"Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy is my favorite poem I've read so far in this class. In this poem Piercy shows us the patriarchal and societal ideals of what women should aspire to by like and look like. And how girls are taught at any early age and are continually pushed into "barbie" molds throughout their lives. Through TV shows, magazines, runway models, peer pressure and teasing young girls are going to extreme lengths to achieve "perfection" or at least what society has deemed as so. Young girls are impressionable and because of many factors like the media, a lot of girls don't grow up loving themselves. Instead they end up with low self-esteem and wanting to change their bodies. More often then not they use dangerous methods to achieve their goals.
"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."
"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."
Here Piercy is trying to show that woman are only seen and valued for their pyhsical apperance and that other qualities dont matter if your not "pretty". Girls are put under to much pressure by society to achieve "barbie doll perfection" that they'll do anything to get it even if it endangers their lives. It's espically hard for girls to have good self-esteem when there is so much teasing and bullying in schools espically by catty insecure girls who make themselves feel better by putting others down.
This poem sounds really interesting. Your description of it points out the darkside in myself. That darkside that holds minor bias to girls that aren't "barbie" like. Even young male boys are affected by this "ideal appearance/nature" of a girl. On a deeper note, the description also hits home. Not because I know girls that could relate to the poem, but the opposite, I relate to the poem. The males in my family are nothing less than a bunch of masculine alpha dogs who flaunt hard-headed dominance. My father is this way, big, brawny, tough. However, throughout my childhood, I would be picked on by my uncles and aunts about how I am to thin. I would be forced to eat all the food I didn't want when my other cousins would. I would get beat by my more aggressive cousin and hide my fear of hitting him back by justifying myself: "I don't wanna hit my family." I wouldn't get picked on in school but I'd always be in the midst of bigger guys. Sometimes embarrassed that I was slim or slender and sometimes despising them for trying to use their male ego to dominate myself, others, and girls I knew. I hope I am not rambling, what I mean to say, in short, is that even though my head works in this judgmental attitude, I feel the poem can be switched around and be said from a guys perspective and how even us guys have to conform to some sort of male idiosyncracy.
ReplyDeleteI work in the beauty industry and I couldn't agree with you more, I often find myself trying to explain to woman that they need to do things for themselves because it makes THEM feel good, not to impresses the people around them. I'm also big on the belief of emphasizing the naturally beautiful things about a woman, not trying to fabricate beauty with a lie. I found this poem to be amazing and very very applicable to women in our increasingly "plastic" society.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more. It's sad how the society we live in conforms young girls into this ideal of what a woman should look and behave like. It's already bad enough that women go through it but it's worse when you have young girls hating themselves because of what media pushes as their agenda of what " perfection" is. It really kills me when i see a girl trying to be a " barbie doll."Innocent minds that are losing out on their childhoods, too worried about what they are wearing, and trying to live up to these impossible images.Media needs to start pushing out more positive images of what a woman is.. strong, assertive, educated, and naturally beautiful. Beauty especially in women comes in many different shapes and sizes and it's time young children are taught that to give better self esteem.
ReplyDeleteinteresting discussion. The poem certainly functions as cultural commentary/criticism, and opens up a dialogue about cultural "values," and the way stereotypes work in our culture--how they develop, are sustained, and with what effects.
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