Based on a summary and discussion of our previousstudies of media portrayals of gender and alcohol inrelation to the general, societal discourses of risk andpleasure, we aim to develop the gender theoreticalunderstanding of alcohol as a health issue. We arguethat even though the media provide various implicitor explicit instructions for women on how to act,both warnings and encouragements to drink areframed within basic gendered assumptions thatconcern women’s dealing with alcohol. Because ofthis, the discourses that construct women’s drinkingas either risky or pleasurable are in fact not separate,but rather two sides of the same coin. Drawing onthis analysis, we argue that much of the research onalcohol consumption and sex difference – and inparticular on women’s drinking – lacks in itsunderstanding of the gendered ideas and assumptionsthat frame and influence these practices.