As I was driving the kids to school this morning, I was listening to the news segment on the local classic rock station, and one of the little factoids the DJ ended with was some research about women who drink whiskey.
Apparently, someone has studied the characteristics and attributes of women who drink whiskey and compared those women to others who don't drink whiskey. I can't speak to the veracity of this research, but the DJ reported that women who drink whiskey were singled out as being "risk takers" who usually weren't good people to have relationships with. In other words, it sounds like the "research" has uncovered that women who drink whiskey have a ramblin' mind.
I did some cursory searches for this study, but I have found nothing yet.
But I'm wondering who funded this research, who did it, and what was the purpose because if you're a listener to the blues or traditional country or even bluegrass, you already might have come to that conclusion purely by repetition.
So is this a case of art providing us some truth or at least a large dollop of
Truthiness? I don't know.
I did find an interesting article in
Newsweek called
"Women and Whiskey: Why Not?". What the alleged study noted above is not taking into account is that Southern women have been drinking bourbon for ages. It's the liquor associated with the South. And as the author details early on in the article, Jack Daniels targeted women in their recent advertising campaign by trying to morph the usually "manly" drink of whiskey into something very domestic. In other words, Jack is trying to
Ophrahitize their brand to capture another demographic.
Of course, the message is troubling: get sloshed and bake, ladies. You go girls.
As much as I know women have imbibed whiskey for a long time, from my own experience working in a liquor store, whiskey does have a gendered presence. Well, we've given it that essence as the professor quoted in article details briefly. I can't recall women coming into Independence Ave. Liquors and buying much whiskey. Maybe a blended scotch, but Maker's Mark, Jim Beam, Old Grand Dad, or Black Velvet? Nah, didn't happen. They gravitated toward wine coolers, vodka, schnapps, and gin.
Like seemingly everything else, booze, well, it's gendered.
But the author, Kate Daily, notes, "... gendering drinks as “male” or “female “ creates arbitrary distinctions about how people should respond to certain situations, based on stereotypes. “'It’s all about people’s personal taste,” says Ruderhausen. “Just as there are men who don’t like a big, smoky whisky, there are women who do.'”
Sure, that might be the case that it's about personal taste, but I still see women going toward the "girlie drinks" and men quaffing "strong" stuff to show their manhood. In other words, I don't think we've come that long of a way, baby.
Interestingly enough, I don't see certain proprietors of whiskey targeting other important demographics. For example, I haven't seen Jack Daniels, a brand some might tend to associate with rednecks even though it is a fine sippin' whiskey, target African-Americans or Latinos.
Booze choices cut across socio-cultural lines too as I'm sure you can imagine. Where I worked the clientile was approximately 60-70% African-American because my dad's liquor store was on the "bad side" of town (a perception I always found patently stupid, by the way), the side of the Cedar River where most African-Americans lived. We trucked a lot in gin and brandy, Bumpy Face gin and Erk and Jerk specifically.
We may recognize all this, but rarely is there change. But is it that big of a deal?
When Mrs. Nasty and I go out to dinner tomorrow night, I suspect we'll order a pre-dinner libation. She'll get some kind of martini drink because she enjoys sweeter drinks without the strong taste of alcohol, and I'll either order a beer or a stronger cocktail like a gin and tonic or bourbon on the rocks.
If we're merely falling into gendered traps, I guess I can rationalize that they're our "personal tastes."
