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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
A lot of the information was really interesting, but the organization of the book made it harder to stay in the stories at points. I also didn’t love the very girlboss angle a lot of the storytelling took, and even though I do drink the “yeah! drinking is for badass women” vibe felt weird given how alcohol has also uniquely harmed women. The author also had a moment where she really seemed to make light of fetal alcohol syndrome and that’s just reckless and dumb. Interesting and important stories, but the tone gave me the ick.
I love this book so much, I ordered 4 more copies to give to friends. And I may well need to get more. The book is well-researched, fast-moving and fun. It’s an actual world history, profiling women and events from all over, not just Europe and America. ♥️
A well researched and thorough look at a world history of women and drinking. Turns out, just like everything else in our society, so much of women and drinking has been ruined by misogyny. And O'Meara makes that point very clear. Like her previous book, she analyzes all the ways in which women drinking has been colored by misogyny, racism and general sexism. I liked O'Meara's previous book but actually enjoyed this one slightly more. I don't drink anymore but I enjoyed learning more about the history behind certain drinks and how many of them were invented by women. I appreciated how O'Meara even brought in historical figures like Cleopatra and Catherine the Great and how they related to drinking culture. This is a fascinating and incredibly interesting look at a subject I knew nothing about. Would definitely recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about drinking culture, feminist history or the ways in which sexism permeates so many different aspects of people's lives.
I just finished this.
Mallory O'Meara crafts a brilliant exploration of the history of woman and alcohol - Which is incredibly important because there isn't much of a history OF alcohol without women. You see - Vinting, brewing and distilling have always been the purview of women across just about every culture in the world.
And because we all love drinking so much, any time the woman's duty of alcohol production would begin to produce a modicum of financial and social independence, laws and religion were used as cudgels to prevent any further success on the part of women.
Important - and often infuriating - to read. All this while being clever, dry, and whip-smart. An excellent book!
Mallory O'Meara crafts a brilliant exploration of the history of woman and alcohol - Which is incredibly important because there isn't much of a history OF alcohol without women. You see - Vinting, brewing and distilling have always been the purview of women across just about every culture in the world.
And because we all love drinking so much, any time the woman's duty of alcohol production would begin to produce a modicum of financial and social independence, laws and religion were used as cudgels to prevent any further success on the part of women.
Important - and often infuriating - to read. All this while being clever, dry, and whip-smart. An excellent book!
informative
fast-paced
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, Alcohol
Moderate: Racism, Transphobia, Lesbophobia
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
A really interesting and surprisingly in-depth look at the history of women making and drinking alcohol with a ton of new information I didn't know. If I have one mild 'complaint' it's that the flow of the chapters was a bit weird to me since she had one woman from each time period that she would kind of follow throughout the chapter but also jump around to talk about other women in other places. I'm assuming it's probably sectioned off better in the print version but I listened to the audio [which I would definitely recommend since O'Meara reads it herself] and I would often feel like I was getting whiplash as it would switch to what was essentially an entirely different topic 'mid story'. Would definitely recommend to anyone who is interested in women's history or alcohol. I personally don't really know a lot about alcohol or drink very much but I think she did a good job of explaining everything in terms that anyone can understand.