Book Review: A Kaleidoscope of Identities: Reflexivity, Routine, and the Fluidity of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality by James W. Messerschmidt and Tristan Bridges

Abstract

a robust analysis of a gendered double standard in later chapters and in the book’s conclusion. Other chapters examine women’s attitudes toward alcohol and how those are transmitted within families and through media; how women encounter alcohol in social settings and the workplace; drinking and motherhood; and how the interview subjects have been affected by others’ drinking. Stewart draws on lifecourse and ecological theories to consider women’s drinking by age and cohort and to place women in familial and social contexts, with appropriate attention to issues of privilege and to differences among women. Stewart also notes that marijuana use emerged from the interviews as an important issue deserving attention. In On the Rocks, Stewart highlights women’s voices while also providing insightful context and analysis regarding women’s drinking and women’s lives. Her findings also reveal the limitations of current vocabulary for describing alcohol consumption. Stewart has demonstrated that Americans are deeply ambivalent about alcohol, and a gendered double standard persists. A cultural legacy dating back to the temperance movement of the nineteenth century makes it challenging to even talk about women’s drinking in a straightforward way. On the Rocks is an important contribution to a necessary and important conversation.