X-posted. Ron
----------
From: H-Net Reviews <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: McBee on Rotskoff, _Love on the Rocks_
Date: Saturday, March 06, 2004 6:45 AM
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by [log in to unmask] (January 2004)
Lori Rotskoff. _Love on the Rocks: Men, Women, and Alcohol in
Post-World War II America_. Gender and American Culture Series.
Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. xi
+ 307 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN
0-8078-2728-2; $18.95 (paper), ISBN 0-8078-5402-6.
Reviewed for H-Women by Randy D. McBee, Department of History, Texas
Tech University
Engendering the Alcoholic
In her engaging history of alcoholism and the alcoholism movement,
Lori Rotskoff explores the gendered history of drinking from the
turn of the century to the early 1960s. Rotskoff notes that in the
late-nineteenth century alcohol was identified primarily with the
saloon. In particular, the saloon was a major site of a larger
bachelor subculture where men of various ethnic backgrounds enjoyed
the company of other men and scorned the domesticating influence of
women. Indeed, the saloon was central to the construction of male
identity that was based largely on the values of all-male
camaraderie and the rejection of familial obligations. Rotskoff
notes that the avid saloon-goer represented "dissolute manhood,"
which stood in stark opposition to the other major construction of
male identity, "respectable manhood" (p. 18). Respectable manhood,
as portrayed by temperance reformers, cherished the man's role as
father and as husband. Respectability required commitment to the
breadwinner ethic, but men could also enjoy the fruits of their
labor at home. In fact, unlike "dissolute manhood," which was
viewed as a threat to the family's well being, "respectable manhood"
viewed the family as central to a man's identity and as a source of
his pleasure.
Prohibition and then repeal, Rotskoff argues, led to the
"normalization" of social drinking, the glamorization of
"restrained" drinking among middle-class folk, and the growing
popularity of heterosocial drinking. Indeed, Rotskoff argues that
after repeal marketing campaigns reinforced the acceptability of
social drinking in polite company, cocktail scenes were often the
"rule rather than the exception for many dramas and comedies
produced during the 1930s" (p. 45), and "alcohol melded into the
dominant culture" (p. 40). Most important of all, Rotskoff notes
that during this period various scientific, medical, and other
self-credentialed authorities replaced a moralist view of drinking
as a sin with a therapeutic conception of drinking as a sickness.
Other scholars, Rotskoff explains, have examined the social and
political environment in which the development of a new alcoholic
identity took shape, but they have not "adequately explored the
cultural implications of that identity" (p. 66).
In particular, Rotskoff explores what she calls the "engendering" of
alcoholism. She uses the term engender to "denote the formation of
new institutions and forms of therapy associated with the alcoholic
movement" and to refer to matters of gender and the family (p. 4).
Rotskoff, for example, examines the ways in which alcoholism was a
manifestation of the anxiety and rootlessness Americans experienced
in the 1940s and 1950s. Alcoholism was linked to fears of
effeminacy, and alcoholic men who failed to engage in normal
heterosexual relationships were even accused of being latent
homosexuals. This understanding of the alcoholic, Rotskoff asserts,
stood in sharp contrast to the earlier image of the rugged,
hard-drinking man who epitomized the masculinity of the saloon era.
Yet she argues that alcohol did not prevent men from establishing
their own masculine identity. Social drinking, which was identified
as a normal and healthy sign of masculinity, allowed men to further
their careers and fulfill their expected roles as breadwinners.
Popular culture also picked up on these changes. According to
Rotskoff, films like _The Lost Weekend_ helped educate the public
about changing conceptions of alcoholism. _The Lost Weekend_ was
not only the first film that featured a main character who was an
alcoholic but also presented alcoholism as a disease. Through the
main protagonist, Dan Birnam, the film explores the anxiety
associated with the post-World War II period and the role of
alcohol. Birnam suffers from a troubled psyche along with bouts of
drinking that prevent him from developing a strong commitment to his
marriage and from ultimately attaining mature manhood, a
representation distinctly different than earlier images of drinking
as a common expression of masculinity.
Rotskoff similarly extends a gendered analysis to Alcoholics
Anonymous (AA). Besides helping men deal with their alcoholism, AA,
Rotskoff argues, was a site for reconstructing manhood. AA was a
largely middle-class and male organization that emphasized
sociability to help replace the all-male camaraderie associated with
male culture and alcohol. The organization also stressed
reciprocity through spiritual and therapeutic gift
exchange--literally the gift of sobriety that was passed along to
new members. In addition, the confessional stories or narratives in
which AA members engaged allowed them to confront their days of
"dissolute manhood" and in the process to build up their manly
esteem through a discussion of their past exploits. Sometimes,
Rotskoff notes, these manly tales of bravado could lead to relapse,
but they were just as likely to persuade men to discuss the
tranquility and peace of mind they eventually found through marriage
and a domestic lifestyle. While these different visions of manhood
stood in bold contrast to one another, Rotskoff argues that they
were essential to the formation of what she calls sober manhood.
Rotskoff also considers the gendered history of the alcoholic's
wife. According to Rotskoff, it was not until after WWII that
experts began to stress the need to treat alcoholic marriages. Much
of their work blamed wives for their alcoholic husbands. In
particular, their research typically argued that a husband's chronic
drunkenness was a sign of a dysfunctional family in which husband
and wife deviated from conventional sex roles. While the husband
remained sober, the wife deferred to him and allowed him to assume
his expected role as head of the household. But with each setback
on the part of the husband, the wife became more frustrated, often
feeling insecure and shameful and eventually compelling her to
assume the husband's and father's role. Not only was the family's
sex-role inversion generally thought to be temporary but recovery
from alcoholism was dependent upon the wife relinquishing these
duties and the husband once again assuming the role of breadwinner.
In short, a healthy family, Rotskoff explains, "required allegiance
to traditional sex-role prescriptions" (p. 159).
Alcohol Anonymous and Al-Anon Family Groups were even more important
in shaping popular perceptions about women's expected role. While
some men objected to the involvement of their wives because they
threatened the masculine culture of AA meetings, AA was soon
praising women's contributions and arguing that its philosophy would
"do wonders for domestic relations" (p. 167). While pre-Prohibition
narratives about alcohol portrayed women as the victims of
hard-drinking men who had abandoned them, AA and Al-Anon depicted
wives who supported their husbands through their recovery. In the
process, AA and Al-Anon offered wives a program of emotion
management and a way to fulfill their own needs. In particular, AA
and Al-Anon stressed that an alcoholic's recovery depended upon his
wife's emotional restraint or a wife who was understanding, patient,
and tolerant. The potential conflict and problems associated with
such a sacrifice could lead to separation or divorce, but women
typically looked for ways to keep the family together. Along the
way, they often turned toward their AA and Al-Anon family to fulfill
their own emotional needs and hence locate their own sense of
fulfillment, which ultimately reinforced traditional gender role
expectations.
Rotskoff offers an extraordinarily vigorous examination of the
gender dynamics of the alcoholism movement and AA throughout a good
portion of the twentieth century. Along the way, she provides
insight into the ways in which masculinity and femininity were
constructed during this period, how gender identities shaped ideas
about domesticity, sexuality, and sobriety, and how these dynamics
relate to existing works about Prohibition, the Depression, and the
Cold War. In particular, Rotskoff skillfully compares and contrasts
how these identities changed over time, paying particular attention
to the pre- and post-Prohibition eras and to both masculinity and
femininity. Equally impressive is her use of popular culture.
Besides using publications from so-called "experts," from the
leaders of the alcoholism movement, and from men and women
struggling with alcoholism, Rotskoff routinely examines films
throughout the period. In the process, she shows how the
issues/debates surrounding the alcoholism movement affected movies
and how movies represented changing ideas about alcohol and the
impact of AA.
With these comments in mind, more on the impact of class identities
would have been useful. In her introduction, Rotskoff explains that
her research focuses primarily on middle-class white Americans, and
she effectively shows that middle-class men and women increasingly
dominated representations about alcohol and the alcoholism movement.
Yet comparing the ways in which middle- and working-class men and
women understood alcohol would undoubtedly shed light on many of the
changes she discusses, just as looking at both men and women provide
insight into the nature and organization of gender identities. How,
for example, did different classes of men respond to criticisms of
hard drinking and dissolute manhood as well as the growing
importance of sobriety to constructions of gender? And to what
extent did that version of male identity remain important despite
the middle-class preference for sober manhood? Indeed, a more
explicit discussion of the class dynamics surrounding alcoholism
might illuminate the ways in which men of both classes struggled
with sobriety, and it might allow us to get beyond the division
between "dissolute manhood" and "respectable manhood" or at least
see how various behaviors allowed men to bridge the gap between the
two.
These minor comments notwithstanding, Rotskoff offers a provocative
analysis of the alcoholism movement, which illuminates the gender
and family dynamics surrounding alcoholism and the larger historical
context in which these issues took shape.
Copyright (c) 2004 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits
the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit,
educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the
author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and
H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses
contact the Reviews editorial staff: [log in to unmask]
|
