A very accessible read, and extremely refreshing: I’m so glad someone has written this for the mass market. The follow up to Walter’s original book ‘The New Feminism’, she retracts what she optimistically wrote ten years ago about women’s future in society, and says we are now going backwards. The book addresses the increasingly exaggerated, narrow and sexualised stereotypes of femininity, looking at how pornography has become mainstream and the impact of that on the rest of us – such as Tesco selling pole dancing kits in their toy section (complete with fake money), and the ‘pornified’ looks and behaviours which women are expected to conform to. It also confronts notions of choice and empowerment: when girls are sold the idea that their sexual allure is their only route to success, are they really exercising free choice when they enter the sex industry?

Walter also tackles the rise of biological determinism, which perpetuates stereotypes and myths about men and women. For example, we are told that girls are caring and nurturing and like pink because this is genetic/ hormonal, but any research which says the opposite is drowned out (apparently until mid-20th Century pink was for boys and blue, considered more delicate, was for girls, but modern ‘research’ tells us the preference of girls for pink is genetically, not socially, determined). This one-sided reporting of scientific research entrenches the gender dichotomy and endorses women’s exclusion from various careers and higher levels.

It includes a look at how various politicians have been treated during the last US Presidential campaign and the run-up to the UK General Election: who would comment on the looks, dress sense, hairstyle or toned arms of a male politician as though that were somehow a mark of his suitability for office?

An excellent book – not a page I didn’t find interesting and enjoyable.

Olivia Jackson

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Dolls-Return-Natasha-Walter/dp/1844084841...