Living dolls: The return of sexism review

Following on from Let’s Talk Breasts’ review of Naomi Wolf’s The beauty myth, Living Dolls brings another, in this case updated, examination of society’s perception of what it is to be a woman. In a nutshell, Natasha Walter’s theory – and it’s a hard one to argue – is that young girls are being brainwashed into becoming living embodiments of Barbie dolls. In order to be socially acceptable, you must bleach your hair, wear extensions, plaster your face with makeup and fake eyelashes, tan your skin, wear (preferably pink and sparkly) clothes that showcase your bust and legs, and appear to be as sexually available as possible at all times.

London-born Walter is an excellent writer, with a thoroughbred pedigree – she’s been previously published on the topic with her book The New Feminism and has earned her journalist stripes working for Vogue, The Observer and The Guardian to name but a few. She breaks her study down into two distinct halves: The New Sexism (a relaxed, anecdotal look at how modern women are pressurised to become hyper-sexualised beings) and The New Determinism (which examines the way scientific and sociological research has been wrongly interpreted to favour the ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’ debate on the differences between sexes.) Says Walter of the latter topic, ‘The highly sexualized culture around us is tolerated and even celebrated because it rests on the illusion of equality.’

Living Dolls is actually far more accessible than you might expect on such a tricky subject. It’s punctuated with frequent interviews with women working in the sex industry and teenagers unafraid (or perhaps unaware) to voice some rather eye-opening and disturbing opinions about sexism today. Peppered with current references (Victoria Beckham, Katie Price, Sugababes, Pussycat Dolls and countless popular TV shows and films), Walter’s non-judgemental style is very much of the ‘now’, and it’s also very specifically British, which is one of its greatest values for a UK reader.

If there were to be a criticism to this book, it would be that, similarly to The Beauty Myth, the study is limited to only one segment of society. LGBT concerns are not raised – this is sexism straight style – and matters of class, race and age seem to fall by the wayside, despite the fact they will also directly affect the way an individual woman is treated by society. Arguably Walter is also a little too non-judgemental at times, although this in itself can be a compelling way to make the reader think for herself, ironically one of the issues in question!

While not relating directly to breasts, Living Dolls is an immensely readable study on both young men and women’s attitude towards female body image. Although it can be quite depressing to think how the hard-working feminists of the past would be shocked at what we’ve become today – our blatant celebration of ‘fake’ beauty and the mistaken view that pornography, lap dancing, glamour modelling et al leads to ‘empowerment’ of women – this book at least demonstrates to us how far we’ve travelled in being able to recognise and discuss it. Hopefully the next step will be to actually do something about it.