Women,work and wine

Abstract

Aims

There are many grey zones between work and leisure time, where colleagues drink together. Managers are more often involved in grey-zone situations than other employees, and the managerial arena is dominated by men. What is the significance of female managers’ visibility in their understanding of their own consumption of alcohol? What leads female managersto moderate their work-related alcohol consumption?

Data and Methods

To capture the female managers’ perspectives, we conducted 13 in-depth interviews. The female managers represented various kinds of work within care or nursing, media or publishing, public administration and commodity trading.

Results

The female managers’ reflections and experiences of consuming alcohol in grey zones explain how their heightened visibility as women leads them to moderate their alcohol consumption. Three themes were especially salient: (1) need to be in control, (2) concern about stigmatisation, and (3) life stages marked with caring tasks.

Conclusions

The results show the importance of external factors in work-related drinking. Women's visibility is significant in relation to cultural dimensions, moderating work-related drinking even when women are managers. The women place demands upon themselves based on their own conceptions of others’ expectations of female managers.