Relationship Between Sex‐Role Behaviour, Body Weight, and Alcohol Consumption in Undergraduate Men and Women

Abstract

Introduction: Recent research studies focusing on the relationship between psychiatric illness and deviant behaviour (Huselid & Cooper, 1992; Holman, Jensen, Capell, and Woodard, 1993) suggest that a behaviour that is inconsistent with sex‐role expectations, particularly when it is defined as more appropriate for the opposite sex, is seen as deviant. By implication, women's alcohol misuse falls into this category of ‘deviant deviance’. In their research on gender roles as mediators of sex differences in adolescent alcohol use and abuse, Huselid and Cooper (1992), concluded that the relationships between gender roles and alcohol use were consistent with the hypothesis that individuals with conventional gender identities conform more closely to cultural norms that condone drinking among males but not among females. In addition to heavy and problem drinking of women judged frequently to be a deviation from the traditional feminine role, it is also viewed as a rejection of the traditional feminine sex‐role and adoption of an aspect of the traditional masculine role, or both (Chomak and Collins, 1987). In their research on sex‐role conflicts in alcoholic women, when the factors of age, socio‐economic status (SES), and marital status were controlled, Kroft and Pierre (1987) observed that alcoholic women scored as more depressed and more sex‐role undifferentiated than non‐alcoholic women. Alcoholic women were also found to have a relatively traditional sex‐role ideology, and remitted alcoholics expressed less satisfaction than other groups with some traditional female roles. The presence of conflict between perceived (real) and desired (ideal) gender‐role characteristics, rather than the specific pattern or direction of the conflict, may best predict problem drinking. Similarly, the research on gender‐role attitudes, job competition and alcohol consumption among women and men, conducted by Parker and Hartford (1992), concluded that among females, the non‐traditional role of employment in non‐traditional gender‐role attitudes concerning responsibilities for household labour and child‐care were associated with greater alcohol consumption. Among the employed, traditional females and non‐traditional males had greater alcohol use. The females and males who experience conflict between competition at the work‐place and substantial obligations at home consumed a greater amount of alcohol. The results of these clashes between feminine role pattern at home and traditionally masculine roles of paid employment will be social and psychological conflicts and tensions that could adversely affect women's mental health (McBroom, 1986). In other words, many women may find it stressful to switch between more masculine role expectations in the workplace and more feminine role expectations in the home (Gerson, 1985) and some may increase their alcohol consumption to alleviate distress resulting from mismatched gender‐related role expectations and preferences (Eccles, 1987).

Citation

Sharma, S. (1995), "Relationship Between Sex‐Role Behaviour, Body Weight, and Alcohol Consumption in Undergraduate Men and Women", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 14 No. 1/2, pp. 12-26. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb010635