What do we know about women and alcohol?
Women and alcohol in Western society has been on a massive journey of change in the last 70 years. In the 1940's and 1950's it was still very rare to find women in public houses and drinking was really something that men did.
In the
1960's during the liberation of women many of them started to frequent public
houses and indeed, it became much more normal to see woman drinking. The rise
in sales of wine started and has continued to this day, mainly due to woman and
their preference for drinks other than ale and beer (partly due to reports of
it being less calorific, partly due to taste)
A major
change happened in the 90's, this is probably due to two reasons. Firstly,
alcohol manufacturers started to produce drinks with women in mind and
advertisers ferventsouls.blogspot.com focused on women as they had done with cigarettes in the 50's and
60's, perpetuating the myth that alcohol could make women sexier, more in
control of their decisions and just as able to drink as men. Secondly, at this
time we also saw the rise in the ‘ladette’ culture encouraging woman to behave
like their male counterparts. Something
which I have never understood, we continuously try to behave like men in all of
their worse aspects rather than better than them.
It is now
considered ‘normal’ for a woman to go out and get so drunk that she is unable
to make decisions about her health and welfare, something that would have been
considered socially unacceptable 70 years ago. Woman who did drink at this time
were considered low women with loose morals.
What Does Science Says About Women on Alcohol?
It is a
scientific fact that women process alcohol differently that men due to the
different levels of body fat that women have in comparison to men. Further
studies appear to indicate that women who drink heavily are more vulnerable to
alcohol-related diseases such as alcoholic liver cirrhosis and brain damage
than males, although more males still suffer more chronic health problems due to excessive alcohol consumption. Serious illness appears to happen with women at
a lower alcohol level than with men, with the exception of one risk. Very
moderate drinking appears to reduce the risk of heart disease, strokes and
blood pressure problems in woman whereas raises it in men.