If your weekend plans include re-reading “Black Beauty” while drinking a few bottles of wine, then boy oh boy, do I have some podcast episodes for you. This week on Stuff Mom Never Told You, we took on two of the great passions of women — a good horse and a good cocktail.

How many women out there asked for a pony when they were a little girl? How many still long to own a stable full of horses? There’s a connection between women and these animals that has been hard for many writers to put into words, but we tried our best to summarize what they were trying to say. Thanks to our pal Freud, many will tell you that horses are sexual to women. Others will tell you that women are more empathetic than men, so they’re able to better communicate with this mysterious creature. Still others will talk about how horses are a great equalizer between men and women, because women can compete in the same equestrian events as men. And when things aren’t too equal, people will opine that horses are our means of riding away to freedom. Who knows who is right? I’ll tell you who. The horse knows, and he ain’t talking.

Our sources for this episode:

• “Dark Horses and Black Beauties” by Melissa Holdbrook Pierson
• “Girlhood in America: An Encyclopedia” by Miriam Forman-Brunell
• “Sold Separately: Children & Parents in Consumer Culture” by Ellen Seiter
• “Little Hans Case Study,” Simply Psychology
• “Women Are From Venus, Horses Are From Heaven” by Richard Bernstein, New York Times
• “Equestrian Equality: What Is It About Women and Horses?” by Norine Dworkin, Issues Magazine
• “Women and horses share sensitive traits of bonding” by Cate Terwilliger, Denver Post
• “Girls Who Love Horses” by Teresa Pitman, Today’s Parent
• “Gentle Heart: The Story of Anna Sewell” by Jen Longshaw, Nature of Animals
• “An investigation of human-animal interactions and empathy as related to pet preference, ownership, attachment and attitudes in children” by Beth Daly and L.L. Morton, Anthrozoos (available via library database)
• “Empowering Abused Women Through Equine Assisted Career Therapy” by Janet Froeschle, Journal of Creativity in Mental Health (available via library database)
• “Women Equestrians Jump a Title IX Fence” by Karin Winegar, Wall Street Journal (available via library database)
• “Gender Bias — in Horses?!” by Jennifer Forsberg Meyer, Horse & Rider (available via library database)

After a long day of riding, what’s better than a drink or two with friends? Or four? Or ten? After all, doesn’t drinking more make us more like guys? And keeping up with the guys is the path to equality! Drinking leads to equality! Sounds crazy, but that’s the line of reasoning that some writers have been using when discussing female drinking habits. See, women are drinking more than they used to, which has some people all in a tizzy. The women are claiming that they’re just relaxing like men do, but other women claim that female drinking results in ludicrous behavior that undoes all the hard work of the women’s movement. What say you?

Our sources:

• “Women and alcohol,” Harvard Health Publications (available via library database)
• “Gender differences about alcohol are sobering” by Bob Condor, Seattle P-I
• “Telescoping and Gender Differences in Alcohol Dependence: New Evidence from Two National Surveys” by Katherine M. Keyes, Silvia S. Martins, Carlos Blanco and Deborah S. Hasin
• “Middle -aged women drinking more than in their teens” by Rebecca Smith, The Telegraph
• “More Americans Drinking More Alcohol,” HealthDay News via U.S. News and World Report
• “Gender Bender” by Alex Morris, New York Magazine
• “Is Alcohol Really a Feminist Issue?” by Victoria Dutchman-Smith, The F-Word
• “Free to vomit in the gutter” by Angela McRobbie, The Guardian
• “Women on a Binge” by Jodie Morse, Time

Whether you’re riding horses or mixing up martinis this weekend, please do so safely. And please join Cristen and me on Facebook and Twitter.