I felt this was a bit dense, covering much information that I was already familiar with, but perhaps to someone not aware of the women's plight in society, or looking for an introduction to feminism, this would be a suitable starting point. There were several points made about women's liberation and their value in society at large, based on sexual appeal, and although this has meant to be freeing, has actually just constrained women in a new social role. "This objectified woman, so often celebrated as the wife or girlfriend of the heroic male rather than the heroine of her own life, is the living doll who has replaced the liberated woman who should be making her way into the twenty-first century." Exploring questions of what choice truly means within the context of women's daily lives, and expelling many of the myths of faulty experiments citing genetic difference, rather than environmental and societal influences in the constraints that are still placed upon women at large. ( )

Being already familiar with the claims of feminism in the current age, I was not nearly as enamored of this book as I was hoping to be. I thought it might blow my mind, but there was not much here that I hadn't already been exposed to. The book ranges from the sex industry to the childhood toy industry to our myths and stereotypes about masculinity and femininity being natural.

The most interesting section to me were the sociology studies. For instance, a 1999 study that found that when men and women were given math tests and told there was a gender gap on the test or told nothing at all, the gender gap was replicated in the results. When given math tests and told there was no gender gap, the gender gap on the test disappeared. This indicates that women perform badly in math because they are expected to perform badly -- even by themselves -- not because there is a true gap in skills. Another study looked at facial expressions on groupmates when trained male and female leaders behaved in exactly the same way, and found that women leaders received a greater number of "disgust" faces -- an unpleasant experience that helps to explain, perhaps, why women don't go more frequently into public leadership positions.

This is a book from the UK (which I wish I'd known earlier, because that makes it even less directly relevant to my situation), and some of the assumed knowledge was also interesting to me. For instance, apparently British women get up to a year of maternity leave, whereas men get a maximum of two weeks. What crazy systems we build ourselves....

I'm assigning a low-ish star rating for its impact on me, not for the quality of information or the presentation of the book itself. This is a book well recommended for people who do believe that sexism is mostly behind us. ( )

Yet another fascinating/depressing read about the state of the world and women's (and men's) roles in it. It was refreshing to hear a voice questioning the prevelance of pornography and its effect in our lives - as the mother of two young boys, I hate to think the sort of things they are going to be witness to, and the sort of assumptions those sights are going cause in their burgeoning sexuality (still a good few years away). I have been a quiet feminist since the 1980s and I do feel that many young women today have no idea how things 'used to be', but actually I would say that in many ways life is a lot harder for them, even though there are many more opportunities too ... would love to meet Natasha Walter and shake her by the hand! ( )

Pink Princesses and Pole Dancers

This book is a disturbing account of the ways in which girls and young women are being encouraged to see themselves. It also examines the way that men and boys are conditioned to view women. It includes topics such as pole dancing, prostitution, glamour modelling and lads’ mags, children’s toys and theories on differences between female and male children from a very young age. At times I found it very uncomfortable and depressing reading, but it is well worth reading for the important arguments made.

The book is divided into two halves: The New Sexism and The New Determinism

The New Sexism

Walter visits a Southend club for a Babes on the Bed night in which women compete for a modelling contract with Nuts, with a young woman who has broken into this career herselfmaking it clear they are expected to be willing to take their clothes off and be photographed in explicitly sexual poses. Interestingly, it is made very clear to her that some of those involved in putting the show on really would like her to leave – they are not comfortable with critical observers. Walter interviews a lot of young women involved in various parts of the “glamour” and sex industry, including stripping, modelling, pole dancing and outright prostitution. It was interesting to see the contrast between what some of those involved do and the doubts they express in interviews about their work. I was impressed by how much her interviewees were willing to say.

Walter also looks at the contrast between the popularity of a wave of recent books and films on prostitution presenting it as a respectable (and well paid) career choice, notably Belle De Jour’s writings, and some of the harsher realities such as the women trafficked and exploited from other countries, and the murder of 5 women working as prostitutes in Ipswich.

There is much to be shocked by and to think about in this part of the book. As the mother of two very young boys, I was particularly appalled by the chapter on pornography, and the account of the effect of internet porn and much wider access to it, chosen or not, including the culture among young teenagers of sending pornography to each other on mobile phones. Ugh!

The New Determinism

Walter starts the book with an account of a visit to a huge toyshop with separate floors for boys and girls, and finding herself in a sea of wall to wall pink, dominated by dolls, princess costumes and all sorts of features designed to encourage girls to model themselves on dolls. This is where the title of the book comes from. After linking the images of dolls to the images of women in various parts of the sex industry in the first half of the book, the second half is focused on the debates about nature or nurture, especially in relation to bringing up children. As a mum, I thought a lot about my own little boys when reading this, but you don’t have to be a parent or want to be to find this interesting – we were all kids once, and there is plenty here that I would argue everyone needs to think about.

This section starts with journalistic observation and anecdote and then moves on to chapters of more theoretical, analytical discussion. I was very shocked at some of the stories of casual assumptions made by children’s parents, educators and others – for example, a scene at a party where a girl in her princess dress and tiara hits a boy for not playing Pass the Parcel properly, and his running away is described as him not being very good at party games – the little girl’s aggressive, competitive attitude is totally ignored, as it doesn’t fit the parents’ theories about their children.

The theoretical sections are packed with bibliographic references – to parenting and self-help books, sociological studies and media reports - and make much more dense reading, but they are worth the effort. Again, I found plenty to be outraged by, as male and female writers and journalists from across the political spectrum conduct some highly suspect research purporting to show that differences between boys and girls are natural, and not the product of research. Depressingly, it seems that 1970s and 1980s attempts to try bringing up children in less gender stereotyped ways have been forgotten, and that most people with a view believe in genetic difference.

I was particularly interested in the interview with Marianne Grabrucker, a German lawyer who tried to bring up her daughter in a less sexist way and wrote a book about it, There’s a Good Girl (which I reviewed for my student union newspaper when it was published in the UK in 1988!). Her daughter appreciates her efforts, but a newspaper article had claimed that Grabrucker had failed to prove her theories because there are differences – Grabrucker in fact believes that her choices for her daughter were countered by other family, childcare, school, church etc.

Importantly, Walter does not confine herself to describing the various studies and theories put forward arguing in support of innate differences between girls and boys and the need to treat them differently. She is very critical of these biologically determinist theories. She also challenges the idea that these are fresh new thinking, going back in time to look at the historical theories. She even finds that in the 1920s and 1930s, different colours were used for boys and girls, but they were pink for boys and blue for girls! She points out that stereotypes themselves often affect how people behave, that girls and boys may well learn that certain behaviour is expected of them in order to fit in and be accepted. Women still earn less than men and have less status, and these new determinist theories are not just abstract, they are often the basis for arguments put forward that this is just the way things are.

Finally, Walter tries to introduce a more upbeat note into the book at the end. This is not as memorable as all the shocking stories of women in the sex industry, and the sexualisation of girls and young women from a very young age, but she describes some of the campaigns that have been set up online and offline to challenge sexism and the oppression of women. There is a Give Your Support section at the end with postal addresses, phone numbers and websites where readers can go to join in the campaigns. I plan to find out more about Pink Stinks and Women for Refugee Women (the latter organisation is not really related to the contents of this book, but it campaigns on issues close to my heart and I would like to see if I can do something more active.

I think this is an important and interesting book which more people, women and men, parents, grandparents and people who have no intention of having children should all read. Then, we should think about how we challenge stereotypes and expectations in order to create a more equal society.

I was sent a copy of this book free for review from the publisher under their "First Look" programme. ( )

Reading Living Dolls I felt both encouraged and depressed: encouraged by discovering I wasn’t the only person worried about the issues Walter raises and depressed that the situation has got to the stage it has.

I was a student in the 80s when most intelligent women were feminists and many intelligent men considered themselves feminist too. There was still plenty to “fight” for but we were confident things were moving in the right direction. However I noticed a point in the nineties when something significant happened. Beauty contests had become passé and cars were no longer sold with models draped over them but then exactly that kind of behaviour re-emerged, supposedly at first, in an "ironic" way. Chris Evans displayed scantily dressed models on his show “for a laugh”. Men who would be embarrassed to buy the soft porn magazines that their dad had read, started reading the new glossy men’s magazines and found the content pretty similar. Soon afterwards the internet became part of everyday life which in turn enabled pornography to become part of everyday life much more effortlessly than in the past.

This developed into the society that we are living in now and which Walter describes in detail. Pornography and the sex industry have become mainstream. The airbrushed, glossy porn model with no body hair forms the image of the woman which young men expect to share their sexual experiences with. From an early age girls feel pressure to conform to that image. According to Walter, very young girls begin as pink princesses and soon gravitate to mini-skirts and pouts.
New technologies have contributed to the mainstreaming of pornography so that it is now common for young girls to pose as pole-dancers on FaceBook. Photographs can easily be taken on mobile phones, distributed around friends, shown on the internet.

Walter also suggests, using examples from interviews with young women, that young people’s experiences of sex are becoming increasingly disassociated from feelings and emotions. I wasn't convinced that this is as widespread amongst women as Walter seemed to be arguing but it does seem a psychologically convincing defence mechanism against being damaged by the culture Walter presents.

The second part of the book looks at the current acceptance of biological determinism. The old nature/nurture debate seems to have been pretty much abandoned by the media in favour of a consensus that biology is all. I found Walter’s accounts of different research into gender differences fascinating and was left with the impression that we see what we expect to see and that we reinforce gender differences from birth without realising it.

Living Dolls does not read as an academic, sociological text though class differences are acknowledged and Walter does point out that:
“the mainstreaming of the sex industry has coincided with a point in history when there is much less social mobility than in previous generations”

I found Living Dolls a well-presented and accessible read. Walter tells it as she sees it and what she sees is worrying. It is not a simplistic book however. Walter acknowledges that many individual women are in favour of our sexualised culture but argues that whilst it may work for some individuals it is not good for women as a whole.

After finishing the book, I felt motivated to read more about what feminist groups are doing these days and was encouraged to discover there are feminist activists out there protesting. Just yesterday I saw a newspaper story about a group called Feminista protesting against the re-opening of the PlayBoy club in London. I also hope educators are working with young people who are growing up today on the dangers inherent in modern technologies and the importance of respecting rather than objectifying women. ( )