No, It’s Not Moral Policing

The moment you say women drinking alcohol is a crime to humanity but men drinking alcohol is not, you are branded as sexist, savage, primitive and most importantly an oppressor. Almost everyone will raise their voice (if not hands) to shut you up. This includes many MRAs as well. They say, women drinking alcohol with her own money (or even at some men’s expense) is her choice, and some unimportant man like me have no right to be the moral police. But today I will explain that women drinking alcohol is not restricted only to their choice and it certainly can’t be a ‘right’ to them. Because that way of them living with alcohol have far reaching implications for humanity and that goes beyond moral policing. 

Binge Drinking Up

Women born between 1991 to 2000 now drink as much alcohol as their male counterparts and soon they may surpass men. In an analysis, Washington Post showed how marketing of alcohol to women as a great stress buster or a status symbol raised women’s binge drinking up 40% in 2013 since 1997. The result was that the alcohol related death rate in women between 35-54 years of age has doubled between 1999 and 2015.

It’s not that only in the western world women’s drinking has become more. In India too, a lot of women are drinking nowadays. If the 2020 lockdown showed us men craving for their favourite brand of liquor and paying 70% premium for the much-needed booze, women were not far behind. They were seen queuing up in front of liquor shops immediately after the lockdown was lifted for a while and India allowed sell of liquor to people….and feminists often relate alcohol consumption to domestic violence –

Drinking to Death

As a result of increased binge drinking among women there is a 57% increase in death rate among women aged between 45-64 from Liver cirrhosis between 2000 and 2015. As risky drinking patterns are increasing among women, resulting in substantial increase in chronic disease comorbidities among them.  

This study shows that between 2006 and 2014, Emergency Department (ED) visit by women due to acute and chronic consumption of alcohol has increased for women. Data from Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) in the US involving 945 hospitals in 33 states showed the number was more for women than men (5.3% vs 4%). This was at a time when women’s binge drinking did not surpass that of men’s binge drinking.

Pain Management Complications

There are studies that claim the pain management for women is often biased and takes longer to diagnose. Most of their pain in abdominal area gets refuted as gynaecological problems rather than proper diagnosis. It is also said that women are more likely to get anti-anxiety medication and their pain management is written off as psychological problem.

Another complicating factor is the presence of estrogen – the female hormone. It is found that estrogen worsen the pain experience in women.

There are at least two studies that showed women having lower level of pain tolerance. One done in 1972 and the other done in 2003. The 2003 study, done by UK universities showed healthy females exhibited significantly lower mean Pressure Pain Threshold (PPT) compared to healthy males. However, a study by the researchers at Department of Psychology, St. Mary’s University, who wanted to show the role of gender norms (the male gender should tolerate more pain) in the group based pain tolerance studies; also found that high-identifying males tolerate more pain than high-identifying females and low-identifying males. Thus, they concluded that social norms may play an important role in pain reporting behaviour.

Women also show symptoms close to anxiety and getting addicted to opioids painkillers (most effective for men). It is said that when people are anxious their pain tolerance becomes less. So for women alcohol consumption that increases their pain level is only worsened.  

Maturing Early

Another factor that is impacting women worldwide is they are maturing early. An Oxford Academic Endocrine Review shows US girls are not only achieving puberty earlier, but also have increased incidence of sexual precocity (smartness or skill achieved much earlier than usual). For example, in the ‘70s when breast development in an average US girl happened in the age of 12, in 2011 it fell to about 8.8 years for African-Americans, 9.3 years for Hispanic and 9.7 years each for non-Hispanic and Asian participants (Indian child marriages seem to be more scientific now).

Nature is Sexist

Now it is important to understand, why women’s body respond differently to alcohol than men’s body. Women naturally have fat retention quality. As the fat content in women’s body is more, water content is less. The enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) that helps break down alcohol in one’s body is produced less in women’s body. As fat retains alcohol in body and water helps disperse it, a low water content in women’s body lead to alcohol retention and more problems. So, women not only get drunk faster but their tendency to develop alcohol addiction and get liver, kidney and other diseases is more.

Another problem is women’s brain is more sensitive to alcohol than that of men. A study showed the difference through brain scan. This study showed male alcoholics have smaller brain volumes than non-alcoholic males. This also mentions about women’s brain being damaged more compared to men’s due to alcohol.

Women Drinking – Risk Factors

This NCBI article shows how women are affected by alcohol abuse. This shows that women develop genetic risk, neurological abnormalities.

Some of the great risk factors listed in this study are –

1. Women suffer greater neurological damage due to alcohol abuse
2. During pregnancy alcoholism reduces the secretion of pre-natal ethanol exposure leading to severe permanent birth defects including neurotoxicity. (Neurotoxicity is damage to the brain or peripheral nervous system caused by exposure to natural or man-made toxic substances. These toxins can alter the activity of the nervous system in ways that can disrupt or kill nerves).
3. Increased risk of liver diseases.
4. Increased circulatory diseases
5. Breast cancer
6. Fertility impairment, and
7. Early menopause

Other effects found are –

1. Reinforcing and withdrawal related effects of ethanol. The targets are hypothalamus, temporal lobe and cerebellum.
2. Alcohol may increase chances of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) – an important type of dementia and one of the leading causes of death in women. However. There are some studies that showed moderate alcohol consumption may help dementia patients as well (not sure if those were funded by alcohol industry).

Women Drinking – A Social Evil

If you just take a look at the above risk factors related to women’s drinking, many of the issues like fertility impairment, early menopause and development of neurotoxicity in their children are major areas of concern for the humanity. As alcohol affects their brain and cause neurological disorders that becomes a botheration for the whole society. An increase in these conditions only increases the need for welfare programs specific for women under different heads. Already, the taxpayers are burdened with heavy taxes for women’s welfare schemes.

So, basically when you pay for the cause of women’s breast cancer treatment you are actually aiding some drunkard women in their wayward lifestyle. If drinking alcohol is their choice, they should bear the whole burden of their drunkard behaviour but most often they do not.

The major risk factors associated with women’s drinking are – fertility impairment, breast cancer, early menopause and development of neurotoxicity in children

As a result of these women drinking as their choice and as their right, it becomes eventually a burden on taxpayers like us who pay for their additional medical expenses. As binge drinking in women is increasing, a lot of cases of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia is also increasing. Added to this is their early onset of menopause. So, a decreased chance for their husbands to mate and expect children. So, even though a woman may be paying for her drink, she is actually causing harm to the society by giving birth to neurotoxic children thus raising additional burden on the society to support these defective kids. Additionally, society is burdened to deal with overall increased neurological disorders.

So, when you see a woman threatening Bhubaneswar mall employees of filing false rape cases, or you find a woman biting off male police officer on duty during lockdown or create havoc in night Kolkata by going on nude rampage in front of police officers, don’t be surprised. These are also social evils we need to tolerate for their choice of drinking. If you get fake cases from such mental cases like Rohtak Sisters or Jasleen Kaur or someone like Bhavleen Kaur, don’t get shocked. These are the fruits we get from women who claim drinking as their choice, and we all pay the price. All of these are criminal offences and adds to our cost to support women’s choice of drinking alcohol.

Have you ever seen a drunk man behaving in such weird manner anywhere? Have you seen a man going nude because he is drunk? But you will see many nude protests from women. Yes, their psychological, neurological problems very often become a larger social problem, and these are only some reasons why women’s drinking should be considered as a crime to humanity.

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