Feminists and general female-rights activists tend to drive this point home a lot; men and women are equal. I get it, women have suffered through much unfairness throughout life. In relative terms, at least in the US, only recently could women vote. Even more recently, could women work, and these days, 100 years after our voting battle was won, there are still fights for equal pay.
However, the reality is that women and men are not equal, not the same. Women, physically and emotionally are different than men. These are generalizations, of course, but generally accurate. This is not a good or bad thing. This is simply what it is. It’s like apples and oranges, both fruits, both sweet, both delicious, but not equal. Each has their place. You cannot make apple pie with oranges, and neither can you make mimosas with apple juice (unless you are insane 😉 ). The point is that just because two are not equal does not mean they are not equally valuable. I think most of us understand this at a basic level. We understand that while men and women are different, each bring their own value to the table.
With this in mind, it should come as no surprise to you if I tell that women cannot drink as much as men. And if they do, trouble arises. In most states, the legal blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) limit is 0.08%. Because BAC is a percentage unit, the person on which it is measured impacts the reading. A physically larger person will have a lower BAC reading than a smaller person, even if they ingested the same amount. Below is a chart which provides a guideline for BAC% for men and women.
Given the average weight of an American male is 195 pounds and the average female comes in at 168, a male could ingest 2 drinks and be within the BAC% driving limit, but a female would be well above that. And even at equal weights, males and females metabolize alcohol differently, so equal ingestion does not mean equal BAC. As the charts notes, on average, women read about 0.01% higher than men.
But the point of this post is not simply to illustrate that women and men handle alcohol differently. It is to note at which point women and men reach blackout. A blackout happens when a person’s BAC% reaches 0.15. In a blackout, a person’s short-term memory goes blank. A person experiencing a blackout may behave as if they as if they can make decisions (albeit slowly), but in reality, they are not really fully aware of what is happening. Their short-term memory is shot and as a result they cannot remember what happened just a moment ago. A man does not reach 0.15 BAC until 5 drinks in. Surely he cannot drive legally after 2, but he still has another three drinks left until he cannot be trusted to make decisions which could impact him for the rest of his life. A woman on the other hand, will reach blackout range much sooner, at only 3.5 drinks.
And this is the crux of the problem. In an era where women are trying to prove themselves to be as tough and strong as men, they are also tending to drink as much as them. As a result, we are seeing more and more of these sexual assaults in part because men assume, incorrectly, that women may be consenting to the interaction, when all along these women may be blacked out. This does not excuse men, or place the blame on women, it simply helps us to explain why this is happening.
It helps us to find a solution to the problem. One such solution could be better education to young adults about blackouts. We have done great with similar campaigns in the past. Remember smoking? Drunk driving? Unprotected sex? Drugs? We, as a society, can change the perspective of binge drinking if at the very least to educate the participants of the risk.
However, that will require our admitting that while men and women are equally valuable, we are not equal.
