The Development Of Girls

Launched on March 1959, the Barbie doll is a toy that was first put on display in New York. It quickly garnered a lot of attention with the target audience of the creators, young girls. This doll was different than its previous dolls because it was a doll that was an ideal representation of a woman. Thus allowing young girls to use their imagination to create and act-out what this doll’s life is like and what their future would potentially be. To successfully understand this toy, we must think like C Wright Mills, a sociologist who asks to use our sociological imagination, the intersection of one’s biography and history. This artifact reflects and perpetuates the dominant ideology of how to perform your gender the “right” way in the early 1960s. I will argue this demonstrates West and Zimmerman’s concept of “doing gender” which is clarified with Judith Butler’s concept of socialization of gender.

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.

Sandra Cisneros addresses poverty and unrealistic expectations of women through the lens of adolescent girls, using their youthful perception of a Barbie Doll. Through Barbie’s image of ideal beauty, Cisneros foregrounds the struggles that women, especially those in poverty, face in their attempts to amount to the unrealistic standards of female beauty. Cisneros’s main argument through her short story “Barbie-Q” is that it is impossible to expect women to meet this manifest of beauty, and somewhere along the way of escaping and covering their imperfections they become damaged.

In “Why Boys Don’t Play With Dolls,” Pollitt writes about the differences between growing up as a boy growing up as a girl. She brings up the stereotypes that society naturally creates between genders in early ages, which leads to the lifestyle and path that boys and girls are raised in. Parents and feminist alike play a big part in establishing these sex roles. They raise their kids wanting them to be successful at what they are expected to be good at based on their gender and the trend that has been set before them.

In Peggy Orenstein’s article, “What’s wrong with Cinderella?”, she analyzes the obsessions young girls have for stereotypical feminine products and toys, such as princesses and the color pink. Orenstein claims that such obsessions have negative effects on girls as they grow into women, restricting them into playing a specific role in adulthood. Although the author expresses much bias, she effectively supports her claims through her positions as a feminists and parent.

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

The documentary “girlhood” is a video that illustrates social learning theory by sharing the lives of two girls that are incarcerated at a Juvenile Detention Center in Baltimore, Maryland. These girls are both serving time for a violent crime they committed. One girl stabbed her friend with a knife and killed her while the other attacked a girl with a box-cutter. The girl that stabbed her friend to death was sexually assaulted at the age 11 and at the age of 12 was charged for stabbing her friend. The other girl was raised by her maternal grandmother with the absence of her mother that suffered a drug addiction and supported her addiction as a prostitution. She shuffled from foster home to foster home and grew up longing for the love and attention

Children’s child play has become a form of an unrealistic world. Although, it is considered for children to begin creating a creative imagination, the mind fascinates children into toys. Some child’s play toys are not ideal for young children, like the one and only “Barbie”. Barbie has become a worldwide toy product for children all over the world, from the North Pole to the South Pole. These dolls have emerged from one ethnicity to another. In Ann DuCille, “Dyes and Dolls: Multicultural Barbie and the Merchandising of Differences” the author talks about the race and gender differences; found in Barbie. She argues; “Is Barbie bad?” her response, was “Barbie is just a piece of plastic” (459). In contrast, this piece of plastic is not just a piece of plastic to young girls; it is much more than that. A piece of plastic that little girls all over the world wish they could be. Even though, it is only a piece of plastic to adults that Barbie significantly means nothing to them. Growing up, I owned a couple of Barbie dolls. The tall, long blond hair, blue-eyed doll was my best friend and my “role model”. I wanted to become exactly like Barbie. As a child, I thought only beautiful people who looked liked Barbie signified beauty. To my little to no knowledge, I soon came to find out no one really looks like Barbie, except people who want to become like Barbie. In my adolescent years, no one taught me Barbie was “unreal”; no one taught me it was just a figure in my imagination.

In Jamaica Kincaid’s story, Girl, a mother is talking to her daughter about all the proper things she must do to be considered a good girl to her family and to the public, and when she grows up, a proper lady. She must follow the rules that are given to her by her own mother and by society. The mother also teaches the daughter how to act when things don’t go her way. She is told that along with being a proper lady, she must also be able to get what she wants and be independent. This story was written in the late 1970’s and gender roles, for women, back then were not being “followed” because women wanted equal opportunities (Women In the Workforce). “Gender stereotypes are beliefs regarding the traits and behavioral characteristics given to individuals on the basis of their gender” (Deuhr). This essay will discuss the gender roles that were given to women in the story, during the late 70’s, and in today’s society.

Wardy's book offers an expanded insight into girlhood, complete with appearances of stereotypes and sexualization during childhood. Taking a friendly approach to the realities of growing up for girls while having stereotypes and sexualization present, the chapters in Wardy's book are honest and bold and offers advice to parents from the change of child play to shopping strategies for girls that take away from sexualized markets, from how to teach young girls the importance of loving their bodies, Wardy includes useful tips in each chapter that is designed to help parents redefine what it means to be a girl in today's society.

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.

As years pass and the dynamic of what it means to be a girl evolves, girls are “told they can do anything, be anyone” and have taken the bull by the horns and are surpassing boys in schools, in all respects (Black). Furthermore, Black states that the “decades of conversation” allow girls to learn from others’ thoughts on what it means to be a woman and understand the “complexity of womanhood” (Black).

In Sandra Cisnero’s short story ‘’Barbie-Q,” a Barbie doll is used to portray the author’s inner struggle to achieve perfection, and how her young age and innocence clouds her identity. Throughout the text it is very clear that the author, a young girl, had come from an underprivileged family and faced the issues many families of lower socioeconomic background typically face. In the short story it is also evident that her gender plays a massive role in damaging her self-esteem and confidence, as both the media and the author’s social background have continuously portrayed women as weak, powerless figures. Similarly, in “The Story of an Hour” by Annie Chopin, the protagonist, once again a female figure represented the life of domesticity a woman is expected to hold by society. Although Chopin’s story was written in the late 1800s and “Barbie-Q” is a very modern story, both depict the protagonist females as very helpless, incapable figures that trail after the overpowering men.

The poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy in relation to diversity alludes to specific aspects of gender, mainly targeting the female gender perspective and expectations. In the poem, Piercy is writing about a young girl transitioning from a child to a women and how society and its idea of beauty affects her. My interpretation of the poem is that the girl is basically crying out for help saying look I am healthy, intelligent, and strong but no one sees or cares about those things because the only thing they see when they look at her is her outside appearance and what society considers to be the flaws that she possesses. Although this was written in 1936 Piercy accurately describes the feeling of being defined or constricted by society to think, act, and look a particular way which is similar to that of todays society which is fueled by social media, where some find personal gratification and self confidence fueled from likes and retweets they receive.” Barbie doll “ is the perfect title for this poem because for the longest time a Barbie was a sign of something perfect and beautiful, a toy enjoyed by everyone and a conventional symbol for little girls all over the United States. Similarly the girl was conforming to be sort of like the Barbie doll in a way because of societal expectations and the want to be viewed in a particular light by ones peers.