Are women drinking more than men?

Girls used to cook like our mothers, now they drink like our fathers. This is a common phrase you've come across in conversations here or there. Not all fathers drink. But girls, women of today have normalised drinking and are slowly closing the gender gap in alcohol consumption.

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 years come and go. Women now walk in liquor stores to buy alcohol for house parties and it's a normal thing. They know almost every alcoholic beverage. They consume bears freely and bravely pop open wine corks in pubs and night joints, then drink until the cock crow.

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 the days. That's the closest they'd come to having something alcoholic on their lips.

And still, this was mainly during family and culture events, maybe once in a very 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 any 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' kind of mentality. The modern woman has struggled, makes her own money, takes care of her bills, hence she feels free to take charge of her life and make it her business to do whatever that 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 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!

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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 liquor' any more. 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!

Men used to shun women who drink. Like, a woman wouldn't even dare confess to a potential suitor that she does drinks. Gone are those shameful days. And since the possibility of finding a sober woman in the present day is getting narrower, the boys are slowly accepting the fact that in five women he's tuning, three are partakers of alcohol. Again, it's a thing. Worrying thing.

We can all agree that when a woman drinks she loses her femininity. Much as they view it as a normal aspect of their social lives because they'd argue that they drink to cope and catch up with the men, this is purely a masculine behaviour. It isn't easy for a woman to maintain a desirable femininity with weak knees, and a whole litre of dry 40% alcohol content in her system.