Blokettes? The Local Take on Intl. Womens Day

Blokettes told to behave like ladies
LANE NICHOLS and NZPA - The Dominion Post Saturday, 08 March 2008

Blokette Kiwis have taken the "girls can do anything" mantra too far and forgotten how to be ladies. That's the message from the National Council for Women, which recommends a dose of finishing school for the country's party animals. It says they act more like men behaving badly than demure females.

It is urging young women to behave themselves, go easy on the drinking and stop trying to act like men. "Politically and economically, New Zealand women are blazing across the barriers," council president Christine Low said. [But] women need to realize that empowerment does not disenfranchise them from being a woman.

"Women need to know that it is perfectly acceptable to act and behave like a woman and not a `blokette' with something to prove to their male counterparts." Ms Low's comments - which marked International Women's Day - follow a Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey that found New Zealand women were the most promiscuous in the world. They had an average of 20.4 sexual partners, well above the global average of 7.3. New Zealand was the only country where women were more promiscuous than their men.

Enjoying an after-work drink last night at a Wellington bar, German-born Helene Wolf said Kiwi women drank just as much as Germans or Russians. "But for some reason there's a perspective that women's drinking is worse here than anywhere else. Maybe [New Zealand] women don't know how to behave."

(Mary Ann is keeping a close eye on me. I am not allowed out after 8:30 p.m. T.)