TV & movies teach us tough women are hardcore boozers

There is a lot to envy in the on-screen female. These are women who can have extended conversations with their passengers while driving and not once looking at the road, dance unselfconsciously at house parties, enjoy simultaneous orgasms every time they have sex, never have to wait to be served at bars, and leave shops without paying. But most covetable of all?

Their ability to knock back a neat Scotch without so much as an ill-concealed wince.

In 40 years of a far-from-teetotal existence, I have never knocked back a neat scotch after a hard day and I don't think many other women have either. And yet, from the whisky-swigging, dirty-martini-downing Merlot-hounds depicted on telly and in the movies, anyone would think that, as a gender, women are now running on 80%-proof fumes.

Heroines like The Good Wife's Alicia Florrick, Scandal's Olivia Pope, House of Cards's Claire Underwood and Homeland's Carrie Mathison have their feminist credentials underlined by booze. Because what could be more empowered than drinking like a man?

How and what these sodden leading ladies drink is significant. Chardonnay is no longer considered an empowered tipple (too girlie) and is now predominantly used by Hollywood to characterise cliquey Californians (Big Little Lies), struggling mothers (Bad Moms - and pretty much every mum you'd like to be friends with on telly) and the out-of-control Amy Schumer in Trainwreck.

These are women who call Tuesday "Boozeday" and wear tank tops emblazoned with the slogan: "There are only three men in my life ... Johnnie, Jack and José."

I'm guessing that white wine and tequila shots will be much in evidence in the forthcoming film Girls Trip - reminding women everywhere that incapacitating yourself is in fact empowering, however paradoxical that may seem.

And the message gets through. After Trainwreck was released, sales of Bandit boxed wine - nicknamed "binge in a box" - jumped 22%, proving that female trainwrecks aren't just funny but aspirational.

Red wine and spirits are what the TV tough nuts now drink (except for Mathison, but she follows up her glass of white with a prescription drug chaser, so that's OK). Someone somewhere copied in every producer in the business on the "full-bodied Merlots are what real women drink and by 'real women' I mean 'women who act like men'" memo.

And, consequently, rather than sticking a giant Cohiba in Kerry Washington's mouth, Scandal writers have her spending a hefty percentage of her screen time slurping from an enormous goblet, which acts as a fashion accessory to the oversized white cashmere wraps she likes to wear while boozing (a term, "wine cardigans", has even been coined by her online following).

Like Banville, Florrick and Underwood, these women prefer to knock it back alone (subtext: like men).

It would be churlish to point out that for waistline and control-related reasons these kinds of powerful women scarcely ever touch alcohol in real life. Or, indeed, that far from making female characters look tough, the boozing makes them seem insecure and needy.

Producers have found their trope and they're sticking with it. It's fun, it's sexy and it's feminism in a glass.  - The Daily Telegraph

• This article was originally published in The Times.