Essay about Barbie as a Real Woman is Anatomically Impossible

From the time they are born, girls are influenced by society as to who they should be, how they should look, and how they should act. Americans believe that women should be to a certain standard; pretty, feminine, and especially, thin. The pressures derive from family, media, and friends. Marge Piercy’s poem, “Barbie Doll” depicts a girl who was never recognized for her character and spent her life trying to be accepted for who she was, rather than how she looked.

The object under consideration is the barbie doll. A barbie doll is a toy for children who have moved on from developmental toys to more sophisticated toys. Barbie doll fit an unrealistic size and shape figured doll that kids can play with in various ways. They can play dress up and do different things due to barbie having multiple careers paths she is able to take. It does promote a positive image to young girls because it promotes the idea that you can be anything you want to be, however, it still plants the idea of an unrealistic body image. Barbie is slender and tall and barbie dolls do not deviate from thing and this is problematic because it creates a certain kind of standard young girls begin to believe in.

Millions of women have gone along with this fantasy and have been entranced by the unrealistic standards of appearance and false qualities of life. Sadly, more and more women have accepted these standards as their own and have even resorted to changing who they are to become what they believe to be real. This may be a major contributing factor to the rise of women seeking breast implants and or plastic surgery. Yet there could be a further explanation and meaning behind Barbie.

As we planned the workshop, we discussed our own personal ambivalences about Barbie’s collusion with heteropatriarchal, consumerist culture, while at the same time acknowledging the remembered pleasures of childhood doll-play...(Reid-Walsh and Mitchell 2001). In developing the workshop format, we tried to provide enough structure and eclectic raw materials to invite focused thinking about embodied femininity, but without imposing our own expectations about how the girls “should” view Barbie and reinvent or remake her ( Collins, Lidinsky, Rusnock, and Torstrick 106-107).

The poem, "Barbie Doll," written by Marge Piercy tells the story of a young girl growing up through the adolescence stage characterized by appearances and barbarity. The author uses imagery and fluctuating tone to describe the struggles the girl is experiencing during her teenage years, and the affects that can happen. The title of this poem is a good description of how most societies expect others, especially girls to look. Constantly, people are mocked for their appearance and expected to represent a "barbie-doll"-like figure. Few are "blessed" with this description. The female gender is positioned into the stereotype that women should be thin and beautiful. With this girl, the effects were detrimental. The first stanza describes the

Picture yourself as the ‘perfect’ woman. Embodying every woman’s dream. You are undeniably gorgeous, weighing in at 100 pounds, standing 6 feet tall and holding nearly 150 careers (barbiemedia.com). Yes, this is the beloved, ever so ‘inspirational’ childhood toy, the perfectly perfect Barbie Doll. Barbie is America’s most beloved toy, considering young girls between the ages of three and eleven own at least 10 Barbie’s throughout their childhood (‘Life in Plastic’). As creator of the Barbie Doll once said, “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented that a woman has choices,” (Handler). However, Barbie has proved to serve the opposite effect and

Emily Prager, in Our Barbies, Ourselves, stated that Barbies have influenced little girls around the world on what the perfect body looks like, when in reality there is no “perfect” body. Our Barbies, Ourselves states “here are millions of women who are

Like Georgiana in “The Birthmark”, women often find themselves striving to reach society’s expectation of beauty and perfection. In Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll”, a young girl is finally able to reach society’s version of beauty but she must die to do so. Piercy criticizes the ways “women are socialized into stereotypical feminine behavior” (“Overview: “Barbie Doll”, para. 1) in this poem and suggests that the pressure put on women to meet certain standards of beauty and behavior is destructive. The poem opens with the birth of a “girlchild” and all the “typical toys” that go along with it. When the girl hits puberty, her classmates begin to make fun of her big nose and fat legs. The girl is intelligent and healthy, but the other children only see the imperfections in her appearance. She is told she should behave “coy” and always wear a smile, but the teasing takes its’ toll. She cuts off her nose and legs and offers them up

In my early years, my vision was skewed by the Barbie image, specifically by the influential toys design for young girls i.e. Barbies, television, magazines and society. It wasn’t until later years, that I felt the greatest psychological pain inflicted by both male and females. I didn’t fit the glorified image of a female, which wasn’t only expected by the opposite sex, but equally by the same sex. They perhaps were far harsher than the opposite sex. After a two year journey to shed eighty five pounds, I was no longer influenced by either sex. Although Barry’s statement was geared toward the male population “Of course many women will argue that the reason they became obsessed with trying to look like Cindy Crawford is that men, being as shallow as a drop of spit WANT women to look that way” (339), in today’s society this is equally expected by the same sex. My journey was not because of the stigma bestowed upon me by the sexes, it was just for me. It was my drive and desire to achieve an improved quality of life, experiencing a happier and healthier life style and strengthen my

In Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" a young girl is troubled by the classification of what it takes to become a beautiful woman. "Barbie Doll" details the image that society projects upon women. From an early age young women struggle to conform to the standards that society has defined for them. Beautiful dolls such as Barbie are frequently the first source of association that young girls have with the image that society has placed upon them.

In both “Bitch Planet” and “Barbie Doll”, the authors aimed to exemplify the unrealistic body image that women are facing. “Bitch Planet” is about a futurist world where larger women are shamed for being larger rather than stick thin like the women in the advertisements and media. The writer uses a comic format and futuristic setting to display a setting that feels realistic. In “Barbie Doll” it talks about a girl who is made fun of for her small differences in physical appearance, even though she was perfectly healthy and normal. They each show how the body images set by men and other women effect how they feel about their own bodies. They each follow similar topics however; they have different techniques as well as time frames for conveying them.

In society today, the world view of women has changed drastically. From plump, voluptuous figures of the Roman Empire, to today’s goddesses who wear eating disorders and insecurities as a badge of honor. Society and mass media have played a key role in changing the history of women today. Marge Piercy has beautifully depicted what it is like to be a young woman on the other side of society’s pressure on women for perfection. Marge Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” presents the act of preparing future house wives, constraining the natural woman, and the ultimate sacrifice of the divine feminine to show how impossible societal standards of beauty are.

It wasn’t until the late 1960’s that critics began “comparing Barbie to a Playboy Bunny and calling her a corrupter of youth” (”Bad Girl” 3). One woman commented, “She’s an absurd representation of what a woman should be” (“Bad Girl” 3)-–and that’s exactly what many others thought she was, too. With such impossible real-life measurements of 5’9” tall, 36”-18”-33” bust, waist, and hip (Benstock and Ferriss 35), it’s easy to see why mothers across the country banned the doll from their homes and refused to let their impressionable young daughters be influenced by a piece of painted plastic (Bestock and Ferriss 35). Since dolls have often been responsible for teaching children what society deems important or beautiful, many concerned parents wondered why Mattel did not design a doll that taught more valuable lessons than dressing pretty and being dangerously skinny (Edut 19)? Who said a runway model was best suited for teaching a child what is beautiful anyway? “According to a Mattel spokesperson, a Kate Moss figure is better suited for today’s fashions” (Edut 19), and that is one reason why Barbie must be so disproportional. Actually, another reason for Barbie’s anorexic figure can be traced back long before Kate Moss and the fashion runway. Barbie was

Barbie, at the age of 41, is one of the longest living toys in America. Analyzing her early history can give a person a look into the societal trends and culture of the late 1950's and early 1960's. There is evidence of fashion innovations in Barbie's wardrobe. Also, one can see the perception of females by society, such as what they should look like, how they should act and dress, as well as what their future goals could be. The following essay follows Barbie's history from 1959 to 1963, covering her development, her appeal to children, and her existence as a cultural artifact of the time period.