Marketing men treat great women like puppets

Seven years ago she was shot at point blank range by her estranged husband Darren because she’d finally walked out on him after 18 years of violent abuse.

The 22 stone bodybuilder hanged himself later that day.

Their 16-year-old son Jack was devastated – and six weeks later the youngster’s body was found hanged in the same woodland spot as his father.

I don’t know how you’d ever get over that. But Rachel, pictured right, rebuilt her life, started campaigning for other domestic abuse victims and has written a searingly honest book called The Devil At Home.

And on International Women’s Day she met the PM and Home Secretary at No 10 with a 100,000-strong petition urging them to “listen to victims’ voices.”

Later Mrs May announced a bill which she promised would “completely transform the way we tackle domestic abuse, providing better protection to victims and bringing more perpetrators to justice”.

It proposes tougher sentences, electronic tagging of offenders, addressing “economic abuse” – where an abuser takes control of a partner’s finances – and new orders allowing INTERNATIONAL Women’s Day was marked by thousands of events and initiatives celebrating heroines of the past and role models for the future.

But the corporate marketing men couldn’t resist jumping on the bandwagon to plug their products – and were rightly slated for it.

A web page highlighting the gender pay gap was flogging pink beer, Johnnie Walker whisky dreamed up a Jane Walker, and McDonald’s inverted the golden arches to make a W for women. And even Barbie raised eyebrows.

Because toymaker Mattel unveiled a collection of 17 “Inspiring Women” dolls, modelled on the likes of aviator r Amelia Earhart, British boxing champ Nicola Adams and legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. But they all had Barbie’s biologically impossible body proportions, weedy limbs and perfect plastic complexions. MUST The mmakers even waxed-off Frida’sFrida iconic monobrow on her doll,doll left. TheTh feminist icon’s family are now taking legal action because MattelMa didn’t get the rights to useus her image. But, refreshingly, they don’td want dosh – just to see the doll remodelled to properly reflect Frida’s historyh and character. As a woman who could never be browbeaten.