Sugar and spice and all things nice - that's what girls are made of. Or are they? Is the traditional view of women as peace-makers being eroded by 'ladette' syndrome and a more aggressive female culture, asks Fionola Meredith

The belief that underneath the trappings of empowerment and liberation, the female of the species is at heart a soft and tender creature, brimming with nurturing maternal instincts, has recently taken something of a bashing. From the "black widow" terrorists of Chechnya to the vigilante women of Nagpur, central India, who attack alleged rapists and burn down their homes, the idea that women are innately peace-loving is contested on a regular basis.

Even the seemingly bland, commercially-motivated language of "girl power" has resulted in the phenomenon of the "ladette": the loud, crude, sexually aggressive young woman who has no problem in matching her counterpart "lad" pint for pint. As popular girls' magazine Bliss admitted: "Girls are taking on boys at their own game - and they won't rest until they've drunk them under the table, snogged their faces off and puked up in their laps."

There's no doubt that today's teenage girls are constantly bombarded with impossibly contradictory messages by a culture that implicitly encourages them to "act up", then excoriates them when they do. But are young women so immersed in the brash discourse of the ladette that they are translating this aggressive posturing into real acts of violence? Or are some young women growing up in environments so saturated by endemic low-level violence (or "social suffering") that they become brutalised themselves?

Neil Jarman of the Institute of Conflict Research in Belfast has been examining young women's experiences of violence in Northern Ireland. This afternoon he will present his initial findings in a paper to the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University Belfast, called "Teenage Kicks: Young Women, Violence and Disorderly Behaviour".

What does he hope this research will achieve? Jarman says: "I want to stimulate thinking about this issue; it's something we can't ignore. Traditionally, when studies have looked at women and violence, it's been as victims - usually either of domestic or sexual violence - but not as perpetrators. We have a cosy, romantic view of women as peace-makers.

"Often they're just not visible at all in the public arena. We do know that, in terms of victimisation, women are more afraid of physical violence, and have less of a role as active agents. And in relation to violent offences, there is a low proportion of women going through the courts: only one in 10, or around eight per cent of the total. But while these figures are low, they are going up. For instance, in Northern Ireland between 1993 and 2002, there was a steady increase of women in court for violent offences, from 166 cases in 1993 to 272 in 2002. There's enough evidence coming in to say that there's a real problem here. If we don't bring it into the public domain, we can't address it in policy terms."

Jarman's research surveyed samples of young people from a variety of social and religious backgrounds across Northern Ireland, including middle-class Protestant grammar school pupils, working-class Catholic secondary school pupils, and teenagers from inner-city housing estates in Derry and north Belfast. He found that there was a recognition of violence within all the groups: "Violence was in their sphere of understanding". Many had experience of being harassed, with Catholic girls reporting highest levels: "While one in five of Protestant girls said they had been verbally harassed, with the Catholic girls it was one in two."

But while Catholic girls were more victimised, Jarman found they were more likely to be involved in public disorder: mainly low-level activities such as graffiti and vandalism within their own community. In terms of which young people admitted to being violent, he says there's a sliding scale: boys first, then Catholic girls, and finally Protestant grammar-school girls. Teenage girls' participation in violence doesn't always involve direct physical confrontation. As Jarman observes: "Often girls act as cheerleaders for the boys, standing on the sidelines, carrying the beer. There's a bit of sexual frisson going on; the girls' presence enhances the machismo factor.

"Sometimes the girls will harangue the police, often berating them in a much more outspoken way than the more verbally reticent men. The young women are more abusive because they know the police are less likely to give them a baton round the head, or to frog-march them away. The police are much less inclined to arrest women."

Rose Roche is the director of the "Towards Reconciliation and Inclusion Project" in Derry, an organisation that works with school leavers and unemployed youngsters. She agrees with Jarman: "Even if girls aren't actually throwing the punches, they are increasingly implicated in acts of violence. But you do get some taking off their spiked heels and using them as weapons. Girls mix it up more than people think."

Jarman says that while the areas he examined in the samples are not known trouble spots in Northern Ireland, they do focus on young people growing up in a post-conflict society. Rose Roche reckons that historical background plays a part: "For instance, in the loyalist communities, at certain times of the year - such as the Twelfth - there's more of an understanding that you can participate in public disorder, that it's historically permitted, a time of riotous fun."

But she believes that other factors such as peer pressure and boredom contribute to teenage trouble-making. Drugs and alcohol are particularly implicated: "These are the social lubricators of violence. And teenage girls drink almost as heavily as boys: 12 units of alcohol on a Saturday night binge would be common." While the sectarian values that inflect patterns of violence among teenage girls in the North have less hold in the South, it's undeniable that alcohol and drugs have played a significant role in the upsurge in female violence across the country.

Although the number of convictions of women for violent crime has fallen slightly, a consultant in the emergency department of Cork University Hospital, Chris Luke, said last month, that his unit was seeing a noticeable increase in victims of female-on-female violence. They included patients with bitten hands, patients lacerated by broken glass and patients head-butted by other women. Dr Luke attributed this rise to a recent 60 per cent rise in female drunkenness and consequent "unrestrained hedonism". He claimed that gardaí were now more afraid of gangs of violent girls roaming the streets of Cork than groups of young males.

But Margaret Martin, director of Women's Aid in Dublin, says that women account for only a minuscule percentage of female convictions for violent crime in Ireland. She believes that an over-emphasis on female violence may distract attention away from what she sees as the far more pressing issue of male violence against women.

"Most people are still of the view that violence is largely perpetrated by men, both at home and in the public sphere. After all, men are physically stronger; culturally, they're still brought up to be aggressors. When women are violent, it's much more likely to be in self-defence. As for gangs of women roaming the streets, put it this way: in terms of random violence, I'm much more concerned that my son or daughter will be attacked by men. I'd be far less worried about a crowd of women."

Jeanette King, of the University of Aberdeen, is co-ordinating the 2005 annual conference of the Women's Studies Network Association (UK and Ireland). The topic will be "Gender and Violence". King says: "It's always worth studying the nature and causes of violence, whoever is the perpetrator, but it is vital to take gender into account when doing so. And what is equally important is to consider the way that violence is represented. So it's perfectly possible to talk about women as perpetrators of violence, while acknowledging that they are still very much in the minority, and while asking not only what are the causes of such behaviour, but whether the focus on it is disproportionate, and sensationalised when compared to representations of male violence."

Historically, Irish women are no strangers to violent action. Social historian Carolyn Conley discovered that Roman observers of the Celts were often struck by the power of their women warriors, admitting they could not defeat a Celtic warrior "if he called his wife to his assistance, who is usually very strong . . . especially when, swelling her neck, gnashing her teeth, and brandishing her sallow arms of enormous size, she begins to strike blows mingled with kicks."

But today's "bad girls" seem more concerned with becoming players in the alcohol-fuelled world of teenage male machismo. The risk is that they are mistaking random acts of violence and public disorder for empowerment.

Dr Neil Jarman of the Institute of Conflict Research will deliver his seminar, "Teenage Kicks: Young Women, Violence and Disorderly Behaviour", at the Institute of Irish Studies, 53-67 University Road, Queen's University Belfast, at 4 p.m. today. Admission free.