Happy Hour: The Consequences of Binge Drinking on Feminism

by Laura Cude

Photo: Joanie Cahill

Sometimes when preparing my latest post for inContext, I can come to my keyboard armed with notes on a book recently read or re-read, only to begin writing and find myself using them sparingly as themes, motifs and important quotes; crystallising themselves, I find them rapidly firing into corners of the feminine experience, lighting up an abundance of parallels, nuances and questions which I had previously not noticed. I love it when that happens. Other times, I can come up with a subject which I desperately want to explore and discuss (in other words, the context in inContext) and need to find a classic work to back it up. Sometimes, I thankfully do. Other times, such as this week, I don’t. And I hate it when that happens.

In the last fifteen years, there have been a fair number of books published on the matter of women’s drinking habits and the dangers which come with drinking excessively—both physical, mental and in some, a warning of the moral backlash. Caroline Knapp’s Drinking: a Love Story (Dial Press, 1997), details her relationship with alcohol that began in her teens and which ultimately climaxed with her entering rehab in her mid thirties. Reading as a memoir, with fruitful descriptions of the characters she met along the way, it is not a preachy account, more an exploration of how a misguided, well off youth could end up in such a mess. Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman’s Life (Harper Paperbacks, 2002) by Devon Jersild on the other hand begins with a collection of terrifying statistics, such as a woman is five times more likely to be raped after she has been drinking and that female alcoholics are twice as likely to die from drinking than male alcoholics of the same age group. Jersild weaves these facts with personal accounts from female alcoholics/binge drinkers etc. to create a word of warning against the dangers of alcohol. It is an approach which I have noticed to be particularly welcomed by the British media. Once a month at least, the news will provide us with a bulletin of the latest risk factor to women from alcohol: infertility, increased chance of hepatitis, diabetes, breast cancer and so on. Binge drinking is constantly under surveillance in the media and the government has discussed several tactics to put an end to it such as rising VAT rates on cheap booze from off licences, for example.

Binge drinking does seem to be a problem, especially amongst youngsters who are out of school, living on an estate with nothing to aspire to. Members of the older generation however point out that what we call “binge drinking” was simply called a “Saturday night” back in the day. I guess those Saturday nights just didn’t include drunken women. The pub was seen as a safe haven for men from “their women.” Until around the 70s, it wasn’t socially acceptable for women to go to pubs, and if they did, they were the “no gooders”—the “all fur coat and no knickers kind” (is this also the reason why I can’t find any classical literature on women drinkers?). This gave men a hiding space from family ties and responsibility. Now however, pubs are just as much a staple in a woman’s social life as they are in a man’s due to increased independence and more money of their own which they are able to dispose of at their own will.

Underage and antisocial drinkers aside, it seems that the main problem isn’t that we are going out on the lash, for this has been a common social convention in Britain for centuries. I think it is because women are doing it now. No doubt, women are more vulnerable when we drink, and it is important to promote safety to those who do enjoy the big night out. It is also fair to point out that the same measurement of alcohol drunk by a woman will affect her differently than a man because of such unfortunate things as woman having a higher fat ratio to water than what males do. With that said, the constant reminder of the ramifications for drinking if you are a woman seems to be a tactic to somehow keep a stigma attached to us drinking.

Photo: Camilla Lichti

There have been a fair few occasions where I have needed to kill time, am on a lunch break or am waiting for someone, and have grabbed a drink alone in a pub somewhere. My parents, being from another generation, understandably find this bizarre, however there are also girls my age who think of the behaviour as quite eccentric and claim they could never do it themselves.

I have been a part of many conversations where male associates have spoken of their drunken nights out and the injuries, hangovers and embarrassment which came as a result. They’re popular stories. It’s like men bond over them. I have learnt however to keep my own drunken shortcomings to myself for immediately, you’re giving an unsavoury reputation.

Girls get drunk, too. And as with anything, there are members of society which do abuse alcohol. What I can’t stand is when so called intellectuals reference the image of girls stumbling out of pubs and cry out “Is this all we have taken from feminism?” The footage of a twenty something girl throwing up and being carried home isn’t exactly promoting the feminist ideal, but nor do I think it is running contrary to it. Plenty of female scholars loved a good drink up. Simone de Beauvoir being one of them, fitting a good ol’ knees up and socialise into her schedule from 8pm every day. As long as women are keeping safe and knowing their limits, they’ve got no more to be ashamed of or in fear of than the average male.

Laura Cude is twenty-one years old and from a dead beat town called Leatherhead which is located in Old Blighty. She left Kingston College last year with three A grade A levels, and three university acceptances. She turned them all down in favour of practical work experience, which is what bought her to Her Circle originally as a blog coordinator for The Writer’s Life, and now as the writer of inContext. She is a music enthusiast and keen writer, using song composition and screenplays as her weapons of choice. Combining her interests in feminism, existentialism and pop culture, she aims to make inContext a revealing and energetic exploration of the politics in
feminist literature and the 21st century.