prohibition was in no small part about violence against women and children - ThreadSky

starshine.bsky.social • 1 day ago

prohibition was in no small part about violence against women and children

Also while I think Prohibition was a failure, as the War on Drugs has been, it was responding to intense social problems created by alcohol consumption. I think the Temperance movement had some really good points.

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starshine.bsky.social•1 day ago

also while it v much was a failed policy, it did reduce alcohol consumption afaik

pcberry.bsky.social•1 day ago

I don’t know that it was necessarily failed policy! Not my area of expertise but like, the whole point was reducing alcohol consumption. Nobody was just cracking open a cold one beforehand

pcberry.bsky.social•1 day ago

Alcohol, like every chemical compound that exists, is fun in small doses and socially cataclysmic in large doses

pcberry.bsky.social•1 day ago

Currently I’m sloshed and I’m filled with love for humanity and all the creation of ה׳. On the other hand if I did this every day I’d be useless at best

danlehner.bsky.social•1 day ago

Prohibition pretty much successfully did what it set out to do, there’s just obvious bad second-order consequences to a complete vice ban (e.g. organized crime)

krokerik.bsky.social•1 day ago

Alcohol consumption also dropped in countries that didn't have prohibition

jezzariddell.bsky.social•1 day ago

Because we couldn't export our booze! California hated prohibition, because we were making a lot of wine at the time, and couldn't sell it.

gigansprogress.bsky.social•1 day ago

And anti-immigration!

starshine.bsky.social•1 day ago

its a big tent

gigansprogress.bsky.social•1 day ago

unavaleable.bsky.social•1 day ago

Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion!

ratelimitexceeder.bsky.social•1 day ago

Probably a good study to be had about prohibition, water treatment, and decreased alcohol consumption + increased life expectancy.

starshine.bsky.social•1 day ago

theres the bit about people drinking more beer in london than water for a time, the claim isnt true but it does speak to a truth of sorts

ratelimitexceeder.bsky.social•1 day ago

Historical alcohol consumption patterns were tied to perceived and actual purity and it took the world awhile to trust the tap water. I’m sure prohibition helped with that.

djdynamic.ca•1 day ago

Will never forget walking into an establishment in London looking for breakfast, absolutely packed with people, asking if they had vegan food available, and it turned out they didn't serve food at all - everyone there was there for booze at 10 AM lol (would have 2008ish so not long ago!)

lordkeynes42.bsky.social•1 day ago

The other part is the Irish and Germans drank beer and not bourbon.

lordkeynes42.bsky.social•1 day ago

The out of control drunks were largely people here before the migration.

lordkeynes42.bsky.social•1 day ago

Pasture also basically discovered yeast and made beer something you would want to drink and not something that tastes like wet feet.

robertjbennett.bsky.social•1 day ago

I believe they did this with tea, boiling water, and infection in the UK in the 19th century

jezzariddell.bsky.social•1 day ago

Prohibition caused a lot of interesting things, but yeah, the campaign for its start was, "I would like my drunk husband to beat me up less".

jezzariddell.bsky.social•1 day ago

But let's not pretend this was a good or reasonable solution. Blanket bans always have unintended consequences.

wanderlib.bsky.social•1 day ago

Prohibition is best understood as 1st Wave Feminism trying its damndest to actually get the country to treat domestic violence as an issue.

celticdragon1.bsky.social•1 day ago

You see the temperance movement very much as a women's initiative in the 19th century exactly because of that

paddyunidos.bsky.social•1 day ago

I was recently reminded of this oral history
https://www.itskatiethornton.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-women-in-bars-a-minnesota-story-in-three-rounds-audio-documentary-out-now

wanderlib.bsky.social•1 day ago

There's a reason the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments were passed in quick succession.

clogsoveralabama.bsky.social•1 day ago

That's a very credible argument. It does not, however, justify Prohibition; at best, it illustrates that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, just like every effort by progressives to ameliorate an issue by trying to go after the means rather than the cause. [...]

clogsoveralabama.bsky.social•1 day ago

To expand on that, booze doesn't make men beat their partners. At most, it lowers their inhibition against doing so, but there's something else that makes them do it, and it's probably the same thing that causes them to drink. At the risk of indulging in pop psychology, [...]

clogsoveralabama.bsky.social•1 day ago

[...] I'd guess it's a feeling of not being in control of their lives, and they lash out at the people they have control over. And in case anyone feels inclined to blame capitalism, this kind of thing was rife in Russia under the tsars and communism as well.

dawnlm.bsky.social•1 day ago

Never really thought of it this way, but yes it was. I wish I had this connection when I was teaching high school.

nwgarcia.bsky.social•1 day ago

Including the abuse that comes from financial dependence! "My husband can't hold a job/my husband injured himself drunk at work/my husband spends too much time at the public house" = "Me and my kids aren't eating cause money isn't coming home and divorced is not allowed"

minionofmidas.bsky.social•4 hours ago

And female employment options are scarce / it's "not done" by respectable working class women / anyway there's no childcare available. But yeah, wife and children literally starving because he drinks the weekly wage (or too much of it, but sometimes all) every single saturday is the common trope.

whoopsexcuseme.bsky.social•1 day ago

And depressing to realize "pass a constitutional amendment banning alcohol" was easier to do than "pass a law against domestic violence"

ameripat70.bsky.social•1 day ago

That is an interesting point. Booze has caused quite a few problems.

ohdeerthermos.bsky.social•1 day ago

I think the lesson of prohibition is less "restriction is bad" and more "ignore social issues at your own peril"

lamorak.bsky.social•1 day ago

Prohibition ended up causing a lot of problems, but if I were alive back then and had anything resembling my current personality, I would have supported it as a means to reduce domestic violence. There’s a lesson there to think on what else might be unintended consequences of policies today I like.

phyphor.one-dash.org•1 day ago

Same whether it's prohibition against alcohol or sex work

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