'A female with a record like this ...represents all that is rotten in society nowadays'

I only skimmed the article and was similarly at the judges comment.

But what her history is is irrelevant to the feminist issue, isn't it? The point is, why did the judge feel that it was so much worse for a woman to behave like this than for a man to, that it was worth commenting on?

It makes no difference if she just loved being drunk and getting angry; or if she was doing it because she was in desperate emotional pain. She still shouldn't have been held up as a symbol of all that is wrong with our country, when a man wouldn't have been.

Self-harming to the extent this girl seems to have engaged in is usually a reaction to something pretty severe eg arms cut to ribbons, and jumping off buildings. And when it's a 'respectable' family people don't like to think that it might be sexual abuse, though sexual abuse does happen in respectable families and the pressure on the victim to keep quiet about it is more intense.
THough, OK, sometimes some people really are just 'wired wrong' and develop all sorts of problems. I have (for goodness knows what reason) several friends with some history of self harm and the root cause has not been sexual abuse (yes, they would have told me if it had been) though there's usually been an external trigger of some sort in the beginning such as bullying, or loss of some kind.
We don't know what's wrong with this poor girl but that there is something wrong with her rather than her just being a Bad Lot is blatantly obvious.

it's not a case of self-medicating, there genuinely are problems with alcohol processing in their biochemistry.

No one's ignoring their suffering - far from it these days.

There doesn't necessarily need to be anything behind her behaviour - did she say when she started self-harming? That could have been in response to her drinking, rather than a separate issue.

Marian Keyes, in her autobiographical bits, said pretty much the same about her first drink - it made her feel different and she liked the feeling.

There could also be a genetic factor - the Aboriginal people in Australia nearly all have a problem with alcohol when they start drinking it - they don't process it well and it causes massive problems within their commnunity. There are other races (can't remember which at 4am!) that have similar low-tolerance and processing issues with alcohol - it's not beyond the bounds of belief that this girl has too.

I think the judge is up there with Judge Pickles for his statement - ridiculous to blame one woman for, or suggest that she is the worst offender in the current situation re. alcohol abuse in Britain.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one Dittany. Some people are just made in a certain way. Some people sail through life while others struggle in the exact same circs. Some people have a brain that reacts extraordinarily to chemical stimulants, others don't.

Yes there may have been something awful in her background. But then again, maybe not. We don't know.

The great thing is that she has stopped drinking.

No, it's disgraceful. Who decided women had to held to a higher account? So we get to be underpaid and yet still have to behave better? There ought to be a way in which judges can be held accountable for this sort of thing...

The second part was about fellatio's point.

LRD I agree with you there. Some people just do this stuff, sometimes there isn't a deep dark secret or something terrible going on in the family. She said in the article that when she had her first drink it was a revelation - some people are just like that with booze. Of course she may have something in the background - who knows - but I don;t think it should be assumed when there is no evidence for it apart from non-standard behaviour.

Women have always gone out and got well pissed and into trouble - look at the gin palaces and so on - and the ones who behaved like that have always been looked down on as being poor examples of womanhood/letting their gender down etc etc. I do not believe there is a greater propensity to drink and poor behaviour when drunk between men and women - simply that men's bad behaviour when drunk has never been stigmatised as much as the same behaviour in women and women's public drinking has been policed by society quantity-wise.

I know fairly young people who say things like "there's nothing worse than a woman drunk" etc - it's an attitude as old as the hills and is a double standard.

I don't think a man with a record like this would cause less concern - just less surprise.

I just take his comments as an observation on the differences between men and women's behaviour generally. As a general rule, men have always been more physically violent, more prone to lose their temper, less risk-averse, less nurturing, less cautious, more drawn to adrenaline/testosterone fuelled activities that can lead to trouble and crime, and women tend to be all the opposites of those things. Whether you like it or not, it's a biological/evolutionary thing. It is (or was) pretty unusual for a woman to have this level of violent anti-social dysfunction. The fact that this girl does and increasingly, more women do rival men in this respect is a sign that alcohol related anti-social behaviour has got way out of hand, and is now affecting a group of the population who repviously would havebeen considered low risk. It is a (admittedly very generalised) biological judgement on women rather than a moral one I think.

Yep beat up women, men, stole, caused damage, drink driving, offensive behaviour.

But hey....he was a loveable drunk yeah? Just a bit misunderstood.

I would have liked to hear more from her parents side really, this article was a bit glossed. I have never heard of her before.

I'm from Bromsgrove.

Nope I totally agree the emphasis is unfair.

Surely she could have been made out to be a loveable drunk like George Best, getting into amusing drunken scrapes, receive a liver transplant on the NHS in a few years and then piss it up the wall again.

Or perhaps she doesn't have the celebrity tag for that...either.

I'd like to know that ISNT. WHy would someone argue till the cows come home that a judge wasn't sexist
it's non-sexist judges that make the news round here

well exactly. you never know what has gone on in her life until now.