Women behaving badly! Girls who believe a woman's place is in the pub

THEY drink pints till they drop, grab men's private parts, streak through towns naked and ooze attitude.

Hold on to your pints boys because here come the ladettes!

This is the new generation of women who have shaken off the last shackles of traditional femininity and are going where no lady has gone before.

Natalie Imbruglia, Zoe Ball and All Saints are all gorgeous girls who like to dress up and act like boys. Their clothes are laddish and their behaviour is macho.

Partying action women in East Lancashire are turning the phrase "boys will be boys" on its head and showing that they can keep up with whatever the men do, be it smoking, drinking or wolf whistling.

This isn't equality gone mad. The ladettes don't see themselves as women acting like blokes. They believe they are gutsy women who fight for the right to do what they want, when they want, regardless of stereotypes or consequences.

Their tales are mad and amusing. They terrorise the opposite sex and their high adrenaline lives will make most men want to stay at home with a cup of cocoa and a good book.

Ladettes don't need men but if they fancy a bloke they won't hesitate to make the first move.

"They don't have a chance to chat us up. We get there first," said Michelle Everett. Brave blokes who chance a quick nip of their bums come off much worse.

"I turn round and give his privates a good squeeze. I make him yelp and show him up," said Michelle, a self-confessed ladette. The 19-year-old, who lives in Browning Avenue, Oswaldtwistle, has been arrested for fighting in the street and spends most nights in the pub.

She admits that she has spent many weekends in a drunken daze as she chooses drink over sleep and holds long parties at her home.

She prefers wearing trainers and a Liverpool FC shirt to a dress and high heels but admits she will dress ladylike to gain access to clubs.

Michelle, whose favourite drink is a pint of lager, said: "I've stunned a lot of lads. I can usually drink them under the table."

Michelle, who thinks nothing of drinking 15 pints followed by bottles of Budweiser and shorts, claims to have spent £70 on alcohol in just one session.

Boys who shout obscenities at her and ask her to expose her breasts are in for a shock.

"I usually tell them to get their private parts out too," she said.

She is more boisterous and daring than a lot of men. Blokes cross the street to avoid her.

"Me and my mates sing and dance down the street - anything to attract attention to ourselves. We are intimidating to guys. They cross the street when they see us." Michelle, a promoter for Utopia nightclub in Blackburn, said: "I get called a tomboy but I prefer to be one of the lads than bothering about my hair and nails."

Michelle streaked naked through a town in Ibiza.

"It was raining, so we ripped our clothes off," she said. "We also went to a club in our bikinis."

Defending her behaviour, she said: "Women have been taking aggro from men for too long. We are fighting back. I've always been like this. My mum wants me to quieten down. I don't mean any harm by it. I'm just a mad, up-for-it girl who gives as good as she gets."

Teresa Garsden, 24, of Tythe Barn, Darwen, is a receptionist and party organiser for Utopia.

Her favourite tipple is a pint of cider. She frequents pubs or clubs every night of the week and throws all-weekend parties at her home.

"I mix my drinks all the time," she said. "I sometimes go right along the optics."

Teresa, who smokes 20 to 30 cigarettes on a weekend day, regularly guzzles one bottle of wine, six pints of cider and seven bottles of Metz or V2 in one session and once suffered the effects of alcohol poisoning.

"I was throwing up and shivering. I said I'd never drink again - but of course I did."

Her other exploits have been collapsing drunk in someone's front garden, slapping a man who tried to grab her breasts, sitting on a coach with 52 lads singing rugby songs and hanging out of a car and grabbing a cyclist's bottom. If she travels to a club she takes a crate of beer for the journey and says she is always being told she is "full-on" by men shocked at her behaviour.

Teresa, whose favourite clothes are shorts or tracksuit bottoms, added: "If guys pull up in a car and shout obscenities I just shout back and they usually laugh and drive off."

Teresa's pet hate is landlords who assume she drinks halves rather than pints. She puts her behaviour down to having to stand up for herself with "bolshie farmers" she met while working as a horse riding instructor.

"I can tell dirty jokes with the rest of them now," she said: "I don't want to be a girlie. I'm not into getting engaged and thinking about houses so much as getting another drink in before closing time."

"Ladettes are outgoing, speak their mind and are boisterous. They are not afraid to go out and get what they want.

"Parents and schools encourage you to be individual, outspoken and do what you want. I don't want to dress up girlie and be quiet. I want to scream and shout!"

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