Even in Gainesville, a girl is “tipsy,” but a man is “tanked.”
A recent survey found college students tend to relate moderate terms to women who are heavily intoxicated more than they do to men. The survey, published in the journal “Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research,” showed students were likely to label a women’s drunkenness with words such as “tipsy,” while men’s drinking tends to be described with words that are more aggressive, such as “wasted.” The survey included 145 college students
Ricky Cutler, a 19-year-old advertising junior, said she thinks the survey results sound about right. She said there’s a double standard against women.
“Women are held at a high standard in the way society expects us to behave in public,” Cutler said. “A girl being drunk or sloppy in public looks much worse than a guy doing the same thing.”
According to the survey, researchers asked students to read a story that involved two men and two women celebrating a main character’s birthday in a bar. In each story, researchers switched the sex of the main character, how much he or she drank and how this person behaved. Study participants rated on a scale from 1 to 5 how well four sensible or 11 hefty drinking terms applied to the main character, according to LiveScience.
Results showed that sensible terms were given more to the female characters — even when they were heavily drinking.
GatorWell Director Maureen Miller said that culture and society are usually in connection when labeling genders.
“There is always a different meaning for different students and their drinking behavior,” Miller said. “But when it comes to gender expectation, I think cultural and social implications also come into play.”
Miller said it could be dangerous for college students when incorrectly labeling someone as “wasted” or “tipsy.”
“I always want to remind students who see other students that look past the point of ‘tipsy’ to step in and do the right thing,” Miller said.
