Re: Barbie Doll

Marge Piercy, Barbie Doll

As a sort of preface, I just want to say that I'd really rather not delve into gender politics in this little essay, and that while I recognize that men and boys are often forced to live up to certain "male" standards as well, I'll be focusing on "female" standards here.

As a young woman, I can easily attest to the veritable bombardment of body-image related propaganda and marketing schemes on women. We are almost always being exposed to some magazine, advertisement, incriminating or judgmental attitude from another person, or some other form of influence on women and girls, urging us to be thinner, prettier, more delicate, more subdued, more gentle, more graceful, more reliant, and to constantly put more effort towards reaching this bizarre, unattainable status of perfection. Now, I must say that for those with a good amount of self-respect and internal strength - speaking for myself as an example - very little of this social expectation actually makes an imprint on my self-esteem and the way I behave. However, the fact remains that there is an enormous amount of effort and social construction put into funneling girls' behavior into fitting a certain mold. Furthermore, for girls with less self-esteem and courage to be themselves even if that means going against society's idea of what a woman should be like, this influence can be incredibly harmful, and in the case of the "girlchild" in Marge Piercy's poem and many other girls in real life, deadly.

Barbie Doll is filled with a great number of "delicate" words and phrases, a few being "magic", "wee," "cherry candy," "putty," and "pink and white nightie," the last of which becoming doubly so by being associated with the traditional colors of femininity and purity, pink and white. In addition, the phrase "pee-pee" is a ridiculously childlike euphemisms for a natural bodily function, hinting at the idea that young girls are expected to disguise and dance around the gross or undesirable parts of their own bodies, even far before they are introduced to ideas like fashion and dieting. This atmosphere of girlish innocence, a world of pink and gentle laughter, sweetness and magic, becomes expected for a girl's childhood; I certainly remember all of my friends' little sisters rooms being explosions of pink, lavender, and white. These are all soft, quiet colors that don't make too loud or forceful of an impression, but simply remain in the background and complement the gentle mood.

In contrast with this first pattern, the sections of the poem that deal with the girlchild's "fat nose" and "thick legs" are harsher and more detached, influencing the audience to shy away and dislike these parts of the girl. Even the descriptions of her that would normally be considered compliments are either more clinical or slightly off-putting in diction, such as the phrases "tested intelligent," and "manual dexterity". Inserting this tone into this section of the poem reflects the lower, more chauvinist and objectifying parts of society's wish for women to simply be seen and not heard, and to be beautiful and sexy to look at and touch - nothing more, nothing less. To fit into the mold of the "ideal woman", it is necessary to remove and trim parts of yourself, both physically and mentally - a horrifying idea to imagine, but one that the girlchild eventually goes along with when she "[cuts] off her nose and her legs and [offers] them up." After she has done so, "everyone" finally thinks of her as pretty, instead of just "[seeing] a fat nose on thick legs". However, she has paid the ultimate price for her beauty, something that could never be worth it in any kind of reasoning. When thinking about how societal expectations affect people, it's incredibly important to think about people like the girlchild, who will mutilate themselves and give everything up just to feel like they "belong."


Works Cited:

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011. Print.