Vad är problemet med kvinnor som dricker? : En kritisk diskursanalys av alkoholpolitiska styrdokument

• Main Author: Ragnarsson, Ellen
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Umeå universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen 2018
• Subjects: Political Science; Statsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-146365

Present research show that alcohol policy reflects different on women then on men even though Swedish men drink about twice as much as Swedish women. Women’s drinking is also problematized regarding arguments about reproduction, sexuality and personal problems. The Swedish government has established that a gender equal perspective must be clarified in the work of battling and preventing abuse of alcohol, drugs, tobacco and steroids. The perspective is to be clarified so that actions can be carried out with regards to men and women’s different needs. The purpose of this paper is to examine Swedish government strategies concerning alcohol policy in order to map out how political alcohol discourse constructs female drinking. The purpose is also to highlight other ways of thinking about gender equality in policy. The method that has been used is critical discourse analysis in the form of Carol Bacchis "What’s the problem represented to be?"- approach. Two documents have been analysed by using Bacchis method and Yvonne Hirdmans theory about gender contracts. The results of the analysis show that the alcohol discourse is gendered and constructs women as different when ‘special efforts’ are required to control women’s drinking even though men drink more. Another way of thinking about gender equality policy is to se how gender is made and reproduced. Thereby women are less seen as a homogenous group and more focus is put on men’s issues.