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There is a link between drinking excessively and sexual assault. Drinking doesnât cause assault, but sexual assault is more likely to occur in situations where alcohol was consumed, the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism confirms. Research finds that the presence of alcohol can increase the likelihood of intimate partner violence.
You know this. So does Ann Mukherjee. Sheâs the new CEO of Pernod Ricard USA, the giant beverage company that includes brands like Absolut, Jameson, KahlĂșa, Malibu, and Glenlivet. Her job is to sell alcohol.
And when she was a child, she was sexually assaulted. Her attacker was intoxicated. Itâs her earliest childhood memory. She was four years old.
Mukherjee jumped to take the position at the liquor giant, stepping down from a C-suite role at the multinational company SC Johnson to head up Pernod Ricard. She says her first thought when she got the job was âNow I can create change.â
On Valentineâs Day, with Muhkerjee at the helm, Absolut Vodka will roll out a new ad campaign. Donât expect a chiseled man sinking an eight-ball into a pool table, a writhing, bikini-wearing model dripping in liquor, or any other booze-soaked male fantasy. Absolut Vodka is running an ad campaign about consent. âDrink responsibly,â Absolut ads will say, as usual. Then theyâll add, â#SexResponsibly.â
âOnly a Yes to Sex Is a Yes,â the campaign text reads. âBecause sex without consent is sexual assault.â The campaign is meant to highlight how accepting a drink from someone or even getting festively drunk in their presence doesnât equal consent.
âEveryone has the right to great sex. Why should they feel unsafe?â says Mukherjee. In about half of the sexual assaults that happen on college campuses, she points out, either the perpetrator, the victim, or both had been drinking before the assault. âThatâs why they think companies need to take a stand. And thatâs why weâre doing what weâre doingâwe think companies need to create a conversation around responsible alcohol use and consensual healthy sex.â
âI love to enjoy alcohol,â says Mukherjee. âThere is nothing wrong with that.â And the campaign isnât aimed at women, warning them to be careful. It is, as Mukherjee puts it, âabout the perpetrators that take advantage of those situations and it turns into something unsafe because they donât respect [no]. They donât respect consent and honor it.â
Mukherjee sees it as her jobâand the job of the brands she leadsâto help people understand the truth: that perpetrators are the ones responsible for sex crimes. After she was attacked as a child, she told no one what happened. âLike with any victim, youâre so scared,â she says. Then, when she was a young teenager, her mother diedâshe was hit by a drunk driver. As an adult Mukherjee was in an abusive relationship in which alcohol, she thinks, had a part. After she broke it off, she started volunteering with other survivors and saw that her experience wasnât unusual. âSeeing the role of alcohol play into the abuse of other women and other victims as well, itâs just unacceptable,â she says. âAnd so for me to have this opportunity as a CEO to be able to start this conversation, thatâs my responsibility as a leader.â
The company developed their ads with RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network) and will partner with the organization throughout the campaign and onwards. On Valentineâs Day, Absolut will donate $1 to RAINN for every share and retweet their campaign gets. Mukherjee has also signed on to join RAINNâs national board. She plans to continue working with RAINN and campaigning for consent long beyond the initial ad rollout.
âPerpetrators out there are abusing alcohol and using it as a weapon, and it needs to stop,â she says. âThatâs the dialogue we want to create. Everyoneâs been talking about âdrinking responsiblyâ forever. But now letâs put our money where our mouth is.â
âThis is the first time thereâs been a real partnership that involves a lot of public messaging and working together over the long term,â says Scott Berkowitz, founder and CEO of RAINN. âTheyâve made clear that they want this to be a long-term relationship. Our mission is very straightforward: Itâs to reduce the numbers of sexual assaults in the country. And I think their involvement is going to help us in that work.â
For some the partnership might come as a surprise. But for Mukherjee itâs just the natural, more ambitious expression of her values. Mukherjee spent years working with Chetna, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping South Asian women who experience domestic violence, as well as volunteering with other nonprofits that support survivors of abuse and violence. In separate conversations, she and Berkowitz used almost identical language to explain that drinkers should be held accountable for their behavior: Responsible drinking means âdrinking in a way that allows you to make decisions rationally, like knowing that you should not get behind the wheel of a car,â they both say. In other words: Drinking isnât an excuse for crime. And sex crimes arenât an exception.
Thatâs not a message thatâs come from an alcohol company before. Itâs not even a message thatâs come from mainstream culture.
âThere is less moral culpability attached to the defendant who is legally intoxicated,â wrote Judge Aaron Persky, in his decision to sentence Brock Turner to just six months in county jail, though Turner had been found guilty of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, Chanel Miller.
âCollege Women: Stop Getting Drunk,â read the headline of a Slate article by Emily Yoffe in 2013. âWhen [women] render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them,â she wrote.
Perhaps Jed Rubenfeld, a professor at Yale University, put it the most clearly, in the Yale Law Journal in 2013. âIs it so clear unconscious sex should be criminal?â he asked.
These comments crystalized a belief most people have heard from college administrations, respected newspaper columnists, and parents and authority figuresâthat drinking makes you vulnerable to sexual assault. If you drink, especially if youâre a woman who drinks, youâre at least partially responsible for your assault.
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Ann Mukherjee â Chairman & CEO North America