Not quite what the Suffragettes had in mind

Evidence that given half the chance women will behave just as badly as men continues to emerge. Healthy living, it appears, has less to do with sex and more to do with financial and physical freedom.

The latest General Household Survey, which is put together from interviews with more than 20,000 people, demonstrates increasingly unhealthy behaviour amongst young women. Drinking levels have increased and smoking has become much more popular with teenage girls.

Marketing, the media and money are blamed — not genes. Lee Lixenberg of Alcohol Concern told the BBC: 'I think a major factor is that more and more young women have established careers. That means they have more of a disposable income now which gives them more freedom to drink.

'Another contributing factor is the fact that a lot of marketing tends to target young women in terms of the alcoholic products they sell these days.'

A third of 16-24 year-old women now drink more than the recommended limit of 14 units of alcohol a week — up from 17% in 1992. Meanwhile, among teenagers more girls are now taking up smoking than boys - 29% to 22%.

No Smoking Day director Ben Youdan said: 'There is a strong link between smoking and glamour. You often see pictures of models like Kate Moss with a cigarette in their mouth. Images and role models like these have quite an influence on young girls. With boys it is different because they are more associated with sportsmen like footballers.'

At work, senior female executives appear to hit the bottle just as much as their male colleagues. In a survey of 8,000 civil servants, men drank more than women but at senior level 10-12% of female senior managers were classified as 'problem drinkers'. The same figure as for male senior managers.

'The findings clearly indicate that for women the higher you go up the job ladder, the more likely you are to drink heavily,' Jenny Head of University College, London, who carried out the survey told the Daily Telegraph. 'The prevalence of drinking problems among women quickly catches with men and by the time you get to the senior grade positions, females are at an even higher level.'

'Looks like the socialist feminists were spot on,' said Jim Pollard, editor of malehealth. 'Women aren't from Venus. Men aren't from Mars. We're all from planet Earth. The problem is not men. The problem is society. Trouble is there aren't so many easy answers in that analysis. That's why the Men's Health Forum is campaigning for gender-sensitive rather than gender-specific approaches to health care.'