Rush season is beginning at Dartmouth. That means more parties and more drinking for the men, especially for the frat bro hopefuls trying to impress their potential brothers with their tolerances. It also means girls wandering through sorority houses trying to make a good impression with polite conversation. It's a tense time on campus, and with Round 1 of rush for sororities this past weekend, it's making me question the differences between the rush processes. It makes women seem so repressed in comparison to men - so what happens when we do drink? Historically, drinking has always seemed to be very masculine, even an integral part of the male identity. When we think of rum-runners gunned down by cops, and bootleggers protecting their distilleries during Prohibition, I think all of us probably picture men. Alcohol has a fascinating history spanning back to the Ancient Egyptians, mostly to do with men. Apparently, the slaves toiling to build the pyramid of Giza received a ration of 1 1/3 gallons of beer a day. Much later, Europeans drank beer on trans-Atlantic crossings, and brewing beer became one of the first industries the colonists introduced to North America. Alcohol used to be about survival when water was too contaminated to drink. More recently, though, it has taken on a new role, as a sort of social lubricant, bringing people together and loosening them up in anxious social settings. When we picture someone shot-gunning a beer or trying to beat their record in vodka shots, I think 99% of the time, no matter who we are, we probably picture men. There's something about our culture that equates masculinity and drinking, as though the height of their tolerance is somehow equal to their strength as a man (when really it's just the amount of abuse your liver has gotten used to). So where in this masculine drinking culture do women fit in (especially college women)? And what does it mean for our health (both mental and physical)?

At least part of the answer actually lies in femininity itself. According to a review of 23 studies published this summer in the Addictive Behaviors journal, feminine roles definitely seem to play a part, though a complex one, in our drinking culture. Recent patterns have shown that the gender gap in substance use rates has narrowed. In other words, men aren't slowing down, but women are certainly speeding up in our alcohol consumption, to the point that rates of females' substance use are converging with men's. In the studies reviewed by the paper, many women across the globe are engaging in what the authors call "problematic drinking behaviors." For example, one study found that 46.1% of women report heavy episodic drinking (HED), which is defined as four or more drinks in a two hour period. Another study showed that 39% of college-aged women engaged in HED in the two weeks prior to their survey. This is interesting in its implications for our society - What has changed? Why is there suddenly a surge in drinking? - but it's also concerning considering that, because of the innate biological differences between women and men, women get drunk far more rapidly, and are therefore more likely to be targeted in violent acts or sexual assault. The authors think they have found part of the answer to our increased drinking: feminine norms. They define femininity as the expectations associated with being a woman that "provide guidance for how women should think, act, and feel." Basically, it's what our culture defines as being a woman. The feminine relationship with alcohol is much more complex than we probably realize, though. Some of the conventional feminine values, such as modesty and sexual fidelity, "protect" women from substance use. For example, women who subscribe to "affective femininity," a component of femininity in which women are supposed to help others and be expressive, are associated with decreased alcohol use and HED. This "protective" aspect of femininity was shown by only 5 studies in the 23 reviewed, though. The majority of studies instead showed that the more women adhere to feminine norms, the more at risk we are for increased substance use. In one study, women who scored higher in "submissive femininity," those aspects of the female identity in which women are supposed to be submissive to men, had significantly greater alcohol use, and so did their peers. So some women are drinking, and some are resisting, both because of their feminine values. Why is there a disparity? The authors theorized that, while substance use is not considered "gentle," causing some women to resist, most women feel pressure to conform to conventional gender norms, and drink in order to cope with the stress. Essentially, the restrictions put upon us by the accepted perception of what it is to be "feminine" stress us out to the point that we drink to escape.

However, keep in mind that these results should be taken with a grain of salt. In the U.S., normative femininity generally means white, upper or middle class, heterosexual, and with an inclination towards traditional feminine roles such as child-rearing, thinness, and emotionality. It is amazing how little this describes the majority of the U.S. population, especially because definitions of femininity certainly change with racial identity. One study reviewed found that Latina women, for example, are supposed to be chaste, virtuous, and spiritual, African American women are expected to embody a 'strong black woman' stereotype, and Asian American women are expected to be "dutiful" and "doll-like."

Femininity is certainly not the only reason we drink, and each woman's definition is different. But it's an interesting factor to keep in mind as rush season comes upon us. We may feel the pressure to be a perfect sorority girl, perfectly curled hair and thin, maybe just taking a pie out of the oven. Women need to be aware that these conventions, which seem to grow even more ridiculous with every passing year, can and have been driving us to harm ourselves. We are finding more ways of understanding gender all the time, and an escape from the restrictive conventions through drinking can be therapeutic. We just have to make sure that, as we move forwards, the past doesn't hold us back and drive us to do things that will get us hurt.