\u27What on earth is \u3cem\u3eshe\u3c/em\u3e drinking?\u27 Doing Femininity through Drink Choice on the Girls\u27 Night Out

In a supposed “post-feminist” society of gender equality, engagement with contemporary spaces such as the Night Time Economy (NTE) may offer young women positive opportunities to redefine femininities through leisure activities and alcohol consumption. Whilst the NTE is depicted as an increasingly “feminised” space where women’s drinking is normalised and expected, this essay will demonstrate some of the ways in which alcohol consumption remains highly gendered and women continue to be expected to buy into normative femininity through their beverage choice by looking at a specific mode of engagement with the NTE - the “girl’s night out”. Drawing on the findings of my PhD research with young women in the North-East of England, I will highlight some of the ways in which young women manage drinking practices and choices in the potentially highly gendered and (hetero)sexualised contemporary leisure spaces of the NTE when going out with female friends. With the consumption of more “girly” drinks such as wine and cocktails both normalised and positioned as a key way in which to “do” gender and femininity on the girls’ night out, I argue that women’s scope to rewrite the dominant scripts of femininities in these particular contexts is limited and constrained. However, other social occasions or drinking contexts and settings may potentially offer women more opportunities to resist, challenge or ignore gendered expectations and norms around alcohol consumption. Highlighting specific examples of resistance from the data, I will draw attention to the important role of context in shaping the ways in which women manage and negotiate their drinking choices in contemporary leisure spaces

Running the tightrope :negotiating femininities in the night time economy in Newcastle

PhD ThesisThis project explores young women’s understandings of what it means to be (in)appropriately feminine, the ways in which the boundaries of femininities are negotiated through women’s embodied practices in the Night Time Economy and the types of behaviours and identities that are enabled or constrained as a result. Within the academic literature, appropriate femininity has traditionally been associated with passivity, respectability and control. Yet understandings of the meanings and scope of femininities and the implications for the lived experiences of women are more contested in contemporary research, where it is useful to imagine women as negotiating a plurality of ‘femininities’ whose importance shifts across contexts. Within a supposed ‘post-feminist’ society, some women may arguably be able to claim new feminine identities drawing on elements of empowerment, independence and agency. However, it is important to consider how far traditional understandings of femininities may continue to impact on young women’s experiences and the extent to which women even consider being ‘feminine’ to be important. This research contributes to an emerging field of literature exploring the ways in which women manage some of the tensions and contradictions inherent in understandings of appropriate femininities in contemporary spaces. Adding to recent work on the ways in which embodied experience shapes and constructs identities in the Night Time Economy, this research uses semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 26 young women aged 18-25 to demonstrate some of the ways in which young women define and manage the boundaries of femininities - both on a ‘girls’ nights out’ with female friends and when engaging with the Night Time Economy more widely - in the post-industrial city of Newcastle, UK. The research also examines the ways in which class, sexuality, age and ‘Geordie’ identities are implicated in such processes, impacting upon the extent to which different women can engage in traditionally non-feminine behaviour without damaging their claims to respectable feminine identities

Estimation of ice shelf melt rate in the presence of a thermohaline staircase

Diffusive convection–favorable thermohaline staircases are observed directly beneath George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctica. A thermohaline staircase is one of the most pronounced manifestations of double-diffusive convection. Cooling and freshening of the ocean by melting ice produces cool, freshwater above the warmer, saltier water, the water mass distribution favorable to a type of double-diffusive convection known as diffusive convection. While the vertical distribution of water masses can be susceptible to diffusive convection, none of the observations beneath ice shelves so far have shown signals of this process and its effect on melting ice shelves is uncertain. The melt rate of ice shelves is commonly estimated using a parameterization based on a three-equation model, which assumes a fully developed, unstratified turbulent flow over hydraulically smooth surfaces. These prerequisites are clearly not met in the presence of a thermohaline staircase. The basal melt rate is estimated by applying an existing heat flux parameterization for diffusive convection in conjunction with the measurements of oceanic conditions at one site beneath George VI Ice Shelf. These estimates yield a possible range of melt rates between 0.1 and 1.3 m yr−1, where the observed melt rate of this site is ~1.4 m yr−1. Limitations of the formulation and implications of diffusive convection beneath ice shelves are discussed

Risky pleasures? to what extent are the boundaries of contemporary understandings of (in)appropriate femininities shaped by young women’s negotiation of risk within the night time economy?

This snapshot will offer a summary of my current research project on how the boundaries of appropriate femininities might be policed and managed through women’s everyday practices within the Night Time Economy (NTE) in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North East England. Through focus groups and semi-structured interviews with young women, my research will explore the embodied practices of alcohol consumption, presentation of the body and patterns of use of the NTE, facilitating a greater understanding of the extent to which notions of risk and respectability might continue (or otherwise) to regulate young women’s behaviour, and providing an insight into how particular classed and sexualised (in)appropriately feminine identities are conceptualised and performed