"Women shouldn't get blackout drunk" is NOT sexist. Men shouldn't either.

That car theft thread (which I started) reminded me of this story, which has received a lot of press in recent days. It’s about a young man who died as a result of fraternity hazing, and consuming enormous amounts of alcohol contributed heavily.

His BAC was 0.4 or thereabouts when he got to the hospital, more than 12 hours after he had stopped drinking! :eek:

As for my title, some people think that the advice given to women not to get blackout drunk to reduce their chances of being raped is sexist. :rolleyes: No, it isn’t. Men should not do that either, and this is one of the reasons why.

If you make the statement “Women shouldn’t get blackout drunk.” when what you mean is “People shouldn’t get blackout drunk.” that is indeed sexist.

There are two statements that cover this:

  • People shouldn’t get blackout drunk
  • Other people shouldn’t take advantage of drunk people

Not sure what else needs to be said.

So, you are saying women are not people? Interesting.

To the OP: True, but is irrelevant. Many people who raise that statement, also mean “so she deserved it”.
I cannot think of any human being who “deserves” sexual assualt.

I can’t remember the last time I was blackout drunk.

No: that saying “Washington Red apples are red”, while speaking about something which is definitely a subset of apples, doesn’t say anything about other apples; in fact, many other types of apples are not red. A statement about women refers exclusively to women, not to men, babies or cats. If one wants to make a statement about adult humans, or about humans, or about mammals, then one should make the statement about the whole group; making it about a subset and then claiming it applies to the whole set is plain untrue.

And don’t say you didn’t know that, you knew it perfectly well.

When men get blind drunk they can expect a hangover.

When women get blind drunk, they have to accept they could end up getting sexually assaulted, as a result. (And then be blamed and repeatedly asked, ‘Well, what did she expect?’)

So yeah, men and women should avoid getting blind drunk. It’s EXACTLY the same for both! (What colour is the sky in your world?)

iswydt

Sorry, you are completely wrong for the reason elbows stated.

Exactly.

Why didn’t the OP simply highlight the preventable tragedy of a young man dying after drinking too much, and leave women completely out of it? If it’s true our discourse on gender and risk mitigation isn’t sexist, it doesn’t make sense for us to even be talking about women right now. This was a frat boy that died during a frat party after doing classically frat party activities.

“Men shouldn’t get blackout drunk,” says no one ever. The OP couldn’t even string those words together; the most she could do was declare that for women and then tack on a feeble “men shouldn’t either”. That is telling as hell.

Blacked Out Lives Matter

Yes, it’s an incomplete sentence that can end in two ways:

  1. Women shouldn’t get blackout drunk, and neither should men : because it’s bad for one’s health.

However, you can shorten that to “People shouldn’t get …” and be much clearer.

  1. Women shouldn’t get blackout drunk, because they might get raped: this is how it’s often used, and is victim-blaming.

As the Person responsible for the safety of women during the Oktoberfest* said a few years back in a newspaper interview “A woman Walking around blackout drunk and buck naked ** still does not deserve, or call for, or want, to be raped. We want a Situation where a woman in that state can indeed walk across the Wiesn without being molested in any way. It’s not yet at this Point, but we are working towards that Goal” (partly with more Police, partly by educating the men - who are the ones doing the molesting and raping - that this is a bad Thing, mmkay?

  • between 6 and 6.5 mil. visitors expected, with lots of alcohol flowing not only in the beer tents, but with Prices of 1 Liter (1 pint?) of Beer at >10 Euros, many “pre-glow”, that is, drink lots of cheaper alcohol at home before coming to the Oktoberfest

** My first thought was: blackout drunk I can understand, but buck naked? That’s too cold, you’ll freeze your parts off! (Alcohol does give the Illusion of warmth, though)
But we have had days in September when temps. during day with sunshine were not only above 20 C, but Close or above 30 C.

I don’t think I hear it phrased either of those ways very often. It seems like this topic comes up when there’s some specific incident, and a specific individual being discussed.

If a woman gets blackout drunk at a party and gets raped, and someone says “she shouldn’t have got blackout drunk”, is that sexist? Could be that the speaker thinks that advice only applies to women, could be that they think it applies to everyone and it just happens to be a woman in this case.

Among the risks of getting blackout drunk, there is one that is unique to women, so the breadth of the risk is expanded for women. In other word,s there are X reasons why a woman should not, and only X-1 for men.

If you hold the view that there is only one genuine risk to such behavior, and every other consequence is trivial, then the woman is at risk and the man is not.

Does this statement indicate sexism if uttered by a man, or by a women?

“Women shouldn’t get blackout drunk” is sexist in the same way “Black Lives Matter” is racist. Or maybe it’s vice versa.

Regards,
Shodan

Right, because men are never raped. This logic is totally rock solid.

I don’t get the last sentence (irony can be difficult on the internet if that’s the intent). But obviously it’s not exactly the same*. So why would we assume emphasizing the risk for women is ‘sexist victim blaming’ but implicitly assuming women are at no greater risk, by not mentioning them specifically, isn’t also ‘sexist’ denial of the reality of society?

Which is where debate tends to lead when oriented toward seeking phony moral high ground by labeling other people’s statements -ist/-phobe at every turn.

Anyway when you get down to it, what ‘person’ doesn’t already know that many bad things can happen if you drink too much, tending toward worse and worse things the more the excess? Then again whose behavior is really modified by disembodied scolding voices on the internet? Also relevant to thread “is internet shaming an effective way to combat ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’?”, internet chattering about other people’s behavior is basically the chatterers listening to themselves. I don’t pretend to be immune. It’s a less destructive form of recreation for me than sitting alone getting black out drunk.

*black out drunk men could get sexually assaulted, but it seems to be much less likely.

Isn’t saying “Don’t get blackout drunk or bad things might happen?” basically the same thing as saying “Don’t leave your car unlocked and running or it might get stolen”, or “Don’t walk alone though a bad neighborhood after dark, or you might be mugged?” It’s bad that muggers exist. The fact that you were vulnerable doesn’t excuse what they did, and the fact that bad neighborhoods exist is a discredit to society. But that doesn’t make “Don’t go there by yourself at night” victim blaming, it’s just common sense.

Don’t get blackout drunk, people of either gender (at least, not without a Designated [del]Driver[/del] Babysitter). There are bad people who will take advantage of your state to rob you, molest you, beat you up, what-have-you. Maybe some of those people are plain psychopaths, maybe some of them just never learned right from wrong. Either way, they exist, and sensible people- men, women, and non-binaries- take them into account.

This horse has been beaten so many times here and elsewhere I’m surprised there’s a any skin left to beat. More than just a hangover is at risk Both sexes are subject to getting exploited when incapacitated by drugs or alcohol and depending on time, place and circumstance women can be at substantially greater risk for getting sexually assaulted if incapacitated.

The argument beyond that is if that happens and someone is sexually assaulted while “black out drunk” do they assume any responsibility for what occurred by putting themselves in a vulnerable position?

Legally they do not, the legal responsibility for the assault is entirely on the assaulter. This can get murky in some scenarios if it’s claimed the drunk party was a willing participant in the sex that occurred, but if the person was seriously incapacitated responsibility is generally assumed to be all on the person who was initiating or forcing sex while they were in that state.

Institutionally they do not, with respect to therapeutic practice and the majority of public conversation about recovery from the trauma of assault and how the support and recovery services interact with the assaulted person. “It is not your fault you got assaulted while back out drunk, it’s entirely on the assaulter” is the operating model.

Outside of legal and institutional boundaries in dealing with the reactions of friends, co-workers, acquaintances and even family it’s more complicated, and getting black out drunk will have some people in those social circles putting a degree of responsibility on the assaulted person for behavior and high risk decisions that winds up putting them in harm’s way.

:rolleyes:
99.9% of the time, both men and women can expect nothing but a bad hangover and mayhaps a couple of embarrassing conversations after getting drunk. However extremely adverse outcomes are a possibility for both genders. A man who is drunk and defenseless can be relieved of his rather valuable possessions. Suffer assault and possibly serious bodily harm. And occasionally yes, sexual violence. As a woman can also suffer all of the above. Perhaps sexual violence more than assualt or physical harm, but in this Blue sky world, unlike you red skied one, men and woman both undertake risks.

[QUOTE=Corry El]
I don’t get the last sentence (irony can be difficult on the internet if that’s the intent). But obviously it’s not exactly the same*. So why would we assume emphasizing the risk for women is ‘sexist victim blaming’ but implicitly assuming women are at no greater risk, by not mentioning them specifically, isn’t also ‘sexist’ denial of the reality of society?

Which is where debate tends to lead when oriented toward seeking phony moral high ground by labeling other people’s statements -ist/-phobe at every turn.

Anyway when you get down to it, what ‘person’ doesn’t already know that many bad things can happen if you drink too much, tending toward worse and worse things the more the excess? Then again whose behavior is really modified by disembodied scolding voices on the internet? Also relevant to thread “is internet shaming an effective way to combat ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’?”, internet chattering about other people’s behavior is basically the chatterers listening to themselves. I don’t pretend to be immune. It’s a less destructive form of recreation for me than sitting alone getting black out drunk.

*black out drunk men could get sexually assaulted, but it seems to be much less likely.
[/QUOTE]

Two things.

  1. Its a risk assessment. All of these things (leaving windows open, walking in the dark, being drunk alone) are possibilities, but minor ones. The issue is about risk v reward. Yes the danger is little, but the adverse outcome can be very bad and the reward for doing so, is little compared to it.

  2. Also, risk compensation is a factor. Yes all other things being equal, women will suffer more adverse outcomes than men, but things are not equal. Women take care to avoid risky situations and people tend to keep an eye on potentially vulnerable women which reduce their chances of getting into trouble. Both are not the case with men, mostly.

You see it with abuse of girls and boys. Girls probably have a greater number of potential abusers than boys do, but society as a whole is aware of this fact and goes out of its way to reduce the risk. With boys, while the number of potential abusers is a lot less, the number of actual abusers is higher or at least comparable since society does not take these mitigating actions that readily and is also often relcutant to recognize said abuse when it has occurred*.

*(Yes, I know it is changing, thank God, but you will routinely see young teenage boys in circumstances that if they were girls, there would be hell to pay)