As a frequent visitor to the Isles [I had an English girlfriend for a couple of years before meeting my wife] I can say with some degree of certainty that a fair number of Brits are drunks. Or, at least, binge drinkers. A British friend I know who works with their AA once told me that young Brits are five times more likely to be alcoholics than American Brits. Based purely on my experiences, I don't doubt it.

If appealing to a young woman's vanity works to cut down on binge drinking then that's the way to go. [That also goes for appealing to vanity to fight obesity and, of course, applies equally to males.] I have my doubts, however, that this ad campaign will work. For a huge proportion of British youth, a good time out means hitting the bottle hard.

PC P.R. misreads the British text, which appeals to fear of embarrassment, not vanity. Referring to fancy pants is a polite way of alluding what's going to be on public display.

British discourse is all about indirection, politeness, face. American literal-mindedness gets you only so far in deciphering it.

Page has a point. It's not so funny the way she tells it. But I'd bet that Joanna Lumley or John Cleese could make it hilarious.

The author obviously isn't particularly famaliar with british youth culture. Teenage lad-ettes, as they're called, attempt to outdrink, outsmoke, outeverything their male counterparts. Unfortunately, this distorted vision of female empowerment often puts young women in vulnerable positions. It's anyone's guess how best to combat this phenomenon but at least they're trying. I'm sure someone will eventually find some tactic which is effective, regardless of who it might seem to be disrespectful towards.

"There's got to be a way -- even a "gossipy, tongue-in-cheek" way -- to get young women's attention without disrespecting them in the process." -- Page Rockwell

When feminists agree on that way, let the rest of us know, OK? Because gosh forbid anyone anywhere ever tries any method whatsoever to dare suggest that girls or women take ever a smidgen of personal responsibility for their behavior, and here come the feminist police (this time in the guise of PR) nit-picking any--yes any--attempt to keep girls or women from actually becoming victims of sex crimes. Drink all you want, fuck all you want, who cares? It's liberated behavior, ladies! No one should ever dare tell us how to behave! We'll show them, we'll do it even more!

Well, fuck Broadsheet particularly and feminism in general (and not the nice kind of fuck, either) for being a large part of the problem instead of any part of the solution. Shame on you.

Its funny - I'm usually pretty sensitive about such things but, as an ex-pat Brit living in the US I have to say that I didn't pick up anything in that article that sounded bad. Remember, humour is different (and, Benny Hill aside, often a lot more "clever" and subtle, even if it looks overt) across the pond. This campaign sounds pretty funny to me.

EVERYONE knows that the standard British word for ladies' panties is "knickers!"

They aren't telling women to wear nice underwear. They're warning women that if they get too drunk they will lose control, make a fool of themselves, and make themselves vulnerable. Isn't this sensible advice?

Did I mention that the active ingredients in marijuana kill breast cancer cells without harming surrounding healthy tissue?

Oh no, you can't cover that story, because then you would appear to be approving of substance abuse.

And besides, what the hell does breast cancer have to do with women?

I guess I'm so off topic, I'd better shup up right now.

If this add is intended for teenaged girls, the humor seems appropriate. In Britain, the legal drinking age is 18, but most kids can start drinking at bars and pubs when they're 14 or 15. Fake IDs, lax enforcement, and general acceptance by parents make this possible.

(Yes, I know that U.S. teenagers drink, but they tend to do it out of the public eye, so the problem isn't as apparent.)

It's not a campaign telling people to please remember look nice when they get trashed, it's reminding people that when they get trashed they look *ridiculous*, cute knickers or not. It's an ironic way of asking young women to please not get so shitfaced that they wind up on their bums in public.

The author of this piece ends with:

There's got to be a way -- even a "gossipy, tongue-in-cheek" way -- to get young women's attention without disrespecting them in the process.

Ms. Rockwell may not be aware that women who get very intoxicated are potentially subject to far worse indignities than a police department warning that their panties could become visible if their skirt rides up.

Which is, by the way, accurate. The police department piece could have been a lot more explicit, mentioning that the intoxicated woman could be the victim of rape, even murder . . . which is also accurate. Probably the reason they didn't use this strategy is that they know that warnings of terrible consequences tend to get dismissed as too improbable, but warnings about relatively minor but embarrassing consequences are more likely to be heeded.

And what in the world is the author's reason for thinking that the police department is not also trying to decrease the risk posed by potential perpetrators of exploitation of intoxicated women? I bet they are already aware that a public service announcement requesting that no one exploit an intoxicated woman could be counterproductive, as in giving some evil men ideas they didn't have before. Anyway, frequent news stories (originating from the P.D.) of apprehended perpetrators probably serve this purpose more than anything else the police department can do.

Just remember: Instead of seeing this police department campaign, etc., as being benefical to women, always latch onto any excuse to complain about anti-woman threats. That way you will gain a great deal of credibility for your eternal vigilance. (Or not.)

I think I've got a pretty good handle on British humor, which I have always enjoyed, but Page Rockwell's observations are on point. It's not that she doesn't "get" the joke. It's that the joke is insulting to its intended audience.

Young men face a lot of risks from binge drinking too. I would wager that young men are far more likely than women to get injured during a night on the town -- whether by brawling, getting mugged, or taking stupid risks. Here in the U.S., the drunken college kid who walks off a balcony or gets killed doing cartwheels on the roof is almost always male. Yet, I can't imagine a gossipy/tongue-in-cheek public safety campaign either here or in Britain where young men are warned that beer bellies aren't very attractive or that they should take care to at least look sexy as they are free falling from the roof. These pamphlets do indeed imply that the intended audience of young women are vapid, vain, frivolous creatures who lack the sense to engage in an intelligent cost-benefit analysis of their behavior.

In addition, I think there is a subtle sexism (to the detriment of both sexes) in the plethora of one-sided warnings to women and women only about their vulnerability in public. Men are often equally vulnerable, or even more vulnerable than women, albeit in different ways-- and more clueless about their own vulnerability. Where is the hand-wringing about young men who, believing they are invincible, walk around drunk in dodgy areas at night, often getting jumped or mugged?