Just Say No

24 Jan

Saturday night, my female partner (MFP) and I (TCM) went to the apartment of one of her friends for a dinner party. Conversation jumped from topic to topic and at one point settled on alcohol and drinking. Evidently the other male guest (we were only two) had gotten extremely drunk at a recent birthday party, gotten sick, and embarrassed himself in other ways. The women telling the story indicated that he simply couldn’t handle a particularly potent liquor he was being given.

TCM: See? Sexism affects men, too.

……………………….silence……………………….

Guest 1: What do you mean?

FMP, shaking head: Wrong crowd, babe.

 

Why couldn’t he say no? Because our society teaches us that men are supposed to be able to drink their weight in booze. Because men who do not drink (including recovering alcoholics), have low tolerances (like yours truly), opt to be the designated driver, simply don’t like the taste, etc. etc. etc., are judged as being “less than” other men.

Those who abstain are the wusses, the party-poopers, the Debby Downers, the uncool, the boring, the lame, the weak, the “baggage”-laden, the bitches. Never are they the healing, the sensible, the responsible, the normal, the masculine.

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  1. The Last and Worst: Rules for Men « The Conscious Man - April 27, 2011

    […] This brief project has given me so much to think about around male stereotyping and cultural sexism. Cultural sexism can be defined as the cultural images and messages that affirm the assumed superiority of men and the assumed inferiority of women. These messages are all around us. They’re in the dojo where karate classes are 90% male. They’re in the high numbers of female nurses and social workers. They’re in the way we talk about cars, male friendships, illness, cooking (twice), and interior design. And they come from everywhere: the media, our parents, the news, other people, and our friends. […]

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