I once believed that we only had to put in place the conditions for equality for the remnants of old-fashioned sexism in our culture to wither away. I am ready to admit that I was wrong.' Empowerment, liberation, choice. Once the watchwords of feminism, these terms have now been co-opted by a society that sells women an airbrushed, highly sexualised and increasingly narrow vision of femininity. Drawing on a wealth of research and personal interviews, LIVING DOLLS is a straight-talking, passionate and important book that makes us look afresh at women and girls, at sexism and femininity - today.
Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Review
"The coolly devastating precision of Living Dolls is all the more potent for its patient description of a viciously misogynistic culture." —New Statesman
"Excellent." —Allison Pearson, author, I Don't Know How She Does It
"An important book . . . Walter has started a discussion that needs to take place not just between women, but between all of us." —Times
"Share with your teenage niece, daughter, sister, or friend." —Bitch Magazine
"Required reading for everyone who cares about our humanity." —Irish Times
"A compelling and convincing analysis, and an essential read for any feminist." —Bust Magazine
About the Author
Natasha Walter is author of THE NEW FEMINISM. She is a regular contributor to the national papers and BBC Radio.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a well-written and informative book about our current hypersexual and increasingly sexist society. Natasha Walter focuses on Britain, but as an American, I find a lot of her writing applies to America as well.
No, this book is not about the horrible and horrific oppression of women and girls in the third world. It never claims to be. That is a serious subject, no doubt, and everyone should read about that and "Half the Sky". But does that mean we should not devote any attention to the erosion of women's rights and issues in our own current society? I hope we're not so close-minded nor simple-minded.
It's easy to say, from the cover of the book, that it's nothing but fluff from a man-hater. (I'm surprise, actually, that someone who calls themselves theantifeminist would even buy or read this book). No, the book is not about "the sexual and reproductive interests of unattractive women". On the contrary, it's actually about the rights of the attractive girls -- their right to not be sexual at an early age, their right to be treated equally, their right to be given the opportunities they deserve.
Natasha Walter presents a serious, balanced and well-reasoned argument, backed up with hundreds of research and scientific studies, on why we should be wary of the current state of things. She points out that our culture is increasingly hypersexual. We've all heard about the marketing of sexy clothes for little girls (such as things with the Playboy bunny on it), the philandering sports stars (and the girls who throw themselves at them), and the "starlets" who are famous for nothing but how little they wear in public. That's nothing new. But the author argues that our increasing acceptance of this, the pervasiveness of soft porn images, the ease of access of pornography, increasingly creates a society where our girls are beginning to equate success with being good-looking and married. Not only that, but, based on flimsy and retracted/disproved "scientific evidence", boys and girls are being forced into old-fashioned male/female stereotypes.
I'm not a feminist, having had the luxury of growing up when they've already made significant strides. But I am a mother, and I worry when my daughter came home with a Playboy pencil case she got at a birthday party and when she (at 6) asked for "skinny" food from the Nutrisystems commercial.
If you think our society has reached equality and the point where feminists have no raison d'etre, this book will open your eyes. If you're a mother of girls, I highly recommend this book. It will show you what they're up against. It's no longer women vs. men. It's our girls vs. the large majority of society. Very worrisome, indeed.
No, this book is not about the horrible and horrific oppression of women and girls in the third world. It never claims to be. That is a serious subject, no doubt, and everyone should read about that and "Half the Sky". But does that mean we should not devote any attention to the erosion of women's rights and issues in our own current society? I hope we're not so close-minded nor simple-minded.
It's easy to say, from the cover of the book, that it's nothing but fluff from a man-hater. (I'm surprise, actually, that someone who calls themselves theantifeminist would even buy or read this book). No, the book is not about "the sexual and reproductive interests of unattractive women". On the contrary, it's actually about the rights of the attractive girls -- their right to not be sexual at an early age, their right to be treated equally, their right to be given the opportunities they deserve.
Natasha Walter presents a serious, balanced and well-reasoned argument, backed up with hundreds of research and scientific studies, on why we should be wary of the current state of things. She points out that our culture is increasingly hypersexual. We've all heard about the marketing of sexy clothes for little girls (such as things with the Playboy bunny on it), the philandering sports stars (and the girls who throw themselves at them), and the "starlets" who are famous for nothing but how little they wear in public. That's nothing new. But the author argues that our increasing acceptance of this, the pervasiveness of soft porn images, the ease of access of pornography, increasingly creates a society where our girls are beginning to equate success with being good-looking and married. Not only that, but, based on flimsy and retracted/disproved "scientific evidence", boys and girls are being forced into old-fashioned male/female stereotypes.
I'm not a feminist, having had the luxury of growing up when they've already made significant strides. But I am a mother, and I worry when my daughter came home with a Playboy pencil case she got at a birthday party and when she (at 6) asked for "skinny" food from the Nutrisystems commercial.
If you think our society has reached equality and the point where feminists have no raison d'etre, this book will open your eyes. If you're a mother of girls, I highly recommend this book. It will show you what they're up against. It's no longer women vs. men. It's our girls vs. the large majority of society. Very worrisome, indeed.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This important book has not been published a moment too soon in my view. It is part of a welcome backlash against the appalling new sexism in Britain today, and if the genre is stylised feminist, then feminism clearly has a lot to offer both women and men today.
Natasha Walter begins her study with a brief survey of the way the feminist revolution became stalled during the Blair years in Britain and notes that although women have made progress in some areas, it really has been a question of two steps forward three steps back. Women are still hugely underrepresented in most domains relative to men; they remain underpaid and undervalued in society. Most disturbingly, they have become increasingly objectified as sex objects by the consumer society in recent years, and this is where the author takes her cue.
Living dolls explores the position of women as a sex commodity in the new consumer society, and the way female sexuality has been defined by the sex industry. Walter makes the crucial point that women have been complicit in this new sexism, they have co-opted the language of choice and empowerment to claim that sex is liberation. Hence the casual attitude to sex and acceptance of prostitution as a career option like any other, and the appearance of best-selling books that valorise the prostitute. The problem here is that emotion has been dissociated from sex, as it is in pornography, and the violence experienced by sex workers ignored, or suppressed. Women have in fact been put in a new box, claims Walter, one that sees them in terms of a narrow physical ideal. Women's non-sexual attributes have been devalued.
But prostitution is not empowering. Rather it is disempowering, as Walter's research and interviewee's testimony, clearly shows. Is it really a choice if a woman feels so imperfect that she has to have surgery on her clitoris to make it look more appealing? Men and women are both victims under the new sexism because we can't really look at each other as equals--it's a nasty trap.
Walter goes on to discuss how women are being gendered by language and social practices -- pink for girls, blue for boys etc. The notion that women and men are inherently different and therefore should be treated differently is fairly demolished by the author. Almost all the scientific evidence suggests exactly the opposite -- that male/female differences are the result of socialisation and expectations. All this was obvious a decade ago, but in recent times the media has picked up on any shred of biological determinism it can to say men and women are different. It's astonishing, and a sign of the times, that apparently highbrow newspapers like The Guardian take this biological determinist nonsense seriously. Whatever biological differences there are between men and women, women's day to day reality is largely determined by a male-dominated society.
This excellent book makes for compelling reading, and actually comes as a relief to all of us who have been upset by sexist trends in Britain. However, I doubt Walter has fully theorised the problem, since women's subjection is clearly the result of a wider subjection of one social class by another. Women's issues cannot be separated from the wider struggle for equality and justice in society. In addition, the link between the crass commoditisation of women's bodies and the capitalist consumer society, whilst touched upon, has not been comprehensively dealt with here. Nonetheless, this book is recommended reading for everyone, especially young people.
Natasha Walter begins her study with a brief survey of the way the feminist revolution became stalled during the Blair years in Britain and notes that although women have made progress in some areas, it really has been a question of two steps forward three steps back. Women are still hugely underrepresented in most domains relative to men; they remain underpaid and undervalued in society. Most disturbingly, they have become increasingly objectified as sex objects by the consumer society in recent years, and this is where the author takes her cue.
Living dolls explores the position of women as a sex commodity in the new consumer society, and the way female sexuality has been defined by the sex industry. Walter makes the crucial point that women have been complicit in this new sexism, they have co-opted the language of choice and empowerment to claim that sex is liberation. Hence the casual attitude to sex and acceptance of prostitution as a career option like any other, and the appearance of best-selling books that valorise the prostitute. The problem here is that emotion has been dissociated from sex, as it is in pornography, and the violence experienced by sex workers ignored, or suppressed. Women have in fact been put in a new box, claims Walter, one that sees them in terms of a narrow physical ideal. Women's non-sexual attributes have been devalued.
But prostitution is not empowering. Rather it is disempowering, as Walter's research and interviewee's testimony, clearly shows. Is it really a choice if a woman feels so imperfect that she has to have surgery on her clitoris to make it look more appealing? Men and women are both victims under the new sexism because we can't really look at each other as equals--it's a nasty trap.
Walter goes on to discuss how women are being gendered by language and social practices -- pink for girls, blue for boys etc. The notion that women and men are inherently different and therefore should be treated differently is fairly demolished by the author. Almost all the scientific evidence suggests exactly the opposite -- that male/female differences are the result of socialisation and expectations. All this was obvious a decade ago, but in recent times the media has picked up on any shred of biological determinism it can to say men and women are different. It's astonishing, and a sign of the times, that apparently highbrow newspapers like The Guardian take this biological determinist nonsense seriously. Whatever biological differences there are between men and women, women's day to day reality is largely determined by a male-dominated society.
This excellent book makes for compelling reading, and actually comes as a relief to all of us who have been upset by sexist trends in Britain. However, I doubt Walter has fully theorised the problem, since women's subjection is clearly the result of a wider subjection of one social class by another. Women's issues cannot be separated from the wider struggle for equality and justice in society. In addition, the link between the crass commoditisation of women's bodies and the capitalist consumer society, whilst touched upon, has not been comprehensively dealt with here. Nonetheless, this book is recommended reading for everyone, especially young people.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Being a young woman in a male dominated university this book gave me the gusto i forgot i had to stand up and be proud to be a young woman. I feel its a must read for any woman (and a lot of men actually), especially young women unsure of their place in this highly sexualised confusing world filled with contradictions. It helps show a path on how you can lead a fufilling intelligent life and is a must have handbook. Loved every word, even if the beginning does leave you a little despondent.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Is this empowerment?
Feminism and the sexual revolution was intended to give women choices about their lives so that they didn't have to be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Damaskcat
This is the best woman studies book I have read in a decade
And I have read a LOT. I have a personal library of books on this subject, but this author writes about the subject so elegantly I can't put it down. Read more
Published 5 months ago by SarahK66
Return of Sexism?
Feminism is the history of unattractive, aging women, forever trying to play catch up in their attempts at closing the free sexual market as new technology continues to widen... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Frank I.A.
Better than I expected
The first part of the book is about the widespread influence of the sex industry on mainstream life and especially on how women and girls view themselves. Read more
Published on March 9, 2010 by L. SAXON
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
