This study draws on Carol Bacchi’s What’s the problem represented to be? (WPR) framework, to deconstruct policy discourses of women’s alcohol consumption. It examines Australian policies such as in the National Alcohol Strategy (2019–2028) and Australian Guidelines to Reduce Health Risks from Drinking Alcohol (NHMRC, 2009, 2020). It found that policy discourses particularly focus on the effects of women’s alcohol consumption as ‘harms’ to unborn children, by emphasising women’s assumed reproductive roles, such in pregnancy and when breastfeeding. Social policy tends to reproduce medicalising and normative gendered discourses about women’s alcohol consumption, with disempowering effects on women. This discourse analysis of drug and alcohol policies can contribute to broadening how social workers understand policy representations and the effects of policy discourses on women. The disciplinary power of the medicalisation and acceptable/unacceptable categorisation of women’s alcohol consumption means that women can internalise shame and stigma, which is often an obstacle for women attempting to seek assistance. More research is needed about how social workers can co-design policies and research projects with women of diverse sexualities and cultural backgrounds who have been subjugated by these policy discourses.

这项研究借鉴了卡罗尔·巴基 (Carol Bacchi) 的“问题代表是什么？(WPR) 框架，解构女性饮酒的政策话语。它审查了澳大利亚的政策，例如国家酒精战略（2019-2028）和澳大利亚减少饮酒带来的健康风险的指导方针(NHMRC, 2009, 2020)。研究发现，政策论述特别关注女性饮酒对未出生婴儿的“伤害”，强调女性在怀孕和哺乳期间承担的生殖角色。社会政策倾向于复制关于女性饮酒的医学化和规范化的性别话语，对女性产生剥夺权力的影响。这种对毒品和酒精政策的话语分析有助于拓宽社会工作者理解政策表述和政策话语对妇女的影响的方式。医学化的惩戒权和对女性饮酒的可接受/不可接受分类意味着女性可以将羞耻感和耻辱感内化，这往往是女性寻求帮助的障碍。