Reporter: Tara Brown
Producer: Julia Timms
It's their idea of a fun night out but there's nothing pretty about it.
Half-naked, foul-mouthed women throwing down too much booze and throwing themselves at too many men.
And to cap off the evening, they're just as likely to pick a fight.
They're called ladettes or yobettes, a new breed of young woman hell-bent on outdoing the blokes and they're truly frightening, violent, selfish, with no sense of shame.
But not only are they hurting those around them, far more worrying is the damage they're doing to themselves.
Story contacts:
Anyone with any anger management issues should contact:
Sydney-based organisation Enough Is Enough
www.enoughisenough.org.au
or for any general counselling enquiries:
Relationships Australia
www.relationships.com.au
Full transcript:
TARA BROWN: This is Rose Nestor by day. A 24 year-old professional from Ballarat.
ROSE NESTOR: Let's have some fun.
TARA BROWN: And this is Rose by night a party animal who has no sense of shame. This is a party bus of Aussie ladettes on a normal night out. A night where the aim is to out-drink and out-sex the blokes.
ROSE NESTOR: Tonight, we are going to go out there and be the bloody blokes. Get laid, get your tits out and drink down large amounts of piss. Everyone is getting laid. It's like I have this second character called Sharon that just comes out when I have been drinking. And she is a real ocker Aussie, and it always gets a laugh.
KELLIE MCDONALD: Are you ready to pick up another shot?
TARA BROWN: Another City - another girl, but the same drunken antics. 20-year-old Kellie McDonald is on a four-day bender. Every week, from Thursday to Monday she does not stop boozing. Or trying to match it with the boys.
KELLIE MCDONALD: I am a big drinker, a very big alcoholic drinker. I do not stop once I start, I am a party animal.
TARA BROWN: So, you look like a good girl but act like a bad boy?
KELLIE MCDONALD: Yes, you could put it like that.
TARA BROWN: Kelly and Rose represent a new breed of young woman
ROSE NESTOR: No-one will see your face, and you gotta press 'em.
TARA BROWN: Around the world they're called 'ladettes' but here they're quickly earning a more disturbing title - 'yobettes' Big drinkers, sexually aggressive, increasingly violent and they don't care who they hurt or who they offend. The bottom line is you do not really care, whether anyone approves or disapproves of your behaviour... ..do you?
KELLIE MCDONALD: Pretty much, yeah. I'm going to go out and have fun and be me. If people don't like it then they don't like it.
TARA BROWN: Are girls behaving differently? DR
KAREN BROOKS: Yes, and in fact there is evidence that it has really escalated too. The extreme drinking, the idea of the girl as being sexually assertive if not aggressive, and the predator after the boy. And also being physically violent.
TARA BROWN: Sociologist and university professor Dr Karen Brooks says there is a generation of women who see men behaving badly, and believe they have the right to do the same. What message is that sending out? GIRL: I think that independence is great for women, but you don't have to out-do the blokes.
TARA BROWN: For some, it is a hard message to hear. Especially when high-profile women are celebrated for some very low acts. DR
KAREN BROOKS: We see the Amy Winehouses and even the Britney Spears' and the Paris Hiltons falling down drunk, getting arrested, being abusive and yet they get so much attention that is seen as something positive.
TARA BROWN: So even if the intention is negative, even if they are pilloried, they still see this as something they want to do? DR
KAREN BROOKS: It is attention. We live in a voyeur culture. People like watching each other and if it means these girls get watched, then to them that is a positive consequence of their actions.
TARA BROWN: On her night out, Rose was making all the first moves. Dirty dancing, and kissing a complete stranger in front of a big crowd. But this exhibition is not about attraction, it is because she can. So you aim here was to do what with this guy?
ROSE NESTOR: Just treat him like a piece of steak.
TARA BROWN: A piece of meat?
ROSE NESTOR: Yes. It is about winning. I like beating them at their own game. I did not care who it was. I was going to go get him, have him, then get rid of him. Bin him.
TARA BROWN: It sounds a bit sad, Rose?
ROSE NESTOR: Can I frisk you? MAN: Can you frisk me?
ROSE NESTOR: Can I frisk you?
TARA BROWN: It is it too simple to blame alcohol solely? DR
KAREN BROOKS: Yes, absolutely. Alcohol is completely part of the problem in certain situations. Alcohol fuels it. It is also a convenient excuse for a very bad behaviour. They are making choices here and they choose to behave like that.
TARA BROWN: Despite appearances, Rose is an independent and funny woman and she is deeply giving, caring for people with disabilities. It is just when the ladette in her comes out that is all people see. And it has got her into serious trouble. Sacked from various jobs and picked up by police. On one night for attacking a bouncer. What do you think of being locked up by the police? Aren't you embarrassed by it?
ROSE NESTOR: Ahmm...no. I mean, I like to do everything once. If I could have drawn the line at once for that event I would have been probably pretty satisfied.
TARA BROWN: Rose's parents Chris and Christine are very traditional very down-to-earth people. They are still struggling to work out how their once angelic daughter has turned into a wild child.
CHRIS NESTOR: It is just something you never thought could happen. Mainly it was the boys and men were the ones that get themselves into that sort of situation. But it is our daughter. It is certainly very hard to take.
TARA BROWN: What you think of your daughter trying to hurt a bouncer or anyone?
CHRISTINE NESTOR: It is ridiculous. Just ridiculous. But it is the drink, isn't it. They're all very angry girls, I think.
TARA BROWN: What are they angry at?
CHRISTINE NESTOR: I think everything, the men mainly.
TARA BROWN: Assaults, malicious damage, robbery, crimes most commonly committed by men and now increasingly being done by females. In fact, in the last 10 years and the number of under-aged girls linked to crime has more than doubled. As these confronting images show, the violence is the hardest to stomach. Why are women feeling the need to be violent towards one another and towards men? DR
KAREN BROOKS: From the moment a child is born in this day and age, somebody has calculated that by the time they're 18 they have seen over 200,000 violent images. We even have terms for some of this stuff - road rage, trolley rage. We are a society in love with rage. It is in their arsenal of weapons if you like. Whereas before it might have been a comment, a derogatory comment, now it is a fist.
KELLIE MCDONALD: There is a hole in the wall from where she would not give me the money to go out. And so, it is either the wall or something else.
TARA BROWN: Kellie McDonald is a girl out of control. She is repeatedly threatened her mum with violence, always looking for her next drink.
KELLIE MCDONALD: These are from this weekend, they were all full.
TARA BROWN: From this weekend? You have drunk all this this weekend?
KELLIE MCDONALD: Yep, and that is not including the case of Cruisers and all the other stuff I get my hands on.
TARA BROWN: And with this much alcohol on board, Kelly is a frightening girl when she is out in Sydney's pubs.
ROSE NESTOR: You are making a fool of yourself right now. I get revved up quite easily, so if someone says something and I disagree I usually say something back and I am the first person to say OK, "if you want to go then let's go"
TARA BROWN: What? Fight?
KELLIE MCDONALD: Yep, I do not go looking for a fight but if there is one in front of me and someone is egging me on to go do it then I am not going to hesitate.
TARA BROWN: Is that women or men or both?
KELLIE MCDONALD: Both.
ROSE NESTOR: Shock therapy - you want to shock people all the time is what you do.
TARA BROWN: This is a woman in trouble. Kellie has not yet turned 21 but already she has battled an ice addiction. Has been caught shoplifting. And even though she denies it, continues to steal from her mum Kerry. KERRY MCDONALD: I have never stolen anything in my life.
KELLIE MCDONALD: Yeah but, I am an attention seeker. If I want something, I'll do anything I can to get it.
TARA BROWN: What distresses you the most about her behaviour? KERRY MCDONALD: I don't know, one day she will go out and I will get the phone call that she is never coming home. Or that she has been raped or assaulted.
TARA BROWN: Last month, Rosemary Gill got one of those awful calls. Her 17-year-old daughter Julianne had been bashed by a group of five girls. As she walked home late one night here in Casino in northern NSW. What happened on the night?
JULIANNE GILL: Ok, well, I made a run for it up to here, and one of the female attackers came from behind and pulled my hair and a standard punching into the back there.
ROSEMARY GILL: That is how deaths happen isn't it? When they had her on the ground and put the boot into her, that shocked the living daylights out of me.
TARA BROWN: When you expect to be able to get over this?
JULIANNE GILL: It's definitely not something I'm going to forget. it is going to take a lot of time to heal. It will always be in the back of my mind wherever I go.
TARA BROWN: It is clear, the trauma of the assault is still very raw. You are not feeling very safe here at the moment? Ok, you should go then. Julianne is shattered by what happened to her, but according to Karen Brooks the growing violence and ladette behaviour amongst women, are also at symptoms of damage and unhappiness. DR
KAREN BROOKS: On one hand they're shutting people out, they are being aggressive, they're saying - "keep away from me or I'll thump you" or whatever. On the other it is really a cry for attention and a cry to be accepted and embraced and I think the fear of being hurt, they hurt first.
ROSE NESTOR: It starts with the prowl.
TARA BROWN: Rose seems happiest when she is the centre of attention. But behind the act, Rose is a pretty sad girl. Treated badly by men in the past, she now goes out of her way to do the same to them.
ROSE NESTOR: Can I give you a score? I don't let them in any more. I just go out as a spectator, parade around, play the goose. It makes me feel good. And go home with no one, but you know, no one can hurt me that way.
TARA BROWN: You're only 24 Rose, but it sounds that you have given up on life? Is that how you are feeling?
ROSE NESTOR: I dunno.
KELLIE MCDONALD: In my eyes there is no point going out having one or two. I go out, to drink, to get pissed, to have fun. A lady shouldn't do that, so...
TARA BROWN: So there is part of you that wants to stop that?
KELLIE MCDONALD: Yeah, there is part of me that wants to stop it but there is a part of me going - "you're young, enjoy it."
TARA BROWN: You reckon you will grow out of it one-day?
KELLIE MCDONALD: Hopefully. I think I'm a bit too scared to sit down and actually think about what could be making me tick, and do all that stuff.
TARA BROWN: What do you want out of your life?
ROSE NESTOR: A family. And to be a role model to my children. That's what I want. But with addicts like these, Rose seems a long way from fulfilling those dreams. And that is the risk for most ladettes. What starts out as fun becomes a way of life. Their bad behaviour defines them. But in his anything-goes world, it seems ultimately they're missing out on what they want most. If you want something so much what is stopping you from changing? What is stopping you from just going "OK, I am not going to expose my breasts on a bus."
ROSE NESTOR: Do you know what? I guess, this is personal for me, since I was a kid I have always wanted society's validation, that I am OK. You know. I want to throw it out there and say this is me, and I'm telling you I am not who I want to be. I am not OK. I need some help.
