Marge Piercy's Barbie Doll

Published in 1971, the poem Barbie Doll was wrote by Marge Piercy during a time of feminist movements. As stated in the journal Womans Values In Society As Reflected In Marge Piercy’s “Barbie doll”, “1960s is the key year of the revival of the feminist movement in America which is known as the second wave of feminism” (Padmanugraha 5). During these times the main concerns for women were over their sexuality, work and family. Elizabeth Boyd, in Romancing feminism: From women’s studies to women’s fiction tackles the topic of feminism expressing: Feminism itself has been critiqued as one of the discourses that have disciplined femininity, with regard to the false consciousness of women and the consumption of feminine commodities. As Ann Ducille

Women aimed to prove they had purpose than just maintaining a figure. This poem’s content covers unrealistic expectations and a patriarchal society. Therefore, the topic of this poem fits perfectly well into social context. The social context of this work is society’s cultural pressure on girls. Our society objectifies women and determines their value based off of appearance, in turn, women are driven by these pressures to take drastic/destructive actions in order to live up to certain

So from the moment of her birth this young girl is already given the gender role she is suspected to fulfill. As revealed in The Perfect Facade, “Piercy uses diction to draw the reader’s attention to how the main character is gendered even from the cradle. She calls the central character a “girl child” (line 1), a compound noun that suggests the ways in which the child’s gender is to become her identity. “[Girl child” also presents an element of allegory, making it possible for all women to relate to the unnamed girl’s experiences and feelings”(Sepe 1). For when children are born, their sex may be assigned to them but their gender is taught to them. When a child is young they are taught who to become by the clothes they wear, toys they play with, and the parenting style they recieve. As this girl continues to mature her body starts the process of puberty, causing certain body parts to change and grow as well. In the last lines of the first stanza piercy wrote, ¨then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: you have a great big nose and fat legs¨ followed by the lines, ¨She was healthy, tested intelligent, possessed strong arms and back, abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity. She went to and fro apologizing. Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs¨ (Piercy). From these lines we understand that though this young girl is healthy, smart, and kind she is not deemed worthy enough