Women, drinking, and blaming feminism

I never thought about drinking until equal rights came along!
Feminists are all too aware that we get blamed for a lot of ridiculous shit; everything from destroying the family and killing chivalry to YouTube “catfights.”
And the idea that feminism (and women’s equality more generally) is the reason behind ladies boozing it up has certainly been making the rounds lately. This article from New York Magazine, however, which argues that “drinking has become entwined with progressive feminism,” takes the feminist-blaming cake. Cue scare tactic subhead:

More women are drinking, and the women who drink are drinking more, in some cases matching their male peers. This is the kind of equality nobody was fighting for.

While I don’t doubt the statistics about women drinking more than in years past, the connection that reporter Alex Morris makes to feminism is based largely on nonsense: personal anecdotes, a couple of quotes, and hackneyed ideas about what feminism is. Morris even cites the Jezebel Thinking and Drinking controversy and falls back on the stereotyped notion that Third Wave feminism is “something akin to the type of reasoning that paints Girls Gone Wild participants as sexually liberated.” The bullshit, it burns!
The thing that pisses me off most about this article – besides the fact that it perpetuates a well-loved lie about what young feminist are (Girls Gone Wild! I choose my choice!) – is that drinking is a serious problem for young women and men. But instead of serious, nuanced media coverage on what to do about the drinking culture among American youth, we get article after article hawing about the consequences of equality.
And frankly, Morris’ argument is the exact same one used when conservatives and anti-feminists talk about “hooking up” or casual sex – that young women now “act like men” sexually. (Equality: the slutmaker!) Seriously – it’s tired. Not to mention incredibly sexist : the underlying message is that gender equality is bad for women.
So if folks are actually concerned about young women and drinking, how about we talk about the consumer culture that markets liquor (something Morris touches on before quickly returning back to feminism) or how drinking is being used to blame women who are raped? Because despite the picture that Morris paints of young feminists boozing it up (cause it’s empowering and stuff!), we’re actually out there working our asses off. Maybe its time others followed suit.