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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMalia Obama's rose-shaming is the latest in drinking double standards
Malia Obamas rosé-shaming is the latest in drinking double standards
Women consuming alcohol is a favourite of moralising tabloids and right-wingers, despite the fact that men are far more likely to drink to excess
News that Malia Obama was enjoying herself propelled a number of Trump supporters into self-righteous outrage. Photograph: Josiah Kamau/Getty Images
Malia Obama, a 20-year-old Harvard student who happens to be the daughter of a former US president, recently enjoyed a glass of poolside rosé during a weekend with friends in Miami. We know about this unremarkable incident because the Daily Mail saw fit to publish a salacious article about underage Malia drinking, consisting of 23 creepy photos of her in a swimsuit. They also threw in a video. The UK may no longer rule the world, but its tabloids remain global leaders in shamelessness.News that an Obama was enjoying herself predictably propelled a number of Trump supporters into fits of self-righteous outrage. Andrew Wilkow, the host of a conservative radio show, tweeted: Living like the 1%? Drinking underage? Lets see the #democrats and media scream about privilege here. All right, Mr Wilkow, challenge accepted. Im going to scream about privilege. More specifically, Im going to scream about drinking privilege and how young women are judged more harshly than men when it comes to alcohol.
Obama getting rosé-shamed by the Mail is not an isolated incident; the media loves moralising about women and booze. A 2016 study by researchers at Glasgow University and Glasgow Caledonian University, for example, found womens binge drinking is given more media coverage despite the fact that men are more likely to drink to excess. The study, which analysed 308 articles published over two years in seven UK national newspapers, noted that portrayals of women drinking were also unfairly stigmatising. Chris Patterson, from the public health sciences unit at the University of Glasgow, explained: Media coverage of womens binge drinking isnt just about health or public disorder; it also performs a moralising, paternalistic role, reflecting broader social expectations about womens public behaviour.
While that study was about binge drinking, there is apparently no safe amount a woman can drink if she wants to avoid being judged. In 2016, for example, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised all women of childbearing age who werent using birth control to completely avoid alcohol, in case they got pregnant. This condescending guidance was based on a CDC estimate that approximately 3.3 million US women aged 15-44 years
were at risk for an alcohol-exposed pregnancy during 2011-2013. A study published last month in the journal Womens Health Issues argues this was a massive overestimate, and cautioned that exaggerating the problem can contribute to moral panic about alcohol use during pregnancy. There is also, of course, no safe amount a woman can drink if she wants to avoid getting blamed for being raped. If you are a man, being drunk makes you somehow less culpable in societys eyes for sexually assaulting someone; it was the booze that did it, not you! If you are a woman, however, drinking means you were irresponsible; you should have been more careful! Indeed, we seem to expend more energy telling women not to get drunk than we do telling men not to rape.
One of the most glaring examples of our double standards around drinking is sitting on the US supreme court. In his testimony to the Senate judiciary committee last year, Brett Kavanaugh talked at length about how much drinking he had done at high school. I liked beer, Kavanaugh said. I still like beer. Its very hard to imagine a woman telling a room full of senators how much she loved boozing and then getting rewarded with one of the most powerful jobs in the world. Kavanaugh got a pass, however, because boys will be boys, after all. And girls will be publicly shamed.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/22/malia-obama-rose-shaming-is-the-latest-in-drinking-double-standards
Eliot Rosewater
(31,097 posts)and kavanaugh.
This is so fucking stupid and it is just making me angrier. If only ALL Americans would get angry.
niyad
(112,434 posts)crazycatlady
(4,492 posts)She just happens to be the daughter of public figures. She's a private citizen and has not inserted herself into the spotlight. Even the fame-hungry Kardashians ask for their children's privacy to be respected.
If she were being confirmed to the Supreme Court, this would be a different story. But she's a college kid. Let her be a college student.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,097 posts)of her skin color and for absolutely no other reason.
Blue Owl
(49,918 posts)n/t
niyad
(112,434 posts)If the cheese is attached to a trap, then I am all for it.
niyad
(112,434 posts)progressoid
(49,825 posts)niyad
(112,434 posts)TeapotInATempest
(804 posts)So, so tired of sexist and racist double standards.
Revanchist
(1,375 posts)Like they were for Bush's daughters
GoCubsGo
(32,061 posts)They were strangely silent when the Tequila Twins went on their drunken escapade down in Paraguay, or wherever the hell it was. The twins were underage then, as well, IIRC.
LakeArenal
(28,729 posts)As did Chelsea Clinton. Im not standing up for anyone on this. Underage drinking is one of the most broken laws in America.
GoCubsGo
(32,061 posts)It was to point out they hypocrisy of the ones who are wagging their fingers at Malia, while looking the other way when it comes to their own. I have no doubt the vast majority of them broke those laws at that age, too.
kag
(4,076 posts)It's not like she slipped her security detail and went out to get blinding drunk.
struggle4progress
(118,039 posts)TeamPooka
(24,156 posts)all the GOP said then was "leave them alone!"
As did Democrats.
That was the message to the media from both sides.
Fuck the GOP and their hypocritical bullshit
Fuck them all.
niyad
(112,434 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)If I were her, I'd tell them all to kiss my ass, but I'm sure she has too much class for that. I don't care if she goes to Mardi Gras and really raises hell; she doesn't owe anyone any explanations for what she does.
Mosby
(16,168 posts)I mean, rosé? seriously?
What's next, moscato?
They need to nip this shit in the bud, pronto.
Get that girl some Pinot or char FFS.
/sarc
RVN VET71
(2,686 posts)and a goddam spoon. Stat.
maxsolomon
(32,989 posts)WE blame Kavanaugh for getting blackout drunk and assaulting Dr. Ford, yet we don't even care when Obama's underage kid drinks in public?
SUCH BLATANT HYPOCRISY! Dems are the worst, so everything bad that Trump has ever done is excusable.
jmowreader
(50,451 posts)Let's wait until Malia turns 21, invite her to California where smoking weed is legal, and offer her (gasp! outrage! shudder!) a JOINT!
MontanaMama
(23,239 posts)This is the worst thing they can come up with for Malia?? Jesus, this is nothing.
This is embarrassing story BUT, here goes...I was 17 when I entered to college. I turned 18 the weekend before election day 1982...my first opportunity to vote. On my birthday weekend, I decided it was a good idea to drink myself under the table at a party in my dorm. I fell out of a second story window in a repelling contest (yeah, I know...) and was found unconscious on the ground. A friend of mine performed CPR and I was loaded into an ambulance and was in an alcohol induced coma for 36 hours. My dad was off the beam pissed off. When I was released from the hospital, tired, hungover and god knows what else, he drove me to my dorm to get my ID and then drove me to the polls so that I could vote for the first time and vote for John Melcher for Senate. Melcher was running a tight race against a republican and a libertarian candidate that I don't remember. Dad pulled up in front of the polling place and told me to get my ass inside and vote Democratic...then he drove me back to my dorm after I voted and didn't speak to me he was still so mad. Ironically, when I grew up, got married and bought a house, former Sentator John Melcher lived right around the corner from me until his passing just last year. I would see him at the grocery store and we'd visit about good wine and the Chicago Cubs. Kids do stupid stuff, Malia included, and people need to give her a break
niyad
(112,434 posts)today.
Malia does not seem to have been doing more than sipping wine --not blackout stage, but yes, give her a break.