Not every woman is a "victim"

As you may have noticed, I am not a "feminist" in the stereotypical way.  But I am a wholly-liberated and self-supporting woman who has navigated high school, university, the workforce, two marriages, motherhood, step-motherhood and grandmother-hood, all while successfully dodging unwanted male attention without being publically strident.

That's what young women today can't seem to do.

Maybe it's because we are roughly the same age, but I enthusiastically agree with both Camille Paglia and Margaret Wente about how mixing copious amounts of alcohol and partying can bring on male sexual aggression -- especially when one happens to get passed-out, black-out drunk.  If you come to and wonder what you are doing naked in bed with a man, something serious must have happened.

Paglia is exactly one month older than I, Wente two years younger, so we hail from the same cohort -- the one that first navigated "women's lib" back in the late sixties.  In fact, when I meet some new woman, I often mention Paglia or Wente to see what the reaction is.  If the woman doesn't like either, I move on.  If they start extolling the virtues of frauds Naomi Klein, Gloria Steinem or some other like charlatan, I tune out and move on.  I actually judge a woman by whether or not she is a fan of Wente or Paglia.  But I digress. 

With the advent of the pill, we had to learn the new rules around dating and sex.  We also had to learn that the more alcohol we injected into the mix, the more confusing encounters became.  Did I agree to make out with this guy?  Alcohol being the inhibition-remover it is, probably.  How far did I agree to go?  Was I so drunk I don't remember?  Am I covered in bruises?  No?  Then I must have some responsibility for allowing this mess.  None of this happened to me because I was of the generation that deemed drunkenness in women underclass and slutty.  But now young women feel "liberated" and "empowered" enough to get as drunk as they like.  So they do -- sadly, often with no idea of what happened?  Accusing someone of rape has ruinous life-long consequences; recovering from a hangover takes a day. 

And everyone goes along with the ridiculous notion that every woman who has drunken sex has been raped.  "None of this is fair or just.  It's unfair that women can't drink (biologically) like men, unfair that alcohol provokes certain men to be sexually aggressive and women to be less resistant, unfair that some men regard drunken women as prey, unfair that the justice system is often very far from perfect.  Some of these things can perhaps be changed; others assuredly cannot," writes Wente in her Globe and Mail column today. 

"But some of the most important things they can do to stay safe are never mentioned in anti-violence campaigns.  Perhaps that is also because heavy drinking among women has been normalized and is now perfectly acceptable," she continues.  Just as you wouldn't walk alone down a dark alley at 4 a.m., don't get blind drunk at a party where anything is likely to happen.  As I used to tell my kids, nothing good ever happens after midnight. 

Both young men and women need to have more respect for booze and what it can lead to.