This morning I woke up with a hangover softly pulsing in my left temple. 
 
 I took a quick inventory: Last night I went from happy-hour drinks with a former colleague (two glasses of rosé— or was it three?), then to dinner with a friend (another glass of rosé), then to a nightcap with another friend (a beer). 
 
 I don’t make a habit of bar-crawling on weekday nights the way I did when I was in my 20s and working in D.C. Now I live in Los Angeles, where I’m a freelancer whose meetings mostly take place over coffee and whose friends are more likely to suggest we go for a hike than a cocktail. And so when I do end up having more than a single glass of wine with dinner, I don’t beat myself up about it. 
 
 But this morning was different. When I felt the twinge of a hangover, I immediately thought of an essay that I — and, judging by Facebook and Twitter, almost every woman I know — read recently. In it, writer Kristi Coulter makes a deft and passionate argument that modern women drink to excess to escape the realities of living in a still-too-sexist world. “I see that booze is the oil in our motors, the thing that keeps us purring when we should be making other kinds of noise,” writes Coulter, who is now sober. 
 
 Coulter describes blowing off steam after serving on a sexist panel at work by drinking Manhattans and eating some expensive tapas with her female friends. She calls out women she knows for inserting alcohol into every social scenario, from a morning walk through the farmers market to a trip to the waxing salon. “Maybe all that wine is an Instagram filter for our own lives, so we don’t see how sallow and cracked they’ve become,” she writes. 
 
 Her essay is getting a lot of attention because it’s incredibly well-written and because it does what all compelling trend stories do: It helps us notice something that is ubiquitous in our lives and draws some firm conclusions about the deeper significance. Naturally, Coulter’s firm conclusion — that women drink to cope with the pressures of living in a sexist society — has attracted some critics. In Slate, Nora Caplan-Bricker counters that “many men also spend their free time floating away from their problems on a river of booze. They don’t strike me as participants in an unrelated phenomenon.” We are all depleted by the demands of our lives, she writes. In other words, blame capitalism, perhaps, but not the patriarchy. 
 
 I don’t think Coulter is entirely wrong. But it’s also impossible to prove that she’s right. Like most women who call themselves feminists, I know that living in a sexist world shapes my life and choices. It’s probably why I feel “cleaner” with shaved legs and like to wear bright lipstick. In one specific instance, I’m pretty sure it’s why I was denied a promotion. In most cases, though, when it comes to decisions I make, it’s difficult to separate what is and isn’t related to the patriarchy. Do I feel more powerful with short hair because of the patriarchy? Do I pick my cuticles when I get nervous because of the patriarchy? Do I have a distant relationship with my mom because of the patriarchy? Did I get drunk last night because of the patriarchy? Who knows. 
 
 Women are also shaped by the culture we consume, which muddies the waters even more. Think Olivia Pope, the “Scandal” protagonist who self-medicates with red wine. (And always while wearing a white sweater, sitting on a white couch, never spilling a drop. It’s a perfect visual metaphor for Olivia’s need to be perfect in order to counter the twin demons of sexism and racism.) And Coulter mentions the women of “Sex and the City,” whose “f— it, let’s get cosmos” attitude is ancient pop culture history by this point. Women have a lot of models for booze as both a coping mechanism and a bonding tool. Are these shows merely reflecting real women’s propensity to drink to cope with patriarchy? Or, in drinking so much, are real women reflecting what we’ve seen so often in movies and on TV? I don’t know. 
 
 What I do know is that I don’t share Coulter’s experience of having my female friends insist that all social interactions be lubricated with alcohol — again, I live in Los Angeles, where there are always at least a few drivers in the group who aren’t drinking. But she did make me sit up and take note of the way wine is coded as part of bonding among women of my socioeconomic status. On the podcast I co-host with my friend Aminatou Sow, we are often drinking wine as we record. Some episodes even feature the “glug, glug” noise of us refilling our glasses. In our online store, we sell a portable wine tumbler branded with our podcast logo. We also discuss the patriarchy a lot. I’d never considered that the two things might be related. 
 
 Even if they are, I’m not sure that’s such a terrible thing. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never had a drug or alcohol problem, but for me, drinking with other women isn’t just coping or complacency. It’s often about plotting. Sometimes, a few glasses of wine with friends is what helps me connect my outrage with a plan of action. Under the influence of alcohol, I’ve decided to dump a dude who wasn’t treating me right, committed to revamping my career and, honestly, had a lot of fun. Perhaps some women who drink together are victims of groupthink and ignoring their problems. But I associate it with forming deep bonds. And maybe alcohol keeps some women silent. For others — myself included — it can embolden us to say what we were too afraid to say when we were sober. Drinking together does not always mean screeching and splashing in the shallow end of the hotel pool. 
 
 Maybe patriarchy does drive us to drink, just as patriarchy drives us to shave our legs and wear bright lipstick. Or maybe it doesn’t, and we get drunk for the same reasons that men do. Either way, I’m less concerned about what draws women together over a bottle of wine, and more interested in what we do once we get there. Coulter writes, “Work is hard and there’s still no good way to be a girl and I don’t know what to do with my life and I have to actually deal with all of that.” 
 
 I have a good idea about where to start. Let’s plot a revolution together. I’ll bring the wine — but don’t worry, you don’t need to drink if that’s not your thing. 
 
 Correction: This piece initially stated that writer Kristi Coulter described drinking half a dozen Manhattans with her friends. In fact, Coulter merely described drinking an unspecified number of “rye Manhattans.” ||||| Teigen gets real about her struggle with alcohol and holds nothing back 
 
 Chrissy Teigen is the goddess of authenticity, and an expert at telling it like it is. Her latest dose of brutally honest, what-you-see-is-what you-get reality? Her struggle with alcohol. 
 
 Teigen recently opened up to Cosmopolitan, explaining why she was drinking a Red Bull while everyone else was sipping frosé cocktails before an event. 
 
 “I was, point blank, just drinking too much,” she admitted. She said her drinking went from a drink or two here and there, and then spiraled from there. 
 
 “I got used to being in hair and makeup and having a glass of wine. Then that glass of wine would carry over into me having one before the awards show. And then a bunch at the awards show. And then I felt bad for making kind of an ass of myself to people that I really respected. And that feeling, there’s just nothing like that. You feel horrible. It’s not a good look for me, for John, for anybody.” 
 
 Teigen, her husband John Legend, and 16-month-old daughter Luna spent the summer traveling to places like Italy and Bali (ummm…jealous!) before they get ready for another round of IVF treatments. While the family was in Bali, Teigen went to a wellness retreat to reset her health. She eschewed alcohol entirely, ate more healthfully, exercised, and generally felt amazing. She admitted that staying the course will be more difficult once she’s back in the Hollywood scene and the stress of daily life takes hold, and she hasn’t ruled out going completely sober. 
 
 With her lifestyle, where cocktails are constantly replenished, Teigen admitted that she didn’t “know how to go to an awards show and not drink.” And while awards shows might not be something the rest of us can relate to, the parenting-and-booze duo can be a difficult one to escape. In fact, sometimes it feels like motherhood and wine memes go hand in hand. 
 
 Teigen said there’s a history of alcohol abuse in her family, and she has trouble having just one drink. She said that alcohol isn’t compatible with the medications she takes for postpartum depression and anxiety. And even though no one suggested it was a problem to her, she began to worry that her alcohol consumption was heading in an unhealthy direction. 
 
 Our love of Chrissy Teigen is real and it is fierce. We stand and applaud when she claps back at haters who chide her for using IVF, mom-shamers who lecture her about how to hold her own damn baby, and the busybodies who want to know the intimate details of her struggle with infertility. We nod our heads when she gets real about the challenges of breastfeeding, we laugh our asses off when she trolls the trolls, and we give her virtual fist bumps when she tries (and fails) to stay awake at the Oscars. (Seriously, who can stay away past 11:00 at night anymore?) Teigen is is fully committed to her family, fresh out of fucks for things that don’t matter, and never fails to tell it like it is – and we love her for it, just like we love and support her for making this difficult admission and taking care of herself. 
 
 “I used to think it was kind of nutty to have to go totally sober, but now I get it,” Teigen said. “I don’t want to be that person… I have to fix myself.”
– A recent essay on Quartz by Kristi Coulter has been making waves on social media, with a (now-sober) Coulter saying she thinks 21st-century women guzzle too much hooch to forget about the sexist world we live in. Ann Friedman offers her own take, writing for the Washington Post that even though she takes some of Coulter's "well-written" points to heart, she's not completely on board with Coulter's conclusion, noting it's "difficult to separate what is and isn't related to the patriarchy." "Did I get drunk last night because of the patriarchy? Who knows," she says, listing other woman-related issues (e.g., a penchant for short hair, picking at one's cuticles) that could theoretically be linked to a male-dominated society. Friedman lays out why she's reluctant to fully toast Coulter's thesis, noting many men also drink to deal with the day-to-day, and that pop culture—especially via boozy women protagonists on TV and in the movies—has much to do with it, too, presenting alcohol "as both a coping mechanism and a bonding tool." And she cites her own personal imbibing, relaying how her boozing sessions tend to serve a more active "plotting" purpose to direct her "outrage," with her drinking buddies serving as sounding boards. "Maybe patriarchy does drive us to drink, just as patriarchy drives us to shave our legs and wear bright lipstick," she concludes. "Or maybe it doesn’t, and we get drunk for the same reasons that men do. Either way, I'm less concerned about what draws women together over a bottle of wine, and more interested in what we do once we get there." (Her entire essay here.)