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It’s time to embrace hedonism and call out double standards, says Daisy Jones
IT’S THAT TIME OF year again, when unflattering shots of women spilling out of clubs and Christmas parties – perhaps stumbling on the street or eating kebabs on the pavement – spring up in the tabloids. The choice, size and placement of the pictures always reek of judgement. (Where are the pictures of men falling out of taxis?) Meanwhile, a new video series called ‘Manchester Nightlife’ has gone viral on TikTok, which focuses on women on nights out. Disturbingly, they don’t seem to be aware that they’re being filmed. Some have come forward to say they didn’t see a camera. It sparked further conversation when a man tweeted one video from the series with the question: ‘Why do so many young women do this to themselves?’ But, as Carol Vorderman questioned, what’s wrong with what they’re doing? Dressing up and having fun? While, for many of us, the term ‘party girl’ simply means a woman who likes to go out and socialise, who is dedicated to the pursuit of a Big Night Out, within the tabloids and elsewhere, the party girl label has often been used as an underhand way of shaming women.
Being a mother and enjoying a party is a double sin. Consider the recent furore around Sophie Turner, who has two daughters with Joe Jonas, and the media narrative surrounding her ‘party lifestyle’ after she was spotted out around the time of her divorce from Jonas. ‘Sophie Turner partied “without a care in the world” just days before Joe Jonas divorce’ one headline tutted. Another read: ‘Sophie Turner spotted downing shots at bar days before Joe Jonas filed for divorce’. The insinuation was that she’s a bad mother and wife. Would Jonas’s reputation have been smeared in this way had he been the one enjoying a night out?
Ione Gamble, author of Poor Little Sick Girls and founder of feminist zine Polyester, thinks the party girl label is weaponised as a way to drag a woman down, or to imply that she’s not a fit mother, which plays into the idea that a ‘good woman’ should remain at home after having children. ‘[The media] don’t care as much about a young Hollywood girlie out partying,’ Gamble points out. ‘They only care when it’s a woman who has something to lose and is acting outside of traditional “womanhood”.’
The problematic caricature of the party girl peaked
