chick drinks and dude drinks

Waiters and waitresses in Thailand seem to have definite opinions about the appropriateness of beverage orders. These opinions are based on gender.

Last year, Husband and I joined many of our colleagues for an American style Thanksgiving dinner at a fancy hotel in Bangkok. Engaged Colleagues Who Are Getting Married This Week both ordered Shirley Temples; Husband and I each ordered red wine. The waitress brought all four drinks at once. Without asking or hesitating, she set the wine in front of the men and the Shirley Temples in front of the women.

Evidently a Shirley Temple is a chick drink. Or maybe wine is a dude drink.

Husband really enjoys a vile Thai concoction called cha yen, which consists of a miniscule amount of iced tea (I'm convinced it's just food coloring) mixed with a pound of sugar and three gallons of sweetened condensed milk. He often orders this when we go to lunch at a particular cafe (several times a week). I generally have coffee, water or Coke. Two to three times a week for an entire year, the waitress has set the cha yen in front of me and my drink in front of Husband. Is cha yen a chick drink? Why? Are coffee, water, and Coke all dude drinks? Why?

Cultural anthropologists, I smell a research paper.