Free Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism by Natasha Walter Page A

no doubt be brilliant careers.
    I am grateful to everyone I interviewed, as without their insights into so many different areas of experience I could never have written this book. And I am very grateful to the many people who gave me interviews and whose words do not appear here, as they often provided invaluable insights which informed my work even if I was unable to quote them by name. They include Bernice McCabe and staff and students at North London Collegiate School; Charlotte Tan and friends at St John’s College, Cambridge University; Lee Eggleston and Sheila Coates at the South Essex Rape and Incest Crisis Centre, Dan Burke, Kimberley Firth Jones, Daisy Leitch, Charlie Little and Flora and Miranda Thomas, and Rebecca Jewell, who sparked one particularly fertile train of thought. Thank you, too, to all those who helped me in contacting individuals to interview, particularly Bernard Bulaitis and Annie Griffiths at City and Islington College, Rachel Bell and Emine Saner.
    Thank you to those scientists and academics, including Lyn Craig, Janet Frick, Wendy Hill, Nancy Hopkins, Janet Shibley Hyde, Diane Quinn, Elizabeth Spelke, Sonya Thompson, Ed Tronik and Catherine Weinberger, who patiently answered my queries about their work and checked my references to theirresearch; to Susan Morrissey, who translated sources from the German for me; and especially to Deborah Cameron and Mark Liberman, who read through drafts of the second half of this book and generously gave me the benefit of their knowledge. Above all I am grateful to Melissa Hines, who saved me from some particular errors and gave me invaluable insights into her fascinating field of work. Any errors that remain are, obviously, mine.
    Thank you to Lennie Goodings and her colleagues at Little, Brown and to Derek Johns and his colleagues at A P Watt. I am also very grateful to Linda Grant, Liz Jobey and Ruth Walter, who read and commented on drafts of the book with great care and intelligence.
    And thank you to Mark Lattimer, whose constant support and interest in the project sustained me.

Note on Names

    Where individuals are identified by first name and surname in this book, this is their real name. Where individuals are identified only by first name, this is a pseudonym.

1: Babes
    One spring night in the Mayhem nightclub in Southend, young men and women were moving tentatively onto the dance floor through drifts of dry ice, lit amethyst and emerald by flashing lights. ‘Five minutes left!’ the DJ’s voice rang out over the thumping music. ‘Five minutes left to enter the Babes on the Bed competition. We’re looking for ten of the fittest, sauciest birds here today. Remember, it’s not just about tits, it’s about personality too.’ To the side of the DJ a large, empty bed, looking like a Tracey Emin installation, sat waiting.
    Almost all the women in the club that night, with their tiny hotpants and towering wedge heels, their dark fake tans and shiny straightened hair, looked as though they could be planning to take part in a modelling contest. About a dozen of them began to make their way over to a group of men who were standing by the bed and choosing who should enter the Babes on the Bed competition. There were sixteen of these nights in the spring of 2007, up and down England, Scotland and Wales, and of the hundreds of women who chose to pose on beds in nightclubs, one would be given a modelling contract with Nuts magazine. ‘I want to do it to make my mum proud,’ said one young woman, Lauren, in denim hotpants and tight, yellow crop top. ‘She should win,’ said her best friend, who was standing with her. ‘She works out, she’s really keen, and she’s gorgeous.’ Lauren was given the once-over by the men from Nuts and told to go into the changing room to be given the competition uniform – red hotpants and crop top with the Nuts logo. When she came out, her friend whooped and started taking pictures of her on her mobile phone.
    Just then