Bratz dolls. They're like Barbies only trashier. Dressed like whores, with attitude appropriate to the most stereotypical African-American woman you can think of, these dolls are insidiously infiltrating our youth. They teach the important moral lesson that displaying flesh will ensure your every desire is granted by some mere male. They demonstrate effectively an aggressive attitude and a stance calculated to offend. They encourage conformity to a particularly desirable image, and a lack of thought and common sense.

In short, Bratz dolls represent everything I loathe. They say to me that the women's liberation movement was for nothing - the women of the 1960's burnt their bras to get themselves out of the kitchen, but 40 years on they've only got as far as the bedroom. Bratz dolls indicate that the use of sexual wiles is an acceptable way to obtain anything or have any request granted. They employ a kind of reverse-sexism in the implication that women are actually superior to men, thus encouraging the treatment of men like objects. Analysing Bratz dolls is an excercise in double-think: they objectify women, but seem almost proud to do so. They objectify men by the implication that a woman is nothing unless she can make a man do something for sexual favours.

My idea of an acceptable roll model for young girls would be a doll with realistic proportions dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The face of the doll should have pimples and be imperfectly formed. The doll's fingernails should appear chewed. The attitude shown through advertising should be independant without being aggressive. It should carry a book, and use phrases like "fluctuations in the space-time continuum" instead of "bling bling".

I'm all in favour of women being however they want to be. But if a woman dresses like a whore and acts like a whore, she should expect to be taken for a whore.