“Lauren and I got into a car with some blokes one night and ended up getting home really late, so we told our parents we’d been snatched off the street by strangers,” Becky Billing half giggles, but flicks her hair over her face and refuses to look up. Before the girls knew it, their parents had called the police and a kidnap investigation had been set up.

When the shamefaced teenagers owned up, they were cautioned with wasting police time and asked why they had done it. “It was because we were bored,” says Becky Billing, who is 17. “There’s nothing for us to do outside of school. My mum had youth clubs, sports stuff and drama when she was young, but we’ve got nothing.”

Read more at  www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/21/after-feminism-girls-supposed