Wine and the Gendered Self-Gift: Conceptual Considerations

This chapter concerns gendered wine self-gifts, focussing on the complexities of women drinking wine and giving themselves wine gifts. The chapter is an initial exploration of the subject matter, drawing on the academic literatures on self-gifting in general, male-to-female gift-giving practices, and the gendered aspects of wine consumption. I examine these bodies of knowledge in order to ask the question as to what the framing of wine as a self-gift does to the wine, and to/for the woman who gifts the wine to herself. I first discuss the concept of self-gift, including some gendered elements of it, such as women’s higher engagement with self-gifts and tendency to engage in certain kinds of self-gift behaviours. Then, I note how wine-gifting has for a long time been gendered in ways that reflect wider gender dynamics and power misbalances. I then discuss the types of wine self-gifts that may exist, noting the specific gendered nature of both wine and self-gifts. By considering the gendered nature of wine, gifts, and self-gifts, I argue that framing the wine as a self-gift helps to reduce the risks of condemnation that wine-drinking women still may face. But at the same time, the necessity of using such justification strategies reveals the fundamental power of patriarchal structures that operate through all wine-drinking and gift-giving processes.