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Research on women’s drinking occurs in largely disparate disciplines—including public health, health promotion, psychology, sociology, and cultural studies—and draws on differing philosophical understandings and theoretical frameworks. Tensions between the aims and paradigmatic underpinnings of this research (across and within disciplines) have meant that knowledge and insight can be frequently disciplinary-specific and somewhat siloed. However, in line with the social and economic determinants of the health model, alcohol research needs approaches that can explore how multiple gender-related factors—biological, psycho-social, material, and socio-cultural—combine to produce certain drinking behaviours, pleasures and potential harms. We argue that critical realism as a philosophical underpinning to research can accommodate this broader conceptualization, enabling researchers to draw on …