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

[JaneS]

That's the comment from the judge who sentenced the girl in this article.

It's appalling, isn't it? I can't be the only one of us to think he should never have said that?

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/22/poster-girl-booze-britain-interview

The paper quotes:

"I don't think I have seen a more deplorable record? A female with a record like this ? it's absolutely despicable and represents all that is rotten in society nowadays"

The part starting "a female with a record like this" appears to be one phrase and is pretty bad IMO.

We could always have half the book one month and half the book the next...

I think the only firm conclusion is that the journalist quoted selectively.

Making conclusions on intent from partial evidence is guesswork, extrapolating that to typify The intent of others even more so.

That sentence would seem very different as part of several minutes of well-reasoned comment. We do not know whether it was or wasn't.

whatever ominolap
I've seen enough threads on here to know that some people can pretend not to see something that everyone else can see, even with hard evidence in front of them.
Then they can proceed to keep missing the poing for 50 pages.

missing the point

I mean, to use your hypothesis ominolap at the very least the "Selective quoting" of the journalist is highly sexist

Oh FFS how does this poor kid represent anything but someone with some fairly major MH problems? And given that, while it sounds like she's been a thumping nuisance to both those who care about her and the local authorities and services, there is no mention at all of any seriously bad behaviour such as GBH, burglary or even drink-driving; it all seems to have been disorderly conduct or petty criminal damage. So not exactly a major threat to society.

And just how much of a surprise will it be when it comes out that despite her naice middle class background, she was or is being sexually abused by someone she was too frightened of to name?

the sun

the mail

all reporting the exact same comments, and seemingly there wasn't much in the middle that the guardian had cut out.

They all say that he said it, so I'm prepared to believe that he said it.

Judges have a long and illustrious record of sexism, why is it such a horrifying suggestion that a judge might have been sexist?

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

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

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'm from Bromsgrove.

omnio, what do you think he might have said that would make the selected quotations seem ok?

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 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.

Actually, dittany, I don't like the implication that something bad must have happened in her life. We don't know that it did and the article makes the point that she didn't have a stereotypically disadvantaged childhood.

I don't like the idea that somehow, if she'd been more obviously disadvantaged, if she could dredge up and share some horrible formative experiences, it'd all be ok. It's not really our business why she drank like that, imo.

It reminds me a little of the coverage of the girl who was sleeping with - was it Wayne Rooney? - who turned out to have had quite a posh upbringing despite ending up as a call girl. The papers were all over the story and it seemed uncomfortable - as if it's somehow ok if disadvantaged girls end up as alcoholics or prostitutes?

• Sorry - I overused 'ok' there and apart stylistics it's confusing! I mean, I don't like the idea that some bad formative experience would 'explain' it all for us and make us accept her case as normal, par for the course.

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.

The second part was about fellatio's point.

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...

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.