Bratz have sex

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Two weeks later, a dozen little girls turned up at our house, most dressed in old-fashioned frilly party frocks. But one child arrived wearing a sequinned crop top and a short plaid skirt that would have been inappropriate on a year-old, never mind a little girl of four. When it came to the present-opening, the little girl wriggled excitedly in her seat as my daughter unwrapped her gift. The doe-eyed, midriff-baring doll was dressed in cheap pink-and-black lingerie and looked as if she should be dancing round a pole. Her mother looked at me and shrugged helplessly. Needless to say, the plastic tart doll went straight in the bin as soon as everyone left.

C oncluding two years of research, a task force appointed by the American Psychological Association has just presented its findings on the sexualisation of girls. Although the task force focuses on US culture, its first and most eye-catching example of sexualisation is available here, too: "Toy manufacturers", it regrets, "produce dolls wearing black leather miniskirts, feather boas and thigh- high boots and market them to eight to year-old girls". The allusion, of course, is to Bratz dolls, whose feather boas are already suspected, by many sexy-toy experts, of having corrupted the minds of innumerable young girls. If their clothes are too provocative, Time magazine has also criticised their "jaded, bored, if not actually stoned" facial expressions.

High-heeled slip-on shoes available for babies, sexual slogans printed on girls' underwear and magazines "blurring" the lines by using child-like models, were highlighted to the equal opportunities committee. And one of the most popular brands of dolls on shop shelves came in for particular criticism as the launch of the inquiry into the sexualisation of children. Bratz dolls, which have been challenging Barbie for supremacy in the girls' toy market, were condemned by the NSPCC as the committee opened an inquiry into increasing levels of sexual imagery in goods aimed at children.