Claims that men binge drink to feel more macho and women drink to feel more equal to men are among the motivations that will be explored over the next two years at the University of North Carolina Wilmington as CROSSROADS, UNCW’s substance abuse prevention and education program, seeks to identify, address and change gender-specific attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that contribute to high-risk drinking.
“Male and female students have told us that they drink for different reasons. Each gender truly has its own drinking culture. Advertisers have addressed it for years,” said Rebecca Caldwell, director of CROSSROADS.
Funded by a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the project titled “Changing a High-Risk Drinking Culture through the Lens of Gender” was one of 20 proposals accepted of the 155 submitted in the grant competition to prevent high-risk drinking among college students.
“This funding allows UNCW to do intense work to identify our students’ risks and address them with proven methods of creating culture change. Most of that work will be done by UNCW students, who are trained by us,” Caldwell said. “One example of that will be pairs of UNCW male and female students who will facilitate discussions with mixed groups of students to bring out and challenge their gender-based beliefs about drinking. Another example will be a group of male students who will work with other men on campus to challenge the male drinking culture.”