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The relationship between desirable and undesirable aspects of masculinity and femininity and drinking and eating was investigated. A sample of 144 university women in Australia completed questionnaires that assessed masculinity and femininity, reported drinking, alcohol dependence, eating restraint, frequency of dieting, and overeating. Evidence of a common underlying dimension linking aspects of problem drinking and overeating to undesirable masculine characteristics was found. The results are consistent with the view that women engage in excessive consummatory behaviors such as bingeing to deal with their gender-role conflict., The relationship between problem drinking and disordered eating has been well documented in both clinical and nonclinical samples of women (Holderness, Brooks-Gunn, & Warren, 1994; Killen et al., 1993). A [...]

The hypothesis that the terms masculine and feminine would not have the same connotations as the personality traits that are typically associated with them was investigated. Two hundred five undergraduates (116 women and 89 men) at a U.S. university rated how much they expected to like various hypothetical women and men, each of whom was described by a single trait adjective. Ten instrumental-trait and 10 socioemotional-trait adjectives, including the terms masculine and feminine, were associated with a targeted female or male character (e.g., 'an independent woman' or 'an understanding man'). Although 'a masculine woman' and 'a feminine man' both received low ratings, female targets described by instrumental adjectives and male targets described by socioemotional adjectives received high ratings. Nonstereotypic characters were rated more positively by the female respondents than they were by the male respondents. Stereotypic targets were rated more positively by other-gender respondents than by same-gender respondents., The adjectives masculine and feminine have been defined in terms of specific traits by researchers and laypersons alike. For example, Spence and Helmreich (1978) wrote, 'The core properties of femininity, [...]