Women beware women
Aggressive women have always provoked anxiety. We have traditionally invested a vast amount of energy into socialising women to be thoughtful of others, gentle in disposition, and dependent - or, as John Ruskin once put it, "pure womanhood" was "enduringly, incorruptibly good, instinctively, infallibly wise - wise, not for self-development, but for self-renunciation" - traits that don't come naturally to anyone. Consequently, belligerent women are regarded as far worse than their male comrades.
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Only one-fifth of all reported violence occurs in or around pubs. Simply restricting women's drinking is not going to help, because excessive drinking is a symptom of the problem, rather than the problem itself. In a society that valorises displays of competitive assertiveness, is it any wonder that women are spurning traditional feminine mannerisms? And given that a great deal of male violence is taken for granted, even romanticised, why shouldn't young women decide that they too want "a bit of the action"?
More to the point, the disapproving attention given to ladettes ignores the fact that the main perpetrators of violence are still men. Males are responsible for well over three-quarters of all violent crimes, both on the streets and, more invidiously, inside the privacy of homes.
