Author: Erik Parker, Torch Staff
Recently, my (female) friend and I decided that we might as well be men. We don’t wear dresses, we burp, we’re handy with a box of tools and we have grand plans to get into an amicable fistfight. We can count on one hand the number of girls we’re friends with because we opt for friendships with more testosterone. On Friday afternoons, instead of going shopping in Old Town, we’d rather have a cold one and shoot the shit for a while. This brings us to the topic of discussion-drinking habits-and here we’ve faced a challenge.
We’ve already made the decision to be as stereotypically male as possible, and we want to carry this trend over to the realm of boozing. We imagined Monday night football: putting our dirty feet up on the coffee table, enjoying a six-pack of Bud Light and yelling at the TV screen-that’s one way to do it. Or we could be classy. We daydreamed of dimly lit speakeasies, the jolly clinking of the ice in our glasses of Scotch, drunken expressions of our manly love and slaps on the back . . . Our hopes and dreams ended there, because we don’t know what else the manliest of men drink. Our gender-confused minds couldn’t come up with anything, and we realized that there are very few socially acceptable drinks for men.
Because of this dilemma, my free time over the last few weeks has been spent researching and contemplating alcoholic drinks that men are socially prohibited from enjoying. My mental list is ridiculously extensive, so I’ll share some highlights. The Cosmopolitan was one that everyone agreed failed the man test: fruity, bright red, very drinkable-definitely a banned good. For similar reasons, alcopops/ wine, coolers/ low alcohol content malt beverages (which are aptly nicknamed “bitch beer”) didn’t make the cut either. One article even went as far as to suggest that all blended drinks and drinks with straws should be off limits.
These restrictions didn’t leave much wiggle room for the drinking man, so my next interest was what drinks other than beer and whiskey my friend and I could enjoy as self-designated men. Apparently, martinis are allowed, but only gin/vodka and dry vermouth-no bright colors or fruity flavors. A few other approved cocktails include Manhattans, Bloody Bulls and Rusty Nails, which all contain strong hard liquor such as gin, whiskey and vermouth. Note the names of these drinks-of course you’d feel manly asking for something as rugged-sounding as a Rusty Nail or as violent-sounding as a Bloody Bull. Other drinks are boring enough that there are no grounds to call them unmanly: rum and Coke, gin and tonic, a glass of wine (with dinner)-safe enough. So let me summarize the social rules for men ordering drinks: beer is fine (without fruit infusions), whiskey is always safe, boring drinks can’t be questioned and a man can get away with cocktails that are strong, have no fruity flavors to mask the taste of alcohol and are usually clear or brown.
Having such tight social guidelines for men struck me as slightly odd-aren’t we usually saying that women are oppressed and have impossible social expectations to live up to? The way I see it, according to the drinking standards, a woman can have anything. We’re allowed Bacardi Breezers, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, fruit-flavored beer and wine, drinks with fun names like Fuzzy Navels, drinks with naughty names like Blowjobs and neon-colored beverages, to name a few.
On top of all that, we’re not looked down upon for drinking a man’s drink. If anything, I get praise from my male companions when I opt for Scotch and Coke instead of peach schnapps. This may make me “unfeminine” (I assure you, I was never “feminine” in the first place, so this doesn’t worry me), but in my opinion, being unfeminine seems like nothing compared to the scorn that men get for being unmanly. If you’ve ever seen the show Scrubs, you’ve seen J.D. order appletinis and have his masculinity questioned for doing so. The other night I heard a guy make fun of another guy for drinking Smirnoff Ice-“Ha, you’re drinking bitch beer!”
So what if a guy doesn’t always want to taste the alcohol in his drink? For men, not being able to handle the taste of strong alcohol is equated with weakness. Women, on the other hand, are allowed to have weak, fruity drinks because it’s assumed that we can’t handle the taste like men. But I’m not sure if this assumption of our inability to drink like men is worse than the fact that men have to drink like men all the time or else suffer accusations of femininity, weakness or homosexuality. Either way, how it works at the bar reflects the overall sexist society in which we live. Women are still viewed as the weaker sex, and men are expected to put up a guise of masculinity. I think it’s sad that this line of thinking extends to the world of drinking-the way that one enjoys a tasty beverage and gets a buzz should not be limited by society’s spoken and unspoken gender rules.
Drinking is not about rules. It’s about being relaxed and honest, or daring and crazy, or soppy and emotional or euphoric and loving-take your pick. But most importantly, it’s about doing it your way.
Emma Parker is an undeclared sophomore. She can be reached at eparker@oxy.edu.
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