Imagine a South African Bratz doll. She’d have brunette hair down to her kneecaps and the make up on her face would never smear. She’d have her dainty hand bag, her knee high boots, her mini-skirt. She’d have a boob-tube but no real boobs. Her name would be Candy, or Lola, or Sapphire. During the day she’d do anything exciting or adventurous (mountain climber, rock star, deep-sea diver, a deep-sea mountain climbing rock star, even). During the night she’d party, party, party. But during the night she’d have to go out with a very special accessory - a Rape Axe...

Hold that thought. Last week, on March 8, the world celebrated International Woman’s Day. The year 1975 was designated International Women’s Year by the United Nations, which went on to officially sanction the day. And this year's celebrations were boosted by the news that Kathryn Bigelow, the director of The Hurt Locker, has become the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director. A win for women everywhere? A minor dent in a culture that worships women as dolls first and people second, as far as some female commentators are concerned.

This week The Guardian highlighted how “the ‘new feminism’ went wrong”. The 'debate'? Would it be wrong to stop Katie Price’s two year old daughter, Princess, from wearing heavy wakeup, complete with false eyelashes. The debate has been drawn out for over 230 pages in Natasha Walter’s new book “Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism”. Walter points to the worrying example of the Big Brother twins Amanda and Sam “Samanda” Marchant, who said Barbie was the inspiration for their lives, and Hilary Duff, who said, “When I was younger, I was so inspired by Barbie. She has been a role model for my friends and me”. This self-conscious Dollification, Walter argues, leads to the increasing nonchalant attitude men have about buying sex: “One man recently told researchers in London, ‘It’s like going to Tesco’s,’ and another said, ‘I just think it’s like we live in a consumer society. And I think that’s become a bit of a commodity now, really...’” No different to buying your daughter a new Barbie doll, apparently.

"Que Ehler’s idea for the Rape Axe is a sort of inverted condom that has four rows of barbed spikes lining its inside, which the women wears with completely safety. Should she be attacked, the rapist is left in a lot of pain..."

But is there a danger that feminism will become bedazzled by the glitz and glamour of Barbie, just as more “naïve” young women will? Despite discussing prostitution and violence against women, Walter only mentions the international trafficking of women once. She leaves it up to “charities” to remedy the situation. She worries about the girls who have “chosen” to strip to pay for university, but she doesn’t mention the 39 million girls worldwide who are denied even a primary education, pole dancing or otherwise.

And then there’s South Africa. Last year a study by the Medical Research Council found that one in four men questioned said they had raped someone (one in 10 men said they had been raped by other men), and one in 20 questioned said they had raped a woman or a girl in the last year. It was from this culture of almost causal rape that Sonnet Ehlers heard the angry and bitter cry of one rape victim - “I wish I had teeth down there." Que Ehler’s idea for the Rape Axe: a sort of inverted condom that has four rows of barbed spikes lining its inside, which the women wears with completely safety. Should she be attacked, the rapist is left in a lot of pain and is ‘branded’ a rapist, and he will need “medical assistance” if he wishes to remove the Rape Axe with his manhood roughly intact. Should Walter and her hopeful new disciples of feminism care about the Rape Axe? Or is it just up to charities to fix? Are they not fighting against a common enemy - the sexualisation of women to the point where they are just objects?

Surely, to paraphrase and invert one of Walter’s phrases, we should be careful that the attention we pay to Western Dollified women does not prevent us from seeing the violence experienced by the rest of the world’s women.

Words: Richard Lemmer.

Photo: Flickr user PRETTY DISTURBIA of the Big Brother Twins, Amanda and Sam.

Flickr user Sal Paulo Alexander of Barbie and Ken dolls