Women and Alcohol in India : A Study of Women’s Access to Drinking in Delhi

The paper focuses on young women’s drinking in Delhi. Building on existing work on emerging urban drinking culture among young women in India, this paper aims to further deepen the analysis by focusing on two aspects, a) women’s drinking on licensed premises and b) buying alcoholic drinks from shops. Using an ethnographic approach to study alcohol consumption among women, it is argued that women’s drinking in the city is shaped by entrepreneurial investments in building a nighttime drinking culture even as women go out and have a good time while negotiating the negative attitudes towards women’s drinking. Secondly, women’s experiences of buying alcohol are shaped by men’s control over public spaces and the wider social norms around who is expected to drink. It is found that women tactfully negotiate such gendered inconveniences to have their way