Darts, Drink and the Pub: The Culture of Female Drinking

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Abstract
Sociologists and anthropologists have paid little attention to women's role in the pub. This article, based on fieldwork reseach, sets out to describe the use of two pubs by two different groups of women in an English village. Through these examples, we seek to illustrate not only the social class differences between the two groups of women but also their differential use of the pub. For many working-class women, as opposed to their middle-class counterparts, the pub represents an important social centre in the village – joining the darts team provides one of a limited range of available options to get away from responsibilities of home and kin. This is not the case for middle-class women. For them the pub represents only one of many options in their social lives and as a result they make less use of the pub and its facilities.