{"id":61596,"date":"2014-02-18T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T14:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=61596"},"modified":"2017-09-17T16:25:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T21:25:41","slug":"questioning-media-portrayals-of-female-drunkeness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/02\/18\/questioning-media-portrayals-of-female-drunkeness\/","title":{"rendered":"Questioning Media Portrayals of Female Drunkeness"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the\u00a0New Statesman<\/a>, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter skewer the common media\u00a0hand-wringing over women who get drunk in public. \u00a0Above and beyond the victim-blaming “don’t make yourself so rape-able” message, Cosslett and Baxter point out that the tsk-tsking is deeply laden with the idea that women should behave like “ladies.” \u00a0This, of course, is an old-fashioned notion suggesting that women are or should be the moral superiors of men (invented during the Victorian era).<\/p>\n

Using a Daily Mail<\/a> article and images as an example, they criticize the typical language and imagery that accompanies these stories:<\/p>\n

Platell\u2019s piece manages to feature almost every aspect of drunken female behaviour that tabloids simultaneously loathe and desire. Yes, this article has the whole shebang: long lens photos of young women with their fishnets torn up to the bum at a fancy dress party in freshers\u2019 week; phrases like \u201cbarely leaving anything to the imagination\u201d and \u201cneo-feminists behaving like men\u201d and creepily voyeuristic descriptions of \u201cpretty young girls lying comatose on the pavement.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

From another point of view, Cosslett and Baxter argue, this looks like “a pretty cracking night out,” stumbles and all.<\/p>\n

They point out, smartly, that many of these stories frame\u00a0women’s interest in alcohol as an effort to hang with the boys. \u00a0The message, they explain, is that\u00a0“‘young ladies’ are being warped by the hard-drinking university culture… going along with men\u2019s behaviour because they\u2019re weak-willed and they think it will make them look cool.”<\/p>\n

Because men invent things, and then women jump on board because they feel like they have to — that\u2019s the way of the world, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s not like those of the female variety\u00a0enjoy\u00a0<\/em>a pint, after all, or even — God forbid — enjoy the sensation of drunkenness once in a blue moon. It\u2019s not as though our decision whether or not to drink has anything to do with us or our own lives… modern female binge drinking is still all about the men.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is not to defend drinking per se, or binge drinking or public drunkeness, but to point out the gendered coverage of the phenomenon, which still portrays women’s drinking as somehow less natural, more worrisome, and more dangerous than men’s.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the\u00a0New Statesman, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter skewer the common media\u00a0hand-wringing over women who get drunk in public. \u00a0Above and beyond the victim-blaming “don’t make yourself so rape-able” message, Cosslett and Baxter point out that the tsk-tsking is deeply laden with the idea that women should behave like “ladies.” \u00a0This, of course, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":61598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,2096,2090,129,23624,212,120,293,23647,133],"class_list":["post-61596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-femininity","tag-gender-violence","tag-media","tag-media-newsopinion","tag-alcohol","tag-sex","tag-social-construction","tag-social-construction-social-problems","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/02\/43.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61596"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71630,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61596\/revisions\/71630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}