Women’s Herstory Month: Sexism in Craft Beer

In the waning days of Women’s Herstory Month, let’s talk about why we even need to have a special month all for ourselves. Because women’s magazines. Because wage discrepancies and tube tops. Because being pressured into motherhood without women’s health care coverage and then the public shame of breastfeeding. Because the hyper-sexuality of commercials for anything and “abstinence only” teaching in schools. Because high heels and glass ceilings. Because the way I get touched by men all the time, and it’s supposed to be okay.

old-dominion-double-d-ipaAnd lastly, because craft beer labels! I don’t feel the need to list all the beers with questionable labels. Just Google “sexist beer labels” and be prepared to be embarrassed. So much improbable, gravitationally-challenged cleavage! So many cringingly gross sexual acts alluded to!

Come on, guys! Brewers: the majority of you are youngish white males with creative facial hair who give the distinct impression of being both fairly liberal and just awkward enough to want any chance with a woman you can get. In the same way talking about an ex-girlfriend on a date is a serious faux pas, recommending to me a bottle with a busty blond pin-up is really a turn-off. All that does is remind me of those lecherous old men at truck stops picking up magazines in black plastic. Men who prefer their women plastic, as well. Continue reading

Recipe for Ladies’ Beer Club

Beer Club Apparel by Kate: eyes down here, fellas!

Beer Club Apparel by Kate: eyes down here, fellas!

Ingredients: Ladies (three or more), Beer, Snacks

Step 1) Get a beer. Get it in a good beer bar. And preferably one where they know you by name. The bar my friend Kate and I go to is one door down from my bookstore. This makes it both very convenient and very dangerous. They usually have a good selection of bottled craft beers as well as some exotic cocktails including the Gin Basil (which is also very dangerous). After my first beer, the delightful Baba from Uinta, I begin to feel a certain largesse and order this beautiful, basil-flecked martini, shaken exactly 100 times before strained into my glass. “Llalan, can I get you another Gin Basil?”

Step 2) Stick with ordering beer and discuss the purpose of your beer club. We start a list. We’re good at lists.

  • Drink good beer
  • Try new beer
  • Discuss said beer
  • Do all of the above in the company of good women
  • Tighten our relationships with said good women

Every club worth its weight in Gin Basils has a mission statement that makes it sound important, so here we go: We strive to explore the world of beer and spread the culture of beer within the context of an open and friendly environment of women only, to preserve the historical context of the beverage and minimize the incidents of mansplaining. Continue reading

Pink-Booted Brewsters and Other Reasons to Leave Brewing to the Gals

Thumbs up for Women In Beer!

Thumbs up for Women In Beer!

Happy Women’s History Month, dudes and dudettes! Lift your beer to all the chicks in the world, ‘cause you know, you wouldn’t have a beer to lift it weren’t for us bitches!

Quick history lesson on why ladies are as awesome as beer: we started brewing the stuff back in ancient Egypt and Sumeria and continued to be the brewers up through colonial America, fermenting the grain while men cultivated and hunted and fought about one thing or another. (Dudes never have their priorities straight.)

But when the Industrial Revolution brought brewing into big business, men stuck their…fingers in the mix and look what happened: just a few brewers producing the majority of what’s drunk in America — and producing the majority of it poorly, I might add. Insult upon injury: women were then relegated to the ads, drinking piss-colored swill while in bikinis, playing beach volleyball, possibly the stupidest and most transparent excuse for men to cross their fingers and hope for a little glimpse of lady business that I’ve ever seen outside anime. Continue reading