Warning: may provoke unladylike behavior. via one light @ flickr
There seems to be a bit of a problem over in Britain, and it’s being blamed on ladettes. Ladettes are the female members of lad culture, and the best summary of how they are perceived was found on Urban Dictionary: “a young woman who behaves in a confident and noisy way, who drinks alcohol and may enjoy sport or other activities that are traditionally enjoyed by men.” I’ll confess that I’m not very well-versed in ladette culture, but that bland definition strikes me as harmless. But a few articles in the last week (one from The Mirror and one from The Daily Mail) make the point that ladette culture is behind a rise in “thuggish” violence throughout the UK: “Nearly 8,000 [young women] were fined for being drunk and disorderly in 12 months – up almost a third in three years.”
Let me make clear that, as a woman who very rarely drinks (and there are pretty amusing results when I do) and hasn’t hit anyone since the last time I smacked my little sister when we were both kids, I’m not endorsing whatever binge drinking or violent outbursts that the articles refer to. But the tone of the articles smacks of an odd blend of prurient interest and paternalism.
The Mirror article is accompanied by a picture of a young woman lying passed out on a bench wearing knee-high boots and a short black skirt, even though the actual text is more concerned with such things as violence. Even more bizarre is this bit: “The move comes after police warned that females are no longer the “calming influence” on male drinkers they once were.” Oh, good to know that’s the only reason women should ever be around alcohol: to keep tabs on the menfolk! Also this: “New figures show binge-drinking is out of control among “ladettes” who appear to be trying to outdo their violent male counterparts in the thug stakes.” Right, because that’s the only reason women would binge drink. Having gone to an all-women’s college, I can safely state that you don’t need men around to indulge in destructive/self-destructive behavior.
Then there’s this charming comment left on the Daily Mail article:
this is the one of the problems with women now,years ago their role was simple ,find a man.. have babies.. stay at home.today they are told to go out to work,told they have to compete with men at all levels.women simply can`t cope with modern life,so are turning to drink..
As I said, how charming.
I’m not about to stand here and minimize or condone uncontrolled alcohol consumption, especially when it leads to violent consequences. I’ve watched loved ones struggle with alcoholism for years. But there is never this level of shock when young men get thoroughly drunk or even attack people. It’s a boys-will-be-boys mentality that, while not approving of the behavior, tacitly accepts that it’s the “normal” way of things. The Mirror makes the point that “a quarter of all street attacks are now believed to involve sozzled young women.” (‘Sozzled’ is my new favorite word, by the way.) This means, of course, that the remaining three-quarters of all street attacks don’t involve young women. But that wouldn’t make for a terribly exciting article, now would it? It’s just easier to focus on the statistics that show not all women are the perfectly docile little ladies that our culture would love to believe they are — or should be.
I’m assuming Cap’n Charming’s comment is presented with his original punctuation. Men never drink in an attempt to “cope with modern life,” and women never drank before we got all careerist and stuff. Feminine Mystique? What’s that?
I have a question about that statistic: what does “involve” actually, well, involve? It could mean that women are the ones being attacked. It could mean that a single woman is in a group of men who all go apeshit on each other. Or it could mean roving lesbian gangs terrorizing the streets!!! Bad reporting, Mirror. Good fisking, s.o.a.l.g.!
Um, Hogarth’s Gin Lane, anyone? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin_Lane) British drinking culture has always been dysfunctional, has always involved both sexes and the DM can STFU. Plus ca change…
@PhDork: Yup, it’s presented exactly as it appeared. Amazing how the problem of women and drinking is all because women aren’t staying home to bear babies!
So, uh, men could never cope with life in the first place, it seems….
Bars are sooo much more fun than the bottle of vodka hidden behind the World Books, and, this is a giant plus, there are people to hit other than the children.
Yay! Progress!/snark
We were just called “tomboys” back in the day…
But the “calming influence” comment reminds me of one argument against same sex marriage – that marriage has a calming and civilizing effect on men, but only if it’s marriage to a woman. Hence my favorite exchange in this debate:
Andrew Sullivan: “Since marriage is a civilizing force, then shouldn’t we want more people to be married?”
Pat Robertson: “Andrew, it’s not marriage that civilizes men, it’s women.”
So if women are losing their calming influence on drunk men, are they also losing their civilizing-through-marriage influence?
Point of Information:
Here in the UK the Mirror and the Daily Mail are considered by most people to be the worst kind of right wing arseholery, and a waste of perfectly good low-grade paper. They constantly and consistently exhibit extremely misogynistic views, and this “OH GOD- the winmmenz has learnt how to drink OH NOES” article has been cropping up bi-monthly in various disguises for about a year now.
Christ, they’ve been complaining about ladettes since the beginning of the nineties. It just doesn’t change.
Sure, I think the Brits have a bit of a fucked-up relation with drinking,which is not a good thing, obvs, but that’s all of them, not just the girls. Which everyone knows, but it’s easier to blame women for everything.
@Plum-Pie: Good thing we can just take a stroll down Beer Street instead! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Street) Because if you drink beer, you’ll be happy and healthy, not like those terribly gin-drinkers. Eighteenth-century reductivism ftw!
TGIF, Harpies. I plan to take a stroll down Beer Street myself after work. Hopefully I can restrain the violent impulses that are brewing (ha!) just beneath my lady-like librarian’s facade. Otherwise, well, I guess you’ll read about it in the papers.
Frou-Frou, I am a native Brit and I don’t have a fucked up relationship with drinking.
This article is bollocks, and most people I know would not wipe their arse on the Daily Mail or the Mirror. They are just about every -ist going, and offensive to so many people I wouldn’t know where to start. “Daily Mail reader” is code for “zenophobe” in many circles. Just wanted to point that out.
um, sorry, didn’t mean to generalise that badly.But I do apologise
I’m also a native Brit, if that’s any help
@peenerbambina: Yeah, I do know the paper’s rep. It’s like the New York Post here in my hometown of NYC. The reason I do think it’s important to pay attention to even the most ridiculous “journalism” is that there are people who take it seriously.