Maenads and ritualized female liberation

Whether you believe all wine moms are members of ANTIFA or that they’re just apolitical white ladies with too much rosé all day, it’s irrefutable that drunk and high mommies have a long, loaded cultural and political history.

Centuries before mommy juice and Mom Water™, before the Bad Moms movies and the giant wine glass memes, moms were getting high to escape the crushing demands of marriage and motherhood. And we can’t really blame them?

In this episode, we go deep on inebriated moms, digging into both progressive and conservative characterizations of moms who get drunk and high, and we consider the wine mom’s political potential today.

What does the wine mom tell us about gender, power, and feminism? What does she tell us about individualism and collective belonging? And what has the absence of a social safety net taught these gritty moms about fighting authoritarianism?

Love them or hate them, drunk and high moms are one of the most important cultural figures for understanding the feminine paradox of agency and refusal under patriarchy. The conservatives who have come for this beloved figure should be shaking in their fascist boots.

So get cozy, grab your glass of wine—or your sparkling water if you are, like Amanda, a recovering wine mom. We are traveling through time to give you the definitive feminist history on the wine mom.

This is a totally free episode. Isn’t that nice? That said, we are a 100% reader supported podcast. We do this show because we think it’s urgent and important. But we have bills to pay. If you want access to extra episodes every month, including bonus episodes on the latest culture and politics, AND if you want to know that you are keeping us afloat, upgrade to a paid subscription.

Show highlights…

2:40 Amanda was born for this episode.

5:30 When we talk about wine moms, we have to talk about patriarchal trauma. But in this episode, we do it in a fun way?

6:00 No moms were moralized in this episode.

8:30 Wine moms are key to understanding women’s agency under patriarchy.

9:30 To understand the wine mom herself, we have to go all the way back to the beginning, to the wandering womb.

11:00 Maenads drank and danced in the forest, which we’re into—to a point.

14:00 Queen Victoria was high all the time on all the drugs, and it seems not unrelated that she had nine kids.

15:00 Laudanum for depressed women, women who see ghosts, basically all the women.

17:15 Then the Victorians (and Freud) just gave everyone cocaine.

19:15 Men coercing women into drugging themselves, in another era of reasonable heteropessimism.

26:20 Working women drank; housewives took pills.

34:20 The OG wine mom was remarkably chill about her husband’s absence.

40:11 Tracy talks about her pre-pandemic writing on the wine mom.

42:02 Amanda talks about her pandemic writing on the wine mom.

46:22 We revisit the SNL wine moms skit.

49:55 Wine moms as a symbol of shared suffering and resistance—and a way for women to feel recognition and belonging through complaint.

53:20 No one asked for Mom Water.

56:55 The intersection between wine moms and the girl boss.

59:11 After the childcare crisis of the pandemic, the center of the wine mom could not hold.

1:00:00 We respond to the conservative demonization of so-called gangs of wine moms, and talk about what makes moms—whether they drink or not—so gritty today.

1:06:00 The paradox of the wine mom is the paradox of women’s agency under patriarchy.

Are you loving Dire Straights? Us too! Please share this episode in your group chat, on your socials, IRL, or on your next bad date. It goes a long way toward connecting us with listeners who need the work we’re doing—and in supporting this scrappy, independent feminist podcast.

We want to hear from you! Send us your pleas for advice and your stories at direstraightspod@gmail.com, or leave us a voice memo here. Please also tell us all your thoughts on the wine mom in the comments!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.direstraightspod.com/subscribe