Lots of folks in the feminist blogosphere are talking about this New York Magazine article bemoaning what appears to be an epidemic of female drunkenness: Should Gender Equality Extend to Drinking? It’s a mix of serious and thoughtful analysis with a bit of unnecessary hand-wringing (what on a blog is called “concern trolling.”) Lynn has a good round-up of reaction here.
And it’s my excuse to post a link to an old piece of mine on the subject: A Long Rant on Feminism, the Internalized Audience, and Alcohol. The title is overwrought, but the discussion below the post was very good. Comments there are closed, but are open here.
One of the most interesting statistics I heard was that, something like 75% of women in heterosexual relationships with a male alcholoic partner say with them while it was almost exactly the opposite for men with about 75% of men in heterosexual relationships with a female alcholoic leaving the relationship.
(and no folks – I don’t have the exact reference or study – it’s just something I remember from a BBC documentary about a year ago on the topic and it’s always stayed with me)
I think it all boils down to men being protected from (female) violence. As Erin C. said in the comments section of the original post,
“I don’t believe drunkenness to the point of dancing on tabletops or passing out is a good idea for anybody, man or woman — and notice that virtually nobody attacks men for this on the grounds of chastity or putting their safety at risk, despite men being just as physically vulnerable when unconscious — but if someone takes advantage of someone who’s drunk and passed out or semiconscious, that person is in NO WAY responsible for the crime that was committed against them.”
When passed out from too much drinking, *everybody* is vulnerable. If (a woman) were to do (sexual) violence to a passed-out man, I don’t think the male victim would be blamed or slut-shamed. At least not as much as his female counterpart would be in a similar situation. It’s just not done to attack men who are in this state.
(Which, of course, is a good thing. Nobody should be attacked ever. But the way I see it, booze is not THE problem. Heck, having to deal with a society that approves male violence against women seems like a good reason to start drinking.)
As for your point of women drinking to silence their internal audience – that rings very true to me.
Unconcious men are not usually attacked, but waking up with a phallus (among other things) drawn on your face in sharpie, or getting teabagged by your friends (often with photographic proof) doesn’t sound altogether pleasant. I mean, this goes back to elementary, you mess with the first person to fall asleep at the slumber party — frozen underwear, short-sheeting, shaving cream or warm water. Maybe we should teach children that it’s not right to mess with sleeping (or passed out) people, eh?
Lynn nailed it – Oh God Women Are Aping Those Awful Men is hardly a new form of hand-wringing.
My favorite Simone de Beauvoir quote: Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female – whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.
I’ll just say, out of a considerable amount of personal empirical experience, that a man’s potential exposure to serious violence increases quite dramatically as well, albeit perhaps in different ways than for women, when alcohol is a factor, considerably more serious than a teabagging. I have two scars on my face, a chipped tooth, a neck missing about 15 degrees of motion to the right, and a prior arrest at gunpoint by six police officers to bear that out.