Drinking isn’t the problem
After-work drinks have long been grouped in with such social/occupational crossover terrors as the seasonal office party and the working breakfast, where the hazards of making an inappropriate joke or revealing more than anyone cares to know about your personal life loom like steeplechase hurdles.
But is there an additional, gender-based pressure to grabbing a drink after work with your co-workers?
Lauren Collins seems to think so. In a New Yorker piece this week titled “Are After-Work Drinks A Conspiracy Against Women?” she questions the “structural sexism in the workplace” in response to Jeremy Corbyn’s “Working with Women” manifesto.
In his announcement, the British Labour leader suggested that the “ethic of after-work socialization” is an effort by men “to promote themselves within the company,” while women are left on the sidelines, particularly if they’re mothers.
It seems as though Corbyn is actually revealing a much more obvious blemish through his nitpicking. Instead of labelling post-work libations problematic, perhaps we should set our sights on the expectations women face to run home after work and take care of the kids. That, of course, is a much more difficult issue to set in one’s crosshairs.
In my experience, when there’s a general congeniality between employees, there’s also an effort to schedule around each other, to work out times and places that work for everyone. The catch is when you don’t like your job, much less your coworkers, and suddenly after-work drinks become an entirely different issue. If you don’t go, will you lose points with your boss? Will that one snivelling co-worker earn a better chance at promotion? Will the men form a bro-clique?
Having worked in both male and female-dominated environments, I’ve felt like both an outsider and the exact opposite at social events. What helped me get comfortable was to start the conversation myself.
The fact is, for socializing with co-workers to work, you need to take the “work” out of it. As Oscar Wilde once said, “Work is the curse of the drinking class.” Associating it with any additional gain is risky, and it also places a bounty on a situation that should really just be a time to bond and get to know the people you may see more than your family in any given week.
If anything, this time should be used to help chip away at gender barriers. There are few equalizers like liquid courage, after all.