Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and this is Samantha, and welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff. I never till to your prediction of I
Speaker 1: heart Radios how stuff works. In our last episode, UM,
Speaker 1: we talked about the gendering of food most mostly men
Speaker 1: and meat in order that whole mant not that specifically. UM.
Speaker 1: I have heard that in advertising language, so I thought
Speaker 1: of that later. UM. And today we're talking about the
Speaker 1: gendering of alcohols UM. So before we start, UM, drink responsibly.
Speaker 1: If alcohol is a trigger for you, it would probably
Speaker 1: be a good idea to not listen to this one. UM.
Speaker 1: And we're going to briefly, very briefly. UM just mentioned
Speaker 1: things like sexual assault and violence, domestic violence. So UM,
Speaker 1: if that is a trigger for you as well, UM,
Speaker 1: just letting you know, right, stop right it stop right
Speaker 1: at the start, that's where we are, or that stops.
Speaker 1: Today has been a really goofy day. I am not
Speaker 1: sure what's going on. And we have not had any alcohol.
Speaker 1: You d up over here. It's water okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: trying to stay hydrated. Yes, okay. So I think a
Speaker 1: popular way of thinking about it when we're talking about
Speaker 1: the gendering alcohol is beers for men wine is for
Speaker 1: women or I usually hear like darker things, darker alcohols men,
Speaker 1: lighter alcohols women. Um, you know, it'll put hair on
Speaker 1: your chest. That's what they say. They say that about everything.
Speaker 1: Spicy foods puts hair on your chest. Did they say
Speaker 1: that about spicy fol Now, I feel like I've heard that.
Speaker 1: I like how you immediately backchecked. I say, yes, okay, Um,
Speaker 1: so doing something that burns, I guess yes, I think
Speaker 1: that burns, which is thought too. It's believed that darker
Speaker 1: alcohols have more of a burn, and sometimes they do,
Speaker 1: but not always, not always. Um. And we have done
Speaker 1: past episodes looking at the history of beer, um, and
Speaker 1: whiskey when it comes to this whole thing specifically, if
Speaker 1: you want to check those out. And I know that
Speaker 1: I've talked about on this show that the fairly common
Speaker 1: gross response that I get from men when I order whiskey, UM,
Speaker 1: that that it implies I'm a slutty Are I'm ready
Speaker 1: to have sex with sex with you? I don't know,
Speaker 1: like ding whiskey, yeah, oh yeah about whiskey, oh yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that we're going to talk about that a
Speaker 1: little bit later. But the ads for whiskey are very
Speaker 1: that's for all alcohols very sexual. Obviously, Yes, I think
Speaker 1: when it comes to whisky, ala think of more like
Speaker 1: grungier type of things. So for even women like I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of people who for some reason I have in
Speaker 1: my head a woman who may have just had been
Speaker 1: one of the boys, essentially kimen having a whiskey drink
Speaker 1: with them, obviously being one of the guys, not so
Speaker 1: much to be slutty. Well, it's interesting you say that
Speaker 1: because that is a very commonly held belief. I found
Speaker 1: so many articles. I did not realize how much your
Speaker 1: drink choice apparently says about you according to the Internet.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's like a BuzzFeed quiz in itself about you. Um.
Speaker 1: There's an infamous article that I'm going to quote a
Speaker 1: little bit later that breaks down the difference between women
Speaker 1: who drink vodka and women who drink whiskey. And one
Speaker 1: of the things is if she drinks whiskey, she can
Speaker 1: hang with the guy. Um. And it's written in a
Speaker 1: way that I can tell the author thinks he's being
Speaker 1: complimentary of both women, but it's like, clearly not exactly
Speaker 1: in my opinion. Um, And we've all seen the joke
Speaker 1: in our media of a girly or weak drink, and like, um,
Speaker 1: the fact that girly drink even exists as a term, right,
Speaker 1: that says a lot right there. Um And when dude
Speaker 1: orders of fruity drink or a girly drink, I always
Speaker 1: think of scrubs. Um. When j d orders an apple
Speaker 1: tini please easy on the tea, right, and I think of,
Speaker 1: um the New Girls episode where Winston because he gets
Speaker 1: the girly fruity mixes that Nick makes mainly for girls,
Speaker 1: and he goes, was like, that makes a naughty look
Speaker 1: at me being naughty. It's so interesting to be that
Speaker 1: this exists. I mean, oh, I will say my family,
Speaker 1: this is reverse. This is like completely reversed. The men
Speaker 1: in my family do not drink barely any and when
Speaker 1: they do, they drink quote girly drink sweeter things. That's
Speaker 1: my friend group too. Most of my friends are the opposite.
Speaker 1: The girls like the whiskey and the dark beers, and
Speaker 1: the guys like things vodka ish. I love gent too,
Speaker 1: but stuff like that. Alana lines, yeah, yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think in my case, like my mom on side of
Speaker 1: the family, they're they're drinkers. Um and so it's not really.
Speaker 1: I haven't encountered too much of this until I like
Speaker 1: went out started going out on my own, and then
Speaker 1: people are like, what are you doing ordering that whiskey?
Speaker 1: You can't handle that little lady? You wont never called you.
Speaker 1: A little later, somebody you want to punch me? Why
Speaker 1: do people keep thinking that they can call you random
Speaker 1: things like that? Oh my gosh, Um, I get this
Speaker 1: all the time. And then I recently was buying a
Speaker 1: bottle of Rose and the dude near me um called
Speaker 1: me princess. I said to his dude friend, Lily, she's
Speaker 1: buying it because she's pretty, like he was talking about
Speaker 1: me in third person. He addressed me and then did
Speaker 1: this in third person, like, well, clearly he doesn't view
Speaker 1: me as a human being, right, Okay, so, like, how
Speaker 1: does such a weird concept? I will say, I don't
Speaker 1: love rose myself, just because I don't like the taste
Speaker 1: per se, but it definitely was my beginner drink. That's
Speaker 1: that's really interesting because rose to I didn't even try
Speaker 1: it until a couple of years ago when it took off.
Speaker 1: Now it's big, like the rose has kind of gotten
Speaker 1: his niche. But yeah, that was my beginner drink. Wow. Really,
Speaker 1: you know, we just did an episode in Rose Over
Speaker 1: on my other show, Saver. And one of the big
Speaker 1: reasons side note people think it took off is because
Speaker 1: it is millennial pink, and that color took off and
Speaker 1: people just like taking pictures with the color. Oh is
Speaker 1: it an instagram worthy? It's apparently it is very instagram herb. Interesting.
Speaker 1: I just remember thinking I didn't like shardonay because that's
Speaker 1: too abrupt and dry from me, so that's not something
Speaker 1: I would ever drink. I don't like Chardonnay's, but then
Speaker 1: to start off going deep red was too much. So
Speaker 1: someone just handed me a light pink drink. I was like, oh, look,
Speaker 1: it's like in the middle. Yes, that's my thought. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: you're learning a lot about our drinking preferences. So if
Speaker 1: you want to send me something, don't do it Rose.
Speaker 1: I'll take it. I'll take it. So let's start with
Speaker 1: some brief history here. The alcohol industry and women for
Speaker 1: a long time until our like more recent history have
Speaker 1: not gotten along. And I mean you can argue even now,
Speaker 1: don't um. The industry funneled a lot of money to
Speaker 1: politicians who promised to prevent women's suffrage, probably because women
Speaker 1: have been big proponents of the temperance movement and prohibition.
Speaker 1: Throughout history, women drinking in public has been frowned upon
Speaker 1: and judged as lewd or crass, too manly. And this
Speaker 1: is again sort of more recent history, because in ancient
Speaker 1: times it wasn't necessarily that right, but like you know,
Speaker 1: it got a flip and became unladylike do such things
Speaker 1: it did? Who knows what you'll say a curse word
Speaker 1: in public? What me? Never? No? Never? Uh. And now
Speaker 1: that women are allowed to drink in public relatively free
Speaker 1: from scoring, or at least compared to this, because we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into that more later, you're not necessarily free
Speaker 1: from scoring, the industry has changed its tune, especially since
Speaker 1: the rate of women drinking has consistently been going up
Speaker 1: as compared to men were to sort of plateau to
Speaker 1: stayed the same. In the pent of whiskey, drinkers were women.
Speaker 1: Nowadays that's closer to thirty seven percent. Gendered marketing and
Speaker 1: products around alcohol is all kinds of messed up. Um.
Speaker 1: There are tampon flasks, uh, the wine rack, which is
Speaker 1: a brawl that you can fill with wine. Right. I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of this is basically though, because
Speaker 1: people think that men are afraid of things like tampons,
Speaker 1: one thing you won't check. It's true, That's what it
Speaker 1: said when I was reading, like because at first I thought,
Speaker 1: is this like something you? So I wanted to read
Speaker 1: the product description and uh uh no. Yeah, it's because
Speaker 1: people are afraid of checking tampons, which hilarious, yes, hilarious
Speaker 1: and sad. The alcohol industry is pretty notorious for gendered marketing.
Speaker 1: Experts have compared it to how we gender toys when
Speaker 1: it comes to alcohol. Most of these follow the traditional
Speaker 1: stereotypes that men are aggressive and tough and women need
Speaker 1: to be concerned about their weight and their beauty. Right, um,
Speaker 1: and this has negative side effects on so many levels,
Speaker 1: but in terms of weight and drinking, this pressure can
Speaker 1: lead to unhealthy behaviors like drunk rexia. We've talked about
Speaker 1: that before, um and bene drinking right and with the
Speaker 1: drunk rexia and whole gender idea, because that's what you
Speaker 1: were talking about the tampon thing. It's true people did
Speaker 1: soak um alcohol on the tampon and get extreme drunk
Speaker 1: without all the calories. That was part of that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, you're there's a lot of weird concepts, dangerous
Speaker 1: and unhealthy. Interestingly, a lot of brands have leaned harder
Speaker 1: into masculine marketing even though more women are drinking, and
Speaker 1: this is because again, masculine equals better in our society.
Speaker 1: Women can quote drink with the men um, but men
Speaker 1: do not want to be caught drinking what women drink.
Speaker 1: And this is all generalization because I definitely have some
Speaker 1: male friends in my life that do not care right
Speaker 1: order whatever they want, and I love it. Get that
Speaker 1: girly drink such thing. There is no such thing. There's
Speaker 1: drinks that you like, tastes differently two different people, exactly
Speaker 1: from a nine studies so a little dated, but I
Speaker 1: thought interesting called gender Expectations for alcohol use a study
Speaker 1: of the significance of the masculine role. Sex differences in
Speaker 1: drinking behavior appear related to two variables, one sex differences
Speaker 1: in the purpose and meaning of drinking, and two differences
Speaker 1: in attitudes regarding the acceptability of drinking and drunkenness among
Speaker 1: women and men. Regarding the first variable, data on sex
Speaker 1: differences in where, when, and how drinking occurs suggests that
Speaker 1: it has a different meaning for the sexes. Women tend
Speaker 1: to drink wine, tend to drink slowly, drink with family
Speaker 1: members or at parties, drink on special occasions, drink on Saturdays,
Speaker 1: and drink to celebrate events and dates. This style of
Speaker 1: drinking suggests that drinking is a social ritual for women,
Speaker 1: serving to allow women to celebrate and solidify their bonds
Speaker 1: with others and to reinforce and maintain their social bonds. Men,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, tend to drink with same sex
Speaker 1: friends or acquaintances, drinking bars, in the company of strangers,
Speaker 1: drink irrespective of special occasions, drink beer, and drink fast.
Speaker 1: In addition, men to drink for the effect of drinking
Speaker 1: to get high or drunk, and they're drinking is more
Speaker 1: likely than women's to be associated with antisocial consequences. This
Speaker 1: style of drinking is also seen as a social ritual, serving,
Speaker 1: in this case to allow males to denigrate, deny our
Speaker 1: weakened bonds with others, and to violate rules and rules
Speaker 1: occupied by others. Thus, men's usual style drinking has been
Speaker 1: called quote individual egotistic. This literature indicates that drinking for
Speaker 1: women seems symbolic of attachments to others and appears to
Speaker 1: serve expressive communal purposes. In contrast, drinking for men seems
Speaker 1: symbolic of detachment from others and appears to serve instrumental
Speaker 1: agency purposes. Sex differences and drinking behavior then are partially
Speaker 1: a product of gendered stereotyped differences in the meaning our
Speaker 1: purpose of drinking, and that has been like, that's an
Speaker 1: older study, but that has been born out in many
Speaker 1: more recent studies, UM, and I found. I did find
Speaker 1: several articles looking into this whole thing in different countries,
Speaker 1: like in Nigeria or Estonia, and in general, they seem
Speaker 1: to find that men saw drinking and quote being able
Speaker 1: to hold your liquor as a manly thing, and women
Speaker 1: seem to find drinking in public not necessarily good for
Speaker 1: your reputation. There are also country specific and race specific
Speaker 1: stereotypes when it comes to drinking and tolerance, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure we've all heard some of those, um from the
Speaker 1: World Health Organization. Quote. First, compared with women throughout the world,
Speaker 1: men are more likely to drink, consume more alcohol, and
Speaker 1: cause more problems by doing so. This gender gap is
Speaker 1: one of the few universal gender differences in human social
Speaker 1: behavior right. Actually was looking at the National Institute of
Speaker 1: Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and I actually break it down ethnicity,
Speaker 1: including from the Latina culture to the African American to
Speaker 1: Asian Americans and going down to the differences and even
Speaker 1: the health of effects. You and I were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: the Asian flush as I have called it, and it
Speaker 1: talks about of Asians who suffer because of that specific
Speaker 1: type of gene that causes you to flush and not
Speaker 1: be able to process the alcohol, which apparently has different
Speaker 1: causes like whether you drink too fast, drink too slow,
Speaker 1: to drinking all these different things. Um, but it is
Speaker 1: interesting to see the cultural practices and each one is
Speaker 1: pretty similar as what was saying about what's normal and
Speaker 1: what's accepted and was not accepted, what's religious, was not religious,
Speaker 1: and it goes on different levels. Pretty fascinating to read
Speaker 1: through all of that. Yeah, there is a lot of
Speaker 1: data out there, a lot. I was kind of taken
Speaker 1: aback and surprised by how much, which is a wonderful thing,
Speaker 1: or we can always use more, especially you know that's
Speaker 1: more inclusive. But going back to that who report, Well,
Speaker 1: I guess w H O, I always say who today. UH.
Speaker 1: Report goes into possible reasons why uh there is this
Speaker 1: universal difference in drinking behavior, and the first reason they
Speaker 1: listed is power. Drinking alcohol has historically been a signifier
Speaker 1: of male power relative to women's lack of power, a
Speaker 1: privilege often denied to women, particularly in public. I do
Speaker 1: remember reading about um in the fifties American housewives who
Speaker 1: would be in the kitchen they would sneak shots of
Speaker 1: whatever while they were cooking or praying because it wasn't
Speaker 1: ladylike to drink in public or you know, in your
Speaker 1: own household in front of men. Um. When it comes
Speaker 1: to health and metabolism, women typically are believed to be
Speaker 1: more vulnerable to alcohol. They get drunk er faster when
Speaker 1: consuming the same amount as a similarly sized man. Women
Speaker 1: develop alcohol induced liver disease more quickly than men, and
Speaker 1: possibly the same is true for alcohol induced brain damage.
Speaker 1: Another interesting thing I found is that alcohol interacts with
Speaker 1: your hormone level, meaning that fluctuations and your hormones might
Speaker 1: lead to a higher a lower relative rate of intoxication.
Speaker 1: So the week before a woman starts her period, she'll
Speaker 1: get more intoxicated and stay that way for longer. Same
Speaker 1: thing with oral contraceptives. That same report found that men
Speaker 1: who believed that alcohol would lead to pleasurable outcomes drink
Speaker 1: more heavily, while women heavy drinkers often did it to
Speaker 1: reduce stress. A handful of studies have shown a strong
Speaker 1: relationship between drinking behavior and women and sexual victimization or violence.
Speaker 1: Men are twice as likely to develop alcoholism. Researchers think
Speaker 1: this might be because given the same amount of alcohol,
Speaker 1: men experience more of a dopamine release as compared to women.
Speaker 1: According to numbers reported on by time, of beer drinkers
Speaker 1: are men, all of wine drinkers are women. I believe
Speaker 1: this was from so it was fairly recent. Um. And
Speaker 1: I when I was thinking about this, I was wondering
Speaker 1: if it's it goes back to the health thing that
Speaker 1: we kind of talked about in our men like meet
Speaker 1: women like salad episode um. Because there was that study. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying it's true. I don't remember, but
Speaker 1: there was that study that like a glass of red wine, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's antioxidants in it um or are probably I have
Speaker 1: friends who don't like drinking beer because they get bloated.
Speaker 1: I don't like how they look when they drink it. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but this brings us to the relationship
Speaker 1: between men and beer in our culture, because beer is
Speaker 1: the quintessential dudes drink according to our media and general
Speaker 1: pop culture narrative. I do think that that is changing. Um.
Speaker 1: Or it could be that I just run in a
Speaker 1: circle of beer drinkers. I'm not sure, but I do
Speaker 1: hear a lot of women don't like beer. It makes
Speaker 1: them bloated, or it's too bitter, it's too carbi. I
Speaker 1: hear a lot of that stuff. I don't necessarily see
Speaker 1: a lot of it. Um. But the cool girl she
Speaker 1: rears her head again from the article I referenced earlier.
Speaker 1: It's a Thought Catalog article called seven reasons you need
Speaker 1: to date a woman who likes beer. Oh, never mind,
Speaker 1: this is a different article, but they're in the same
Speaker 1: vein um quote. A true girl who is one of
Speaker 1: the guys. Well, she's not afraid to look like a fool.
Speaker 1: She laughs a lot, often at herself. She makes reckless
Speaker 1: decisions but owns up to the consequences. She purps, she shouts,
Speaker 1: She tells you to golf when you deserve it. She
Speaker 1: likes sports. She likes video games and comic books. She's
Speaker 1: a flip cup beer pong champion. She's not afraid to
Speaker 1: have an imagination. She's not afraid to dream big and
Speaker 1: fail often. She doesn't care what you think of her? Wait?
Speaker 1: Was this written by a woman? Round? Man? Yeah? Go golf?
Speaker 1: How about that? Seriously? Yeah? And I'm not even drinking
Speaker 1: a dawn bear? How about that yet? Really? Yes, that's
Speaker 1: like the whole You're everything, You're a beautifu well, and
Speaker 1: you don't even know it will come on? I like,
Speaker 1: she doesn't care what you think of her, because but
Speaker 1: yet she's doing this for you obviously, Well in the
Speaker 1: vein of this then yeah, oh my goodness, and another
Speaker 1: reason according to this article quote, I'll just leave this
Speaker 1: little tidbit right here for everyone. According to the dating
Speaker 1: website okay Cupid, the single most accurate indication of whether
Speaker 1: or not a woman will have sex with a man
Speaker 1: on a first date is directly correlated to how they
Speaker 1: answer this question, do you like the taste of beer?
Speaker 1: In fact, just under seventy of women who answer that
Speaker 1: question yes are ready to throw down in the bedroom. Okay,
Speaker 1: how did I even get that statistic? I don't know
Speaker 1: where did they find a statistic. They do a lot
Speaker 1: of data collection. I get the like, come on, well,
Speaker 1: I agree, And that's why I included that quote because
Speaker 1: it blew my mind. And then this is the one
Speaker 1: I referenced earlier from Elite Daily Vodka drink or are
Speaker 1: girly girls whiskey drinkers before the Company of Mint? I
Speaker 1: mean that basically most drinks we like is one citrus,
Speaker 1: one part citrus sweetener right even low right now, like
Speaker 1: beer even is a sour phenomenon happening, not happening, has happened,
Speaker 1: and it has been big in the last few years.
Speaker 1: That's very much fruity beers essentially, what yeah, um, there
Speaker 1: is Ron Swanson comes up again. This is so funny
Speaker 1: because he came up in our previous episode. But he
Speaker 1: has a quote clear liquors for which women on diets. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I will say, like Ron Swanson is the pitome
Speaker 1: of he is like the manly right so that I
Speaker 1: think that that's why he keeps yeah um, shot of
Speaker 1: whiskey and a shot of vodka. Just if why I
Speaker 1: have the same calorie count. I would assume this has
Speaker 1: more to do with the fact that vodka is usually
Speaker 1: a mixer for girly sweet drinks, but again it true
Speaker 1: sometimes I like whiskey and coke. That's a common uh drink.
Speaker 1: I don't understand. I always remember, um that scene from
Speaker 1: The Departed when Leonardo DiCaprio's character orders the vodka cranberry
Speaker 1: and the bartender was like, what are you on your period? Um,
Speaker 1: which is both the vodka and cranberry stereotype coming together.
Speaker 1: Terminology we use like strong versus weak drinks, implying that
Speaker 1: drinks with more alcohol are for the strong. And yes,
Speaker 1: I get the idea of it being stronger in the
Speaker 1: sense of there's more alcohol in it, but there's still
Speaker 1: that implication that by drinking it, you yourself are stronger.
Speaker 1: You can hold your alcohol, you can handle the burn, right.
Speaker 1: Holding your alcohol is a sign of strength, which is
Speaker 1: super weird too. It is because essentially, I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like the sign of strength is to recognize your
Speaker 1: body is saying, you know what, no more, I gotta
Speaker 1: stop out. I'm good. Let's drink some water now. Um.
Speaker 1: One study out of the University of South Florida found
Speaker 1: that for some men, drinking beer is a pub display
Speaker 1: a masculinity and heterosexuality. Of course, many people who drink
Speaker 1: beer also like the taste, but that I found that
Speaker 1: very interesting finding. Um. I've also heard tales from my
Speaker 1: male friends about being judged for not liking beer or
Speaker 1: otherwise preferring girly drinks, kind of like you're ordering a
Speaker 1: girly drink. I do. I walk out a brewery and
Speaker 1: I do have oftentimes the boyfriend coming to tell me
Speaker 1: how their girlfriend does not like beer and just like,
Speaker 1: can you can you recommend something? My girlfriend doesn't like beer?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, that's fine. But then I have
Speaker 1: just as many they're like, I don't like anything but
Speaker 1: sweet drinks essentially, is what they tell me, And I
Speaker 1: kind of just look at them, like, well, let me
Speaker 1: help you out. But I feel like it's a pretty
Speaker 1: even number, or maybe just one's more willing to admit
Speaker 1: if they don't like it, as others will drink just
Speaker 1: to drink. Yeah. Yeah, And I I went on, I
Speaker 1: read this whole detive looking into I didn't include a
Speaker 1: lot of it here, but why is it true that
Speaker 1: women just don't like beer as much? Like? Is there
Speaker 1: some kind of genetic taste thing going on? Like they
Speaker 1: taste bitter more. But the article I couldn't really prove
Speaker 1: anything except that beer used to be a lot worse,
Speaker 1: Like it was just bad beer, and so some people
Speaker 1: um grew up with kind of just not great tasting beer. Um.
Speaker 1: And that was where that that article ended that perhaps
Speaker 1: a lot of women just haven't tried anything beyond right.
Speaker 1: I think that's a lot of people. They don't understand
Speaker 1: the craft of beer essentially anymore. And because you had
Speaker 1: the one light beer or these two things that are
Speaker 1: not the best, which I've always liked the taste of beer,
Speaker 1: but as you become more and more familiar with the
Speaker 1: culture behind it, you are discovering new ways of having
Speaker 1: beer essentially, and it makes a big difference. But a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't understand what it is or the
Speaker 1: phenomenon behind it. Yeah. And and to clarify that that
Speaker 1: article I was talking about was very much in the
Speaker 1: U S. The U S didn't have much of a
Speaker 1: crappier scene until semi recently, right, Um. But also like,
Speaker 1: if you don't like beer, that's all good. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't like beer, you don't like exactly exactly. And my
Speaker 1: family was kind of like, you're gonna like beer? Sweet? What? Well?
Speaker 1: I just remember thinking, and I had this about a
Speaker 1: lot of foods, actually foods. If I didn't like something
Speaker 1: but I wanted to like it, I would keep trying
Speaker 1: until I found something that I like. And a lot
Speaker 1: of my favorite foods now I did not like until
Speaker 1: I just kept eating them, eating them, and now I
Speaker 1: like them. So that's what they did for you with beer.
Speaker 1: That's why I did to myself with thought. You said
Speaker 1: your family, Well, because everybody in my mom's side family
Speaker 1: is a very big social thing. Okay, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, it's like my mom trying to make me
Speaker 1: like mayo. I still don't like it, but she would
Speaker 1: try to sneak it in my food. Oh, I feel
Speaker 1: like you have to want it. And even then, again
Speaker 1: this is very specific to me. I'm never if someone
Speaker 1: tells me they don't like something, I believe you, Right,
Speaker 1: I accepted and move on. Yes, In general, men drinking
Speaker 1: in public has long been more socially accepted, even at
Speaker 1: work until learn more recent times with things like the
Speaker 1: three Martini lunch, which if you don't know about, there
Speaker 1: was all this like politics involved around it in seventies.
Speaker 1: You should look it up is fascinating um or mad
Speaker 1: men esque style drinking when it comes to the darker drinks.
Speaker 1: For men, thing darker drinks UM, rightfully or not come
Speaker 1: with a perception of being harder or stronger both, and
Speaker 1: this did used to be the case until the nineteenth century. Generally,
Speaker 1: darker liquors were bottled at a higher proof and this
Speaker 1: had to do with aging, the aging process adding flavor,
Speaker 1: whereas all for a lot of clear liquors, if you
Speaker 1: age it, it won't necessarily add flavor. But that whole
Speaker 1: darker liquor being stronger is not always the case these days. UM.
Speaker 1: Some studies looking into increased violence when drinking as partly
Speaker 1: an observed behavior believed be acceptable in this context among men.
Speaker 1: If you if you witness it seems like if you're drinking,
Speaker 1: I can behave in a certain wine. Um. Which is
Speaker 1: that has a lot of consequences for um, so many,
Speaker 1: so many social issues. Okay, so that's kind of the
Speaker 1: the beer slash masculine side of this, which brings us
Speaker 1: to the feminine side of it. Um. But first it
Speaker 1: brings us to a quick break for words from our sponsor,
Speaker 1: and we're back. Thank you sponsor. Um, and we're back
Speaker 1: with the question. Is women women like wine? Yes, and
Speaker 1: usually white wine. I find is the stereotype specifically white wine.
Speaker 1: Again going back to the like lighter thing versus the thing. Um,
Speaker 1: and I kept every article I was reading about this
Speaker 1: mentioned mommy juice. Really, yeah, I see all the things
Speaker 1: because you know, you see those cute little um retro
Speaker 1: photos with some kind of snarky writing, you know, talking
Speaker 1: about the nineteen fifties house moms or something, and it's
Speaker 1: definitely talking about martinis. Yeah. I remember I dressed up
Speaker 1: as quote unquote uh fifties housewife and I had a
Speaker 1: martini glass as one of my props. Oh. Really, I
Speaker 1: feel like martinis were just huge. I guess so, because
Speaker 1: it's also same thing with men in the James Bond. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there there was a diet that I find funny. Now
Speaker 1: I'm sure it wasn't funny then, but there's a diet
Speaker 1: called like the the Steak Diet, the Man Steak diet.
Speaker 1: It was a diet forum in and it was you
Speaker 1: have to eat at least one steak a day and
Speaker 1: drink at least one martin. Are you talking about this
Speaker 1: in the other episode? Okay, that's weird. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a real thing, and I feel like it was just
Speaker 1: dudes being I wanted mistake, drink my martini and not
Speaker 1: have anybody give me a cuff about it, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: But that's what I guess in my head is like
Speaker 1: I always see get Mommy a martini. That's how I've
Speaker 1: seen it. I'll definitely see the white wine too. This
Speaker 1: chardonnay has always been kind of the mama drink as well,
Speaker 1: it seemed. Yeah, I feel like it's just become a
Speaker 1: kind of a meme almost like that you're your mom
Speaker 1: and you can you can drink too. Um. We did
Speaker 1: an episode a while back on women drinking more wine
Speaker 1: in general to deal with the patriarchy and because because
Speaker 1: women are drinking more, and going back to that reason
Speaker 1: why women drink that we mentioned earlier is usually either
Speaker 1: social or to deal with stress. Um, and sometimes that
Speaker 1: that can I'm sure overlap. Yeah, that's the happy hours
Speaker 1: happy um. But looking at something like Mommy juice, that
Speaker 1: name does suggest, um, see, we are more than just mom.
Speaker 1: We have other dimensions, and we often see or here
Speaker 1: women saying stuff like this like I've earned this, I
Speaker 1: needed this it might be your friends advice when you're
Speaker 1: going through something, um, get get some wine or get beer,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. Newly sober writer Christie Coulter over at
Speaker 1: Vox wrote quote, maybe all that wine is an Instagram
Speaker 1: filter for our own lives, so we don't see how
Speaker 1: sallow and cracked they've become. It's quite the read. And
Speaker 1: women do have a different set of fears when it
Speaker 1: comes to drinking. I mean, one of the obvious ones
Speaker 1: being someone's going to put something in your drink. Uh.
Speaker 1: Fear of sexual assaults is frequently a factor, um, even
Speaker 1: subconsciously for how much a woman drinks in public. There
Speaker 1: have been surveys looking at like why, trying to get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of why women drink less in general
Speaker 1: than men um, and that was that was a big reason. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of women linked public drunkenness, who spoiled sexual
Speaker 1: reputation are are being judged more harshly. And I have
Speaker 1: so I've seen this. If a you're just super intoxicated,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, Jim was wasted, It's so funny. But
Speaker 1: if a woman is super intoxicated, it's like, look how
Speaker 1: pathetic and sad she is. She's so sloppy, like poor
Speaker 1: poor thing. Um. Last year, when I was at Dragon Con,
Speaker 1: I dropped a beer bottle and it shattered, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't drunk or tipsy, but I have my Captain America
Speaker 1: shield and my Winter Soldier arm and all these superhero gears,
Speaker 1: and that conduce him calling it drink. It turns out
Speaker 1: I was trying to text somebody too much was happening. Um.
Speaker 1: I have seen people with coozies and they Captain Ricord
Speaker 1: was going to say, don't you have like a cup
Speaker 1: holder in your Captain. I feel like I'd forget and
Speaker 1: I'd like put it. I would lean let it drop
Speaker 1: and it would fall out anyway, I'm looking into it.
Speaker 1: But people did the most dramatic of movie gasp and
Speaker 1: they started whispering. Um. I felt so horrible and embarrassed
Speaker 1: by it. Um, And my brain still keeps getting up
Speaker 1: at night about this. It's one of those things you
Speaker 1: know when your brain is like, remember that's time you
Speaker 1: did this really ridiculous thing. Yeah, and I'll probably see
Speaker 1: I was with people I kind of if we see
Speaker 1: each other every year at dragon Con, but we don't
Speaker 1: know each other super well. Um, so I'll probably see
Speaker 1: them again this year, and I bet you, I bet you.
Speaker 1: I bet either dropping a bottle Yeah cute. I would
Speaker 1: have been more concerned if I felt or something. That's
Speaker 1: the thing is, like I get it at Dragon Con
Speaker 1: because people are usually drunk and I usually get drunk, right,
Speaker 1: But in this particular instance, I wasn't. I'm just clumsy,
Speaker 1: and no one believed me about it. It's so weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I well, if anyone I saw that the Winter
Speaker 1: Soldier dropped the bottle of beer outside of the Marriott,
Speaker 1: that was me. That was me. Another thing women sided
Speaker 1: when it came to concerns around drinking in public or
Speaker 1: how much they would drink in public. Is the value
Speaker 1: of social currency online diminished when photos of unflattering drunken
Speaker 1: behavior are posted. And like a lot of them said,
Speaker 1: they go out and untagged. Yeah yeah, if they're in
Speaker 1: a picture where it doesn't look but they don't like
Speaker 1: how it looks. If they just think they look drunk.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, I mean at this point in time
Speaker 1: with social media, you could lose a job. That teacher
Speaker 1: who had a drink in her hand. Nothing implied she
Speaker 1: was drunk, nothing implied she was anywhere. When your kids,
Speaker 1: but she lost her job as a teacher. That was absurd. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I sometimes struggle with Like I said, I don't and
Speaker 1: my family drinking wasn't it was just kind of a thing. Um.
Speaker 1: So I didn't really grow up with this mentality that
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people have. So sometimes I
Speaker 1: forget and like, to me, you can just have one
Speaker 1: drink at lunch and that's fine. But I've been around
Speaker 1: people who are clearly uncomfortable when I do that, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm definitely one of those that didn't grow
Speaker 1: up with it. So having alcohol in my pictures not
Speaker 1: my favorite thing. Yeah, as well as the fact that
Speaker 1: I do work for state governed so I'm very very cautious.
Speaker 1: I try to hide as many things as possible. Of course,
Speaker 1: to certain extent, I'm like, this is just being an
Speaker 1: adult and being active and there's nothing truly wrong here. However,
Speaker 1: it does go through my mind, I'm like, how how
Speaker 1: does this how is this gonna be perceived? Yes? Yes, um.
Speaker 1: And something else a lot of women cited when they
Speaker 1: were talking about UM concerns around drinking was in general,
Speaker 1: UM pregnancy, that it might be pregnant and not know it.
Speaker 1: UM and that is something else. Researchers have looked into
Speaker 1: the fact that women do have to give up alcohol
Speaker 1: if they become pregnant. Is this somehow like a lot
Speaker 1: of women give it up and then don't return to it. Um.
Speaker 1: And then something else, a loss of custody of a child. Well,
Speaker 1: now there's one more thing with the new laws is
Speaker 1: coming about. Is um possibly endangering children since now we
Speaker 1: have the new prenatal laws when it comes to help
Speaker 1: an abuse of fetuses. So that's one more thing that's
Speaker 1: going to have to be something for women to think on.
Speaker 1: So there is a lot of different a different set
Speaker 1: of fears, shall we say, um, And for me, I
Speaker 1: do feel like a lot of the drinking that women
Speaker 1: do is done within the bounds of femininity, whether that's
Speaker 1: the intention or not. Like, um, it's acceptable for women
Speaker 1: to drink light beer, are skinny wine, which is a
Speaker 1: brand because doing so, you're still recognizing beauty as your
Speaker 1: social currency. Um, you can drink, but only if you
Speaker 1: stick to these rules or you're purposefully going against them
Speaker 1: to be again one of the guys. Um. But more
Speaker 1: and more we are bucking that and people people know,
Speaker 1: I love light beer when you're outside or you're in
Speaker 1: it for a long all like if you're at an
Speaker 1: all day type thing. I love it. And what I
Speaker 1: don't love is that people always always make fun of
Speaker 1: me for it or imply I'm a basic bitch. And
Speaker 1: then as the day goes on, what did they start
Speaker 1: drinking the light beer that I brought to the party,
Speaker 1: Like this is a very personal thing for you. It
Speaker 1: makes me so mad. Um, So I don't want to
Speaker 1: judge anyone, Like when I say drinking is done the
Speaker 1: bounds of femininity. I like a lot of these things,
Speaker 1: right right, I was gonna say, I definitely will try
Speaker 1: to limit caloric and take as well when it comes
Speaker 1: to drinking, because it does stuck up so high and
Speaker 1: I am more likely to do the lighter things if
Speaker 1: I know I'm going for the long haul as well.
Speaker 1: But typically I don't don't buy light beers. I think
Speaker 1: I've done the whole. Can we talk about basic bitch, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, is not a great term and awful,
Speaker 1: um not a great term. It's not It's not nice
Speaker 1: in general. But I've started buying the Saltser waters hard
Speaker 1: Seltzer water partially because of that whole. Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to drink something, and I want something in light, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to, you know, end up all in Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the first hour. That is a big trend that's happening,
Speaker 1: um of movement towards a lower A B v um
Speaker 1: drinks and also something that I'm really happy to see,
Speaker 1: um more nonalcoholic drinks because I do have several friends
Speaker 1: who are sober, and every time I see nonalcoholic drink
Speaker 1: section on a menu that is more than just soda, um,
Speaker 1: soda and water, it makes me very, very happy. And
Speaker 1: without the gluten free stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I have a
Speaker 1: friend who is Celiac and she misses beard desperately, so
Speaker 1: gets so excited when she sees a gluten free option. Um.
Speaker 1: And and we did do an episode on nonalcoholic drinks
Speaker 1: on on other show, Saver, and I caught myself almost
Speaker 1: saying something like not a real drink, which is total nonsense.
Speaker 1: So that's something that I've been I had to like
Speaker 1: reframe in my own mind. Um. But they're there are
Speaker 1: other positive things too. There's a couple of clubs like
Speaker 1: Women Who Whiskey, which is a whiskey club with twenty
Speaker 1: chapters across the US. UM there are more women involved
Speaker 1: in things like brewing and distilling. Right. Speaking of societies
Speaker 1: or clubs, Pink Boot Society is a focus on female
Speaker 1: breweries as well. That's kind of opened up very big
Speaker 1: um around the country as well. In the country, maybe
Speaker 1: even more just around people. They've been around, they're they're around,
Speaker 1: they're around, they're around um as well as different brewers
Speaker 1: have been popping up as being female owned, which is fantastic. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when we're getting more and more women who we've
Speaker 1: already talked about it, I know that the original brewers female,
Speaker 1: um and what that looks like as well as the
Speaker 1: fact um trying to come back into the fact that
Speaker 1: women do like beer. Surprise. One of my friends started
Speaker 1: a festival, Dames and Drugs in celebrating women in the
Speaker 1: brewing industry. And usually that brings about having different local
Speaker 1: brewery to bring in their female employees to create a
Speaker 1: beer on their own if they're not already doing it,
Speaker 1: which is fantastic. I think it's slowly up and coming
Speaker 1: as well as if that yeah, I actually know about beers.
Speaker 1: I actually know about hops and grains and you know
Speaker 1: the aging process, surprised, and I can tell you what
Speaker 1: you may or may not like. I am actually good
Speaker 1: at beers. You are you you are? There's a what
Speaker 1: is now kind of a funny picture of us, several
Speaker 1: funny pictures we do. We had several run ins before
Speaker 1: we became like friends. We I think we'd met each
Speaker 1: other in passing. I think this was before we met
Speaker 1: each other though with the initial initial. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: picture of I was at an event for the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Science Festival called the Science of Sour Beer, and there's
Speaker 1: a picture of me getting a beer. I was starving
Speaker 1: you a beer. I was. And then our friend Caroline,
Speaker 1: who you know stuff I've never told you, unladylike, was like, wait, YouTube,
Speaker 1: I know both of you. You're in this picture. What
Speaker 1: is going on? One? And I think we were trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what was happening and how well. Of
Speaker 1: course we've missed each other because we didn't know each
Speaker 1: other at that point in time. But yeah, I did
Speaker 1: love that picture because I'm pretty sure well, not only
Speaker 1: were they doing fantastic tours and talking about fermentation and
Speaker 1: sour beers and different fruits and all of that, I
Speaker 1: was one of the ones who was also talking about
Speaker 1: these are the types of beers that we have and
Speaker 1: how we do this and what they do with this.
Speaker 1: So I was like, ha, see I know science about beer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: before you knew me. I also ran into Martin Freeman
Speaker 1: that day. I was wearing a Captain America's shirt and
Speaker 1: he gave me the old point It seems like a
Speaker 1: point not kind of guy, and I was I played
Speaker 1: it cool because I went cool. Um. One other thing
Speaker 1: I did want to add, going back to the non
Speaker 1: alcoholic drinks, because I just got kind of curious. Um,
Speaker 1: why do we call them? Sometimes call them virgin? And
Speaker 1: it comes from during the nineteen twenties in America, was
Speaker 1: the height of temperance and prohibition. It meant pure and
Speaker 1: untouched course by sin, like, oh, touched for the very
Speaker 1: first time? Are you doing a lot of singing? I look,
Speaker 1: this is all you can contribute today. Maybe Madonna got
Speaker 1: got her inspiration from this. Um. In March, Scottish Parliament
Speaker 1: held an event looking into the sexualization of women in
Speaker 1: alcohol advertising. Two of the report authors said, quote, although
Speaker 1: men are about twice as likely as women to die
Speaker 1: from alcohol related causes, media discussion often focuses on the
Speaker 1: perceived problem of women's drinking with moralistic and stigmatizing attitudes,
Speaker 1: featuring strongly in public discussions. We've been trying to explore
Speaker 1: why this happens and to suggest how we can counter
Speaker 1: cynical marketing by alcohol producers that exploit rather than emancipate women,
Speaker 1: as well as suggesting how support services can be more
Speaker 1: women friendly. And the chief executive over at the Institute
Speaker 1: for Alcohol Studies, Catherine Around, said, the sexualization of women
Speaker 1: in our marketing maybe working to undermine gender equality and
Speaker 1: ultimately desensitized public attitudes towards domestic abuse and sexual assault.
Speaker 1: We need to see an end to such practices and
Speaker 1: learn from other countries such as France, which restrict alcohol
Speaker 1: advertising to protect against adverse outcomes. So that's what happens
Speaker 1: with the Queen's Ripe cases. Oftentimes, the first question is
Speaker 1: where you're drinking, where you intoxicated, and this kind of
Speaker 1: whole idea that you're responsible if you start drinking, you're
Speaker 1: the reason that this happened to you. Dot dot dot Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: we have some more for you listeners, but first we're
Speaker 1: going to pause for one more quickick for word to
Speaker 1: more sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsor and I
Speaker 1: know there is a lot of conversation right now that
Speaker 1: I find really fascinating around the idea of and I
Speaker 1: think this is this could be said for a lot
Speaker 1: of industries because we're just in a time of change
Speaker 1: from so much change. But um, kind of this what
Speaker 1: for so long has been even though it was started
Speaker 1: by women, perhaps um dominated by men, this male industry
Speaker 1: that by drinking, you're dealing with the patriarchy, even though
Speaker 1: you're participating in the patriarchy, Like it's a it's the
Speaker 1: male industry telling you, Yeah, you want to drink this,
Speaker 1: you want to be part of the group. You want
Speaker 1: to be part of men, women you can. It kind
Speaker 1: of reminds me of that whole cigarette thing happened with
Speaker 1: that um and I just I read a lot of
Speaker 1: interesting like I'm still kind of processing it, but pieces
Speaker 1: about um, how women might be drinking because they're so
Speaker 1: frustrated with all the stuff, all of this stuff right
Speaker 1: that's happening. I mean, I'm sure we're going to have
Speaker 1: more and more statistics over what's happened in the last
Speaker 1: two years alone with our social climate, and I say
Speaker 1: our in the US alone, and how things are being
Speaker 1: more and more restricted for the film population in wondering
Speaker 1: how high alcoholism you know, problems are because of the
Speaker 1: stress level and all of that as you're speaking, because
Speaker 1: I know we've already talked about therapy and SLUCH going
Speaker 1: up because of this time frame and just in general,
Speaker 1: the overall universal stress that's coming from just politics alone,
Speaker 1: just conversations with social expectations alone. Yeah. Um, yeah, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of there's a lot of stuff being
Speaker 1: written about it right now, and and like advising you
Speaker 1: to not blunts away your your anger with alcohol as women.
Speaker 1: But I just I find I find I'm glad this
Speaker 1: conversation is happening, um. And and there's also a lot
Speaker 1: of conversation, and we didn't really get into it today
Speaker 1: about how the alcohol industry targets youth, um with like
Speaker 1: they're they're very sweet kind of it tastes like juice
Speaker 1: or drinks. Um. So that's another problem that, um, that
Speaker 1: we need to we need to look into. I would
Speaker 1: love to talk about today's youth. Yes, well we can
Speaker 1: do that, we can. But in the meantime, this is
Speaker 1: the end of this episode. We would love to hear
Speaker 1: any stereotypes you've encountered, um, anything that any clubs maybe,
Speaker 1: or something that you find hopeful about this whole whole situation.
Speaker 1: You can email us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at
Speaker 1: iHeart media dot com. You can find us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff Podcast and on Instagram at Stuff I've
Speaker 1: Never Told You. Thanks as always to super producer Andrew Hatard,
Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told
Speaker 1: You the protection of I Heart Adia How Stuff works.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, is it iHeart Radio, app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: M