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Malia 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
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Malia Obama's rose-shaming is the latest in drinking double standards (Original Post)
niyad
Feb 2019
OP
DBoon
(22,354 posts)1. What rating did Wine Spectator give the rose?
If less than 70, shaming may be in order.
No I am not serious, just pretending to be a wine snob
Prosper
(761 posts)2. Malia discrimination.
Applying the same level of scrutinization over minutia then go ahead and charge anybody that has violated a speed limit law.
msongs
(67,394 posts)3. the w bush girls got the same treatment back in their day nt
niyad
(113,234 posts)6. the gwb girls were IN the WH, slipped their security details, and were DRUNK. a slight
difference.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)4. Good to see that even in the age of Trump's daily scandals
there is NO gripe so minor and petty that it can't be fluffed up and whacked against the Obamas...
With the non-story about Obama's Presidential Center in the WSJ, the media are actually two-for-two this week
Olafjoy
(937 posts)5. Malia is like us
Listen, there is not a person I know who hasnt increased her alcohol consumption in the past 2 years. Having a pussygrabber as the president is not something women can tolerate sober. Pour me another Miss Malia, pour me another