In Marge Piercy’s, “Barbie Doll,” we see the effect that society has on the expectations of women. A woman, like the girl described in ‘Barbie Doll’, should be perfect. She should know how to cook and clean, but most importantly be attractive according to the impossible stereotypes of womanly beauty. Many women in today’s society are compared to the unrealistic life and form of the doll. The doll, throughout many years, has transformed itself from a popular toy to a role model for actual women. The extremes to which women take this role model are implicated in this short, yet truthful poem. The poem starts with the line, “This girlchild was born as usual,” which suggests that as soon as a girl is born, society already expects her to learn the role she will soon play in when she hits puberty (1). Thus, showing why we are given dolls as little girls to illustrate how we should act and appear according to society. After we learn all the roles we will soon take part in, “the magic of puberty,” hits and girls immediately begin applying the ideals to their own lives (5). As if this attempt to conform is not enough we have other people telling us we are not to perfect. “You have a great big nose and fat legs,” says a classmate to the girl (6). This type of pressure can slowly but surely destroy even the little confidence women do have in themselves. In the second stanza, Piercy describes the girl as healthy, intelligent, and strong (7-8). Yet these positive equalities alone, could not keep people from criticizing her, so the girl feels inferior. “She went to and fro apologizing,” which demonstrates her collapse of confidence with the people she is surrounded with, who kept putting her down (10). She gives in to the hurtful things people say about her: “Everyone [kept] seeing a fat nose on thick legs” (11). The girl thus lets people push her in the direction of society’s standard of beauty, instead of affirming her own unique beauty. The third stanza starts off saying, “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty, / exercise, diet, smile and wheedle” (12-14). In the girls’ mind she is becoming completely fake to herself to make society happy; this in turn makes her dissatisfied. She soon grows tired of pretending and, “cut[s] off her nose and her legs (17).
“Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy and “ David Talamentez on the Last Day of Second Grade” by Rosemary Catacalos are two poems that show a unique view into society and the roles society expects people to fill. Sometimes those expectations can lead people to take drastic measures or even cause defiance in some people. The irony of this is that it seems the more we push people to be what society wants the more it drives them to be what they don’t want.
She tells the girl to “walk like a lady” (320), “hem a dress when you see the hem coming down”, and “behave in front of boys you don’t know very well” (321), so as not to “become the slut you are so bent on becoming” (320). The repetition of the word “slut” and the multitude of rules that must be obeyed so as not to be perceived as such, indicates that the suppression of sexual desire is a particularly important aspect of being a proper woman in a patriarchal society. The young girl in this poem must deny her sexual desires, a quality intrinsic to human nature, or she will be reprimanded for being a loose woman. These restrictions do not allow her to experience the freedom that her male counterparts
In “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy and “homage to my hips” by Lucile, there are many differences in response toward society’s body expectations for women. In both poems their tone, meaning, and approach are different.
The poem begins with first describing what it was like to win the Miss America pageant. It creates the feeling of what a women feels when she wins such a contest for beauty. The contest displays what society deems a women needs to be. The speaker then changes their tone and changes the ideal image of what women is supposed to be upside down. In the second half of the poem, Ellen Bass begins describing changing from society’s description of a woman to someone who is exploring what else a woman can be. Bass shows examples of how women are misused, misunderstood, and objectified. It is evident that the speaker comes to the realization of what women truly are and that they do not need to follow the standards set forth by society. Bass uses Lady Gaga in a meat dress to show that women are often thought of pieces of meat. The author’s use of real life examples gives proof that this is something that is ongoing in society. Her use of symbolism helps further the understanding. Bass creates the feeling of Otherness by going against what is thought of as normal. The speaker is challenging preconceptions because they no longer feel that they fit the description they are required to fit. The gender norms are no longer relevant to the speaker. Ellen Bass created a poem that advanced a women’s role and let it be known that you do not need to fall under the ideals that are set forth by
Marge Piercy is an accredited American writer and poet. Her works include poems such as “Barbie Doll” and “A Work of Artifice” that focus on society’s treatment of women, as well as poems which speak to more broad social issues. The vast majority of her poems speak to qualities that she deems virtuous. Many of the ideals she values stem from her childhood and past experiences; those same ideals are reflected in her poems which clearly show her passion for the feminist and civil rights movements. She often writes about broad social issues in her poems through the perspective of a feminist and uses powerful language to evoke feelings in the reader. She rarely states her opinions directly; rather, she uses various literary elements and poetry styles to portray her opinions to the reader in such an obvious way that the reader cannot help but understand what she intends them to perceive. Furthermore, her diction is so powerful it persuades the reader to agree with her opinions on a myriad of topics. Marge Piercy’s poetry is often written in the form of freestyle and blatantly portrays her opinions on various social issues through the diction and other literary elements she uses in her works.
At birth, the girlchild, who is the primary focus of this poem, is normal. "She presented dolls that did pee-pee and miniature GE stoves and irons and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy" (p. 1107). She played with dolls and mini stoves and makeup like adults think that girls should play with. The girl continued this until the "magic" of puberty hit her.
They are qualities every woman would be proud of, but the main charter couldn’t be proud of those great qualities because society was judging her because she had an athletic look. She couldn’t be proud of them either because she was trying to look like a model/ Barbie doll like society wanted her to look. In order to please them she was overlooking those great qualities she already had. “Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs” (line 11): this last line in the second stanza is very powerful because it’s saying despite everything she’s doing to fit in, society would always see her as a fat nose on thick
At the request of many who say that Barbie gives an overly sexualized image of women to children, Barbie has undergone several breast reductions and waist-widening modifications to make her more acceptable not in the eyes of children, but in the eyes of the children’s parents. Even though her height has remained rather irrelevant through her 55 years of being alive, Barbie has been produced with several different feminine physiques and many different skin colors in an attempt to satisfy outraged people. She started out as a fashion doll that needed unrealistic proportions to help her numerous outfits fit better, but somewhere along the way her harmless journey became stained with the accusations of feminists. Even after takin...
As a young girl, I was not very interested in playing with baby dolls. I preferred playing with my many stuffed animals or the only doll I did like—Barbie. With my animals, usually I was rescuing them from some horrible disaster such as a flood or a forest fire. I was their heroic savior and benevolent protector. But with Barbie this was decidedly not the case. Sometimes my Barbie did normal Barbie things, such as get dressed up for an exciting date with Ken or go shopping with her little sister, Skipper. More often, however, I subjected Barbie to strange, sadistic acts of my imagination. Frequently Barbie, in her pink dune buggy, would have tragic head-on collisions with my brother’s dump truck, or the brakes would suddenly go out on her pink Barbie scooter, sending her careening off a steep mountain cliff. Barbie also had the unfortunate tendency to be sucked from her Barbie plane by her lovely long blonde hair while flying at 30,000 feet. Since in every other way I was a normal child, psychoanalysts might interpret my play patterns with Barbie as childlike manifestation of women’s frustrations at the disparate images popular culture presents for women. Most women I know also experience this love/hate feeling towards Barbie and the mixed messages she represents, especially when their daughters start begging for Barbies of their own. While mothers do not want to encourage the unrealistic beauty expectations that Barbie represents, they also fondly remember Barbie as their own favorite toy. These many women, and their daughters, have made Barbie the most successful toy for girls since 1959, despite Barbie’s many contradictions. Barbie embodies American popular culture’s attempt to respond to women’s changing roles in the era since...
Many children around the world love Disney princesses. They watch Cinderella and learn to admire her perfect hair and the way she looks in a ball gown. They grow up learning that women should be frail and quiet. These works of poetry go to prove these thoughts wrong and show that despite the belief that girls are not strong or capable, they are. These works consist of Girls by Marina and the Diamonds, Love Me Slender by Sophie Hannah, The Perfect Woman by Hannah Warren, and The Women Who Went to the Field by Clara Barten. All of them show the beliefs of what women should be like.
A major influence on a little girls’ life is one of their first toys growing up: Barbie. The poem is named “Barbie Doll” because the doll represents society’s standard of perfection that girls feel pressured to live up to. Barb...
Societies standard change every year. Women are constantly overwhelmed to attain a standard of beauty that is equivalent to perfection. Women are judged by their looks more than any other aspect. In the poems “Cinderella”, “Barbie Doll” and “The Applicant”, the authors illustrate that many people falsify their bodies in order to conform to society. In these poems the authors suggest that the standards of society are more constraining to women than men.
In the poem, “Barbie Doll,” Marge Piercy explains how women and young girls are easily persuaded and manipulated by society when it comes down to body image and self-esteem. Throughout the poem, a young girl has trouble
Barbie, an American icon that was a product of the Mattel Company, revolutionized the lives of young girls and women for many decades. The creation of Barbie, meant for many young girls the opportunity to have choices during a time when women were limited. Although, Barbie has long been criticized for being associated with domesticity and her appearance among many other things, she is nonetheless an iconic figure in American History. As a female who grew up playing with Barbie dolls, for many people like myself, she was more than a toy, she was an influence that many woman have tried to emulate because she was an innovate figure in the 1960s and has continued to be well into today. The intention of this paper is to examine what were the intentions of Barbie doll creator Ruth Handler when the doll debuted in 1959 as well as the magnitude of Barbie’s impact on women and women’s history.
From the first stanza we can see that the student is having to grapple with a **** burden, “not good enough not pretty enough not smart enough” (3), stemming from her parents out views on her studies. The main character repeatedly apologizes to her parents “I apologize / for disappointing you” (5 and 6), wishing regretfully and mournfully “If only I were a son” (9). She could accomplish to “see the light in my mother’s / eyes, or the golden pride reflected / in my father's dream” (11-13). The speaker believes that if she were not the girl she was, ugly and stupid, and instead was this marvelous image coveted by her parents, “muscled and bold” (17), she would be worthy enough of her parents praise “assured / drawing praises to me” (17 and 18). She unfortunately realizes that all of her hard work is useless just as she will remain “So I have worked hard. / not good enough” (28 and 29). Even with her dedication and hard labors put into her studies, she just cannot thrive with her current *** in the environment she’s been placed in, “surely not good weather for flying- this sparrow / sillied and dizzied by the wind” (36-38) she struggles in vain against her parent expectations. The only way the main character can think of coping with this grief and disappointment is to commit suicide once she has attempted all other