Saturday 15 October 2011

To binge or not to binge...That is the million pound question?
















Fridays are what every working individual will be looking forward to because they know that the weekend is not far behind. Does the weekend mean that you can put politeness and decency on hold? Does it give you the freedom to behave in a way you wouldn’t normally? For some women/ girls it is a resounding “yes”.
Women who stagger out of bars wearing what they think are mini dress but share a closer resemblance to belts, think they are just exercising their rights and claim that they are doing all this in the name of feminism; they don’t understand what feminism actually means. Feminism is a collection of movements defining, establishing and defending equal political, social rights and equally opportunities for women. To sum up, it is about gender equality and therefore it is relevant to men as well. In this basic interpretation, nowhere is it written that getting “wasted” every weekend and having casual sex is under the umbrella of feminism. Women often argue that if men do it why shouldn’t they, but what they have to try and realise is that just because men act like apes, is no excuse for you to act like apes, they should aim to rise above it- but they don’t.
Binge drinking amongst females have been on the rise, this can be attributed to the fact that women have more disposable income, which begs the question, if you have disposable income why must you dispose of it in one weekend? People often say they need to “cut loose”, but is this the only way to do that and is work that treacherous that you need to drink yourself into oblivion just to forget it?
The fact that many bars have deliberately discounted bottles of alcohol and have hours dedicated on getting “happy” doesn’t help with the increasing amounts of binge drinkers. More and more younger women are getting pulled into this culture and the few that refuse are often ostracised from their peer group and labelled as being anti- social, but tell me, what’s so great about not knowing where you are, not being able to stand on your own, urinating in the streets and having sex with strangers?! Women who put themselves in these kinds of situations are putting themselves in real danger, not only will they run the risk of suffering from alcohol related diseases but also of being sexually attacked- because let’s face it, there are some “unpleasant” people out there that will take advantage of the situation.
If that’s not enough to convince people to dial back their drinking habits, large amounts of alcohol can also artificially age you and for many women, their appearance is very important to them. The media also has a part to play in this, in recent times they have catered the advertised more appealing to women. For example in programmes such as “Sex and the City”, the main characters’ are never far from a bar and always seen to be drinking by midday, now what they neglect to show is them with their heads in the toilet and vomit on their Jimmy Choos.
If we have any hope of changing the attitudes of millions of young women, we should refrain from making it seem glamorous and show what can happen to your body and your finance, after all it’s not cheap and we are in a financial crisis, with the huge strain binge drinking is having on the NHS, it’s surprising that you still manage to find women urinating in the streets and stumbling out of bars.

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