K. Bryson

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Poole, N. (2021). Women, Alcohol and the Public Health Response: Moving Forward from Avoidance, Inattention and Inaction to Gender-Based Design. In: Gahagan, J., Bryson, M.K. (eds) Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis in Public Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71929-6_8

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