So, the first thing to note is that it’s not all about the drinking. I mean, there is that, obviously. But we also do a lot of brunches. I fucking love brunch. Brunch is just the best parts of all the best meals you’ve ever had. In an unholy alchemical combination of lunch and breakfast, we have created something so much greater than the sum of its parts. No one’s ever got banned from anywhere for smashing up a brunch.
We’re pretty tame, I guess, compared to some of the more ‘established’ drinking societies. One of my more easily scandalised schoolfriends found out about my presidency and assumed that we run around Oxford behaving like the Bullingdon Club. She didn’t speak to me for a week, outraged at my apparent perpetuation of violent elitism until I gently explained that the reality is far less exciting. We have a lot of fancy dinners and alumnae events where we eat and drink and just generally love each other because we’re probably the best group of girls that you will ever meet.
Being the president of an all-women’s drinking society does endow you with certain benefits – there’s never a shortage of offers for crew dates, for instance. Legend has it that our society was founded around 15 years ago, set up by a group of pioneering girls as an antidote to the rampant sexism and privileged gluttony of the male drinking and dining societies at our college. Things seem to have greatly improved regarding the attitudes of our male counterparts since that schism (aside from the recent incident in which one boy was punched by a Fellow following a fairly heavy society dinner) and we now host a number of joint events with the boys throughout the year.
Our respective initiation events provide perhaps the most stark contrast in our attitudes to this whole ‘drinking society’ thing: while their prospective recruits have to drink a pint of vodka, ours simply drink one or two glasses of prosecco. It’s not that we couldn’t drink that much (from my experiences of going out with members of both societies, I’d say that many of our girls are actually far better equipped to handle their drink than a lot of the boys), but rather that we just think it’s a bit tragic. We’re comfortable enough in ourselves that we believe bonds can be formed between our members without the need for a trip to A&E or downing pitchers full of cat food and urine.
I’m occasionally questioned about the apparent exclusivity of our society, and of others like us. I understand the concerns – we only admit between five and eight members a year so I can see how we may give off a whiff of elitism. Our standards, however, aren’t exactly Bullingdon-level. The main criteria we have when selecting new members is that they’re someone we would all be happy to sit next to at dinner, rather than which school they went to or whether they can afford a velvet dinner jacket. Realistically, if you’re fun and nice, you’ve got a good chance of getting in.
