There are some industry cultures that endorse a drinking culture – frequently getting together after work to drink. Coming from one such industry I understand how it normalizes alcoholism and creates problems for women.
Many women and women’s organization encourage women to participate in this culture in order to get ahead. However, my been-there, dealt-with-that, experience says:
Women must be very careful any time they are around men who are drinking!
Personally, I’m not much of a drinker – one glass of wine is my limit. So, I’m not big into getting together 3-4 nights a week after work for drinks. Frankly, I have better things to do with my time. And that is the first lesson about men the drinking culture:
Men who participate in it don’t have much of a life outside of work.
They don’t have a family or girlfriend they want to get home to. They don’t have a dog or even a hamster to take care of. They don’t go to the gym to work out, play a sport or have a hobby. Sadly, work is their life because it is their escape from the rest of their life. Recently separated or divorced men are often the ring leaders of getting the guys together after work so they don’t have to go home to a small, empty apartment.
Women are mistakenly encouraged to go out with the guys for the social bonding that will build relationships and advance our careers.
But how much career advancement do we get from our peers?
The answer is: Very little.
We are also told we need to participate if our boss or management is going because it is a great time to pitch your ideas and get face-time.
No, it isn’t. Because when men leave work, they leave work.
If you want to pitch an idea or discuss business in a more casual setting, that is what lunch is for.
After work, at the bar the “work” men discuss is in the form of telling war stories. Their minds are on story telling not on solving any workplace issues or making important business decisions. So, any idea you pitch probably won’t penetrate the boss’s brain…but…one of your male colleagues may overhear it and pitch to the boss over coffee the next morning.
Actually, the only career tangible value to going out with the guys is to get to know them better as guys. As they tell their war stories and jest at each other, we can pick up on tidbits of useful information.
We can find out who worked on what and how they screwed it up. We can learn more about office politics. We can learn who has a relationship with who and who we might want to get to know. these could become opportunities for us to assert ourselves – if we remain sober and clear headed enough to mine those gold nuggets of information.
But this is where we can run into problems. When we are out with the guys, they will pressure you to drink. More than you want to. More than you should.
The guys will offer to buy you drinks; they will buy you drinks even if you decline. They will pressure you to keep up with them and it is easy to fall to the pressure unless you own your limits.
As I said I am not much of a drinker and I proudly declared it.
I encouraged the guys to call me a “light-weight.” Make me the Designated Driver. The more pressure that was put on me to drink the more of I proudly I declares – to the entire bar – that I am a genuine light-weight. Poke fun at me for my limits – I will accept the laughter at my expense because I know that the ability to laugh at myself is 100 times more important to bonding with the guys than how much or how often I drink.
I also limit my drinking for my own safety!
Feminism encourages women to go out drinking with their male colleagues and act just like “one of the guys.”
But when there is a lot of drinking going on we must always remember that this is when we ARE NOT one of the guys.
Let me repeat that:
When it comes to drinking, WE ARE NOT one of the guys!!
We all know what people are like when they get drunk. And while I like to talk about how men and women are equal and how women have a mental strength, we lose our edge when we get intoxicated.
We must always remember that men are physically stronger, so when we get drunk, we become physically vulnerable.
A woman who gets drunk in the presence of men potentially puts herself in a dangerous situation.
This situation is exponentially magnified when we are traveling out of town with the guys.
We all know the slogan: “What happens in Vegas, stays Vegas.”
Well, this slogan is derived from an old military saying, “What happens TDY, stays TDY.”
It was a permission slip for military men on temporary duty away from home to behave in (crude and vulgar) ways that was completely unacceptable back at home. But they could get away with it because no one every told.
All men know this code. And they apply it on business trips.
Consequently, on a business trip, that nice family man whose family hangs out with your family suddenly hits on you. Or he’s in the “gentlemen’s club” or a bar doing things you know would piss off and hurt his wife.
The bottom line is that you don’t know who a man will become when he travels out of town.
So, my best advice to you when you go out of town for the first time with your male colleagues is: Trust No One!! This includes your boss and senior managers. (Yes, I had a new senior manager in our get-to-know-each-other-dinner invite me to the Crystal City Restaurant. I didn’t show up.)
This first trip is the time to act like prudish Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes.
Some rules I follow are:
- Don’t tell anyone your hotel room number.
- Remain situationally aware at all times.
- Be social. Go out to dinner with the guys but limit your drinks.
- Decline dinner or drinks at the CCR and other gentlemen’s club no matter how famous the club is.
After dinner, you can hang out with the guys for a bit but be aware. Be aware of the drinking. Be aware of colleagues who are getting too friendly and asking lots of personal questions. As soon as they do err on the side of caution and go back to your room. Don’t accept offers to walk you to your room. Don’t get in an elevator with your colleague. And if you get a knock on your door in the middle of the night by one of your colleagues, (yes, it happens) DO NOT answer it!! Don’t even respond.
Our male colleagues want to know “what kind of girl we are” when we are out of town. This is especially true for women who are single or perceived by our colleagues to be available or potentially available.
If you have a man in your life and he has not made himself known to your male colleagues, you may be perceived as fair game. (Guys know exactly what I’m talking about.)
Unless known to be “off limits” our colleagues will push themselves on us just to see how we respond. They will push our boundaries, just to test our resistance.
And this isn’t just about testing how we will behave out of town. They are also gauging how much they will be able to push us around once we are back at work.
Now, as for “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” well, sorry ladies, that applies to the guys. It may not apply to you!
When you get back to the office, expect all of the guys to hear about “what kind of girl” you are.
As unfair as it is, your behavior out of town can affect you. It may determine how much RESPECT your male colleagues give you.
To men, respect is super important. Our male colleagues want us to respect them. Therefore, when we demand respect from them, we are speaking a language they understand. Likewise, when we don’t respect ourselves or act in a way, so they don’t respect us, they see it as us inviting their bad behavior.
This is why it is up to you to set your boundaries and keep them.
As women we are free to set our boundaries wherever we want BUT we must always be aware of the potential consequences.
This is why it’s better to err on the side of caution and be a little prudish than to wind up in a situation that produces lifelong regrets.
As for our male colleagues, they understand we have the power to set our own boundaries. Most men will rise to whatever standards you set because most men want to earn our trust and respect!
When men know they have earned our trust and respect, they will then become our protectors from the few men we absolutely cannot trust. (It’s another guy thing.)
It takes time to learn which men we can trust completely. And we need to remember that trust is built over time and through many situations. But even with that we shouldn’t be surprised if a man suddenly breaks our trust. We can be disappointed and even hurt but not totally surprised.
This doesn’t mean we should always be wary or fearful.
It means that as women we always need to be situationally aware so if something does happen, we can manage it.
For example, I was roofied in what seemed like a safe situation – the typical get together after work for drinks with my colleagues. I have no idea who did it or even if the drink was meant for me. But because I limited my drinking, I recognized the situation and got help.
And yes, there have been occasions when I had too much to drink and had an absolute blast with some of my male colleagues who also had too much to drink. But again, theses were men I trusted completely.
As women we can be one of the guys but only in a safe environment.
Too often we listen to bad feminist narratives telling us that our equality means we can act just like men. If men can do it, then we can do it too!
These narratives ignore the obvious differences. They ignore Reality.
Consequently, too many women have suffered the consequences. We are the ones who get sexually assaulted, raped and even gang raped.
Our equality is not about acting the same as men. Women originally fought for our rights, so we had the power to elevate men’s behavior. Not copy their bad behavior.
Our equality is about exercising our inherent power to influence men. We set the standards for acceptable behavior, and we maintain our power and control to enforce that behavior. We decide who we can trust and which men become our equal by rising to our standard.
2026 Update:
When I first published this article, the feminists HATED it. How dare I tell women we can’t act like men, behave however we want and get drunk whenever, wherever we want.
Well, in the years since, I think the #Me Too movement proved my point.