As soon as liquor shops opened on May 04 in non-containment zones, people rushed to the stores with little thought of social distancing.

But outside one such store, people’s attention was drawn to the women standing in lines to buy alcohol. Because it’s 2020 but men can’t accept that women drink and buy liquor. 

Much like smoking, alcohol consumption is in no way a healthy habit. But, it is unhealthy for every human being who consumes it in excess. 

And yet, over the years, our society has maintained that while alcohol consumption is injurious to a man’s health, it is more injurious to a woman’s character. 

If a woman drinks alcohol, she is immediately branded as someone who has little shame, is low on morals, and is asking to be assaulted. 

And yet, the same assumptions are never made about men who drink. Rather, in their case, alcohol consumption is a sign of masculinity and virility. 

It is not just about the lockdown, or director Ram Gopal Verma’s tweet, for which he offered a clarification after facing criticism. 

It is about how, when you combine alcohol and women, then somehow men always have to offer their unsolicited advice. 

Much like how women react to other unsolicited things, this unsolicited advice is rarely, if ever, appreciated. 

We have the pretending-to-be woke men who let women know what drinks they can consume, and how much of it they can consume. 

Because how would women understand their own capacity and taste, right? 

And in the worst of cases, we have men plying women with drinks, just so they make take advantage of a woman’s inebriated state.

The same group of men that decided that a woman’s honor lies in her vagina, think that a woman standing in line to buy liquor is morally corrupt. 

The same group of men who believe they have a right to school women on abortion, menstruation, and basically female bodily functions, believe that alcohol consumption is a gendered concept. 

It is this section of society that proves, even under a nationwide lockdown, casual sexism will fly free. 

Well, here’s a newsflash for these men: the ‘patriarchal’ juice you’ve been sipping on has permanently rewired your brain to put toxic masculinity over logical reasoning.

Take this time under the lockdown to work on yourself, and once you’re mature enough, you may join the women for a drink.