Am I missing something, or is this just plain odd?

[elettaria]

Government considers banning free drinks for women. I should mention that I don't drink, never have, and have never even seen the appeal. So I'm having to think my way through this more than most people would, and may miss something obvious

Comments

[elettaria]

The practice of giving free drinks to women, which I agree is discriminatory and not reflective of good things, is presumably a fairly small part of the overall problem, so yes, it does look like something being blown out of proportion. It's the social attitudes that are coming out as a result of this that alarm me. I'm just pissed off that there appears to be a government draft talking about generally reducing drinking, and the newspapers respond with, "Women! Give them a drink and you'll get their legs in the air!" Which is quite possibly what this gendered free-drinks thing was about in the first place. I don't know, I've never been to a pub or bar which was doing that. Has anyone here, and if so what was going on?

[scien]

It took me a while to puzzle out, but the first and second sentences in the BBC article don't relate to each other. Past the first sentence, nothing in that article is about gendered stuff. It sounds like there are a few proposals being reviewed: stop free drinks from women, reduce happy hours, make measure labelling mandatory, health warning on drinks

[eye_of_a_cat]

Yeah, free drinks for women is done as a promotional thing (on the logic that men will go to places where lots of women are but not necessarily vice versa). But honestly, most of these promotional things need to be cut back on if the aim is to reduce binge drinking, since most of them are targeted at getting people very drunk in a very short space of time.

Drunk men are associated with violence; drunk women are associated with sexuality, which sooner or later involves the double standard, women being stigmatised for behaviour which is accepted in men.

Yes, that's it exactly. And there's a weird tone in a lot of the media coverage on women's drinking that makes that distinction: drunk men are a danger to others who need to be protected from them, drunk women need to be protected from themselves.

I'm puzzled by the idea of banning particular cocktail names, though. What on earth is that? (And while I'm all in favour of banning some in the name of tackiness alone, what's it got to do with binge drinking?)

[nadyezhda]

maybe after three "sex on the beach"es, you start trying to do just that and then you're a public nuisance...? :)

[elettaria]

I'm guessing it's to do with sexual harassment, people getting fed up with being leered at just because they asked for a drink. Taking conversations such as, "So shall I get you a Slow Comfortable Screw, then?" *leer* *ogle*, out of the pub, might make a slight difference to things Not Getting Out of Hand, or at least women feeling more comfortable. It doesn't sound like it would make very much difference, though, to be honest. Mind you, imagine what it would be like if cocktail names had political/religious/football implications. And it's still sounding fairly silly.

You know, I read that "Safe, Sensible, [something else beginning with S which I now can't remember]" report, and there was absolutely nothing in there about women at all, apart from a chart showing that twice as many men as women end up in hospital due to alcohol-related problems.

[anonymous]

Hi, this comment is very old, but I was google image searching challah cloths, and I found the beautiful one you had made. I was wondering what material did you use? What material is the challah cloth typically made of? Thank you so much! Anna

[elettaria]

Linen fabric, cotton and metallic embroidery threads. I think satin is one of the most common fabrics, linen is certainly a less usual choice.