For every event that encourages mass-drinking - from festivals to Halloween, freshers week to Take That concerts - newspapers love, love LOVE to focus on how drunk some of the female attendees get.
They post pictures of them, write thinly-veiled comments about their weight and/or fashion sense and encourage the hand-wringing masses to get involved in their collective chastisement of young women who drink alcohol, about how little respect they have for themselves and how this is the beginning of the degradation of the human race.
What these newspapers fail to point out though is that, in the back of nearly every photo of a drunk girl, there tends to be at least one drunk male with his head in a bin, or engaging in another activity that is equally banterific.
But we don't talk about him.
Because men are allowed to get drunk. They've been doing for centuries. Men don't have socially-constructed morals to protect that could become compromised under the influence of alcohol. Men are allowed to swear, act rambunctiously, shag around and generally be kind of a dick when they're boozing. We call them 'lads' as in 'lads on tour'. But for women, drinking alcohol compromises the bullshit idea that all women should be 'ladylike'. That's why we get called 'slags*'* on tour.
The Melbourne Cup this week is yet another example of this. It's one of the most famous race meets in the world and, each year, photographers gather snaps of drunk women, ready to shame them on the internet, again conveniently ignoring the man in the background with his trousers round his ankles or something because, well, that doesn't make as controversial a picture.
The young women in these pictures though, look like they're having a billboard time. Sure they're drunk, but no more so than the men behind them. The women, for their part, are in a safe space, it's the middle of the day and they've all got smiles on their faces. The only concern you should have about them is whether or not they're safe and happy. Their morals shouldn't come into it at all.*
So let's turn this shaming culture on it's head. Here's 12 totally magnificent women having the time of their lives at the Melbourne Cup. Long live these women.
**Obviously we don't condone binge drinking, drink responsibly and have fun, but, you know, drink responsibly for your own sake and safety rather than to fulfil someone else's opinion of you.
1. This excellent woman who may very well have won herself a lot of money coming first in the wheelie bin race
2. This sensible woman who knew to wrap up warm and not get as drunk as her male friend
3. These beautifully dressed women who put Taylor Swift's buillshit commodification of female friendship to shame
4. This woman who may very well have done us all a favour and trapped a nuisance boy in a cage of his own making
5. This accomplished woman who took time out of her day to practise her hammer throw. See you at Tokyo 2020 love. Go Team AUS.
6. This strong woman who doesn't normally need a man but, seeing as THREE are offering to carry her and her shoes are probably hurting, feels comfortable exploiting the patriarchy
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7. This sage woman who's about to school you all with the most passionate feminist rhetoric since Emmeline Pankhurst
8. This first-class woman who knows dancing, under any guise, is an art form to be shared to help educate the masses
9. This woman who knows that lining your stomach is the only sensible way to booze
10. These women who are sick of riding the coat tails of straight white men and instead invested in their own steeds
11. And these women, who know that girls just want to have FUN-damental human rights which includes the right to HAVE ALL OF THE FUN WITHOUT FEAR OF JUDGEMENT
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
New Research Shows That Women Who Earn More Get Slut Shamed Less
It's Time To Stop Shaming The Women Of Liverpool On Ladies' Day
Here's How Banging All The Women At Aintree Ladies Day Looked This Year** **
Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.