Women Who Binge Drink

Time Magazine reports that binge drinking is on the rise in colleges. It has become an especially acute problem among young women.

When Time ponders the causes it concludes that the fault must lie with advertisers.

Not once does Time suggest that feminism might have contributed to the problem.

Yet, recall Tufts philosophy professor and feminist Nancy Bauer’s vision of today’s advanced, liberated college woman:

Visit an American college campus on a Monday morning and you’ll find any number of amazingly ambitious and talented young women wielding their brain power, determined not to let anything — including a relationship with some needy, dependent man — get in their way.  Come back on a party night, and you’ll find many of these same girls (they stopped calling themselves “women” years ago) wielding their sexual power, dressed as provocatively as they dare, matching the guys drink for drink — and then hook-up for hook-up.

Being a philosophy professor Bauer is very good at fabricating a false picture of college life. She is also very good at ignoring the fact that a woman who tries to match a guy “drink for drink” will quickly discover the truth about male and female body mass.

In the world that feminism has wrought, binge drinking is seriously damaging young women.

Time gives us the facts:

According to the latest survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 14 million U.S. women binge drink about three times a month, downing about six beverages per binge. The survey defined binge drinking as consuming five or more drinks in one sitting for men and four or more for women.

It’s not unusual for young women ages 18 to 34, as well as high schoolers, to overindulge; 1 in 8 women and 1 in 5 high school girls report drinking to excess. But binge drinking accounts for about 23,000 deaths among women and girls in the U.S. each year….

According to the latest CDC report, women who binge-drink may be putting themselves at increased risk for breast cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, heart disease and unintended pregnancy. Pregnant women who binge-drink expose their unborn child to a high risk of fetal-alcohol spectrum disorders and sudden-infant-death syndrome.

Time also links a photo essay by Amanda Berg.

In describing her work, Berg argues that the danger of binge drinking among women is that women’s bodies, which are typically smaller than men’s, cannot handle the same amounts of alcohol, so attempting to keep up can be dangerous

Berg herself writes:

After a night of excessive drinking sexual assault can be redefined as a “hook up.” The loss of memory due to inebriation can proudly be termed “blacking out.” Words like “apparently” preface the stories told of the prior night. With this, women abdicate responsibility and give themselves permission to repeat the same behavior.