From tradition to trend: How women have taken over drinking culture

A woman sipping alcohol. (Courtesy/iStock) You have probably heard it being whispered that girls used to cook like their mothers, but now they drink like their fathers. Well, not all fathers drink. But girls and women of today have normalised drinking and are slowly closing the gender gap in alcohol consumption. They have actually caught up with men. It's getting to 1:1. Alcohol used to be a man's thing, lifestyle. Gone are the days. Alcohol stopped being masculine and it's become more and more feminine as the years go by. Women now walk into liquor stores to buy alcohol for house parties and it's normal. They know almost every alcoholic beverage. They consume beers freely and bravely pop open wine corks in pubs then drink 'til the cocks crow. Dry. With dry eyes! During the days of our beautiful mothers, the only drink close to alcohol that they'd taste was the traditional brews made from maize, sorghum, millet and yeast for fermentation. The busaas and muratinas of yesteryear. That's the closest they'd come to having something alcoholic on their lips. And still, this was mainly during family and cultural events, maybe once in a long time. Alcoholic drinks were purely for men old enough to have three wives, 17 children and a few emaciated heads of cattle. Young boys were not allowed to even have a glimpse of the brewing process. Gin o'clock. Wine o'clock. I don't know if there's whisky o'clock, but these are phrases we have always seen in hashtags in the evenings and mostly Fridays on women's social media spaces. This, is apparently an appropriate time for anyone who feels like it's time for them to grab a glass of their favourite alcoholic drink and sip it down their throats. Women are not left behind at this liquor o'clock time. The independence in a woman's life has made it clear that she can do whatever she deems right without really caring about societal eyes and the moral cops. It's disturbing. The 'what a man can do, a woman can do better' kinda mentality. The modern woman makes her own money and takes care of her bills, hence she feels free to take charge of her life and make it her business to do whatever makes her happy. Not every woman drinks, just the way not all men do. But the rising number of women who hang out at drinking joints is growing by the day. It's no longer a man's affair and the babes who do, do it with all the freedom. There are men whose wives and girlfriends are their drinking partners and you'd meet them at their favourite joints, each with their brand. Some actually would confess to have met at some drinking joint. It's a thing! Office parties and team building retreats are never complete without tonnes of different brands of alcoholic drinks. This is not limited to men alone. Women literally take over this whole thing and drown like lack of importance! Office drinking culture has been embraced by a good number of companies and this could be where vulnerable ladies have their first sip of alcohol then boom! Chama meetings have now been turned into pleasurable booze hours where career women don't mind having conversations over a glass or two of their Four Cousins, JDs or whatever poisons their systems. People no longer turn and drop their jaws when they see a group of five smartly dressed women at a table with bottles of expensive whisky and laptops spread across the tables. Also, I bet you've noticed that drinking babes don't drink 'feminine liqour' anymore. Introduction to any alcoholic drink was always done slowly, step by step, with specific sweetened brands being strictly for ladies then the 'tough' ones for the tougher gender. Today, a woman drowns herself in a whole litre of Vodka, beer or Scotch Whisky and still walks home like someone who's taken a warm glass of fresh milk. Or soda! It isn't easy for a woman to maintain a desirable femininity with weak knees, and a whole litre of dry 40 per cent alcohol content in her system. It's time we went back to cooking like our mothers and left the bottles for the men. Don't you think?

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From tradition to trend: How women have taken over drinking culture

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