According to the Huffington Post, a new review of existing research proves that post-World War II American women are drunks, or at least, drunker than their foremothers. It’s hard to believe that wasps of the sixties, such as both of my grandmothers, who started in on the cocktails as soon as the kids got home from school because it was “5 o’clock somewhere” (one of my mom’s clearest and most foreboding memories of her childhood was the sound of her own mother’s bangles clinking together as she swilled the ice in her highball), could be lesser partiers than women of today. But the research shows that today women’s rates of binge drinking and their coinciding alcohol disorders are now catching up to men’s. Furthermore, perhaps because there are more drinkers to begin with in Europe, this trend is solely an American problem.
So why are ladies getting drunker than they used to? One addiction expert blames the changing role of women in society, saying, “More women entered the work force, but they were also expected to be good mothers and wives. [They] latched hold of alcohol as a coping mechanism.” Sure, wives and mothers who’ve entered the workforce—women made up the majority of the paid workforce in 2010—face high levels of stress from their jobs and their “second shift” at home. However, is it possible that it has simply become more acceptable for women to get drunk since WWII? From a feminist point of view, it’s somewhat of a good thing that American women are no longer excluded from McSorely’s on account of their fragile temperaments. Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this information is that alcoholism is gender-blind and the fine line between weekend ragers chronicled on facebook and disease is, for many women, no laughing matter. Anyone who has been affected by alcoholism can attest to that.
By: Nina Boutsikaris / Photo By: Edwin Flores
