For hundreds of years, women have been subjected to unattainable expectations and confined to rigid gender roles. These oppressions have created many gender stereotypes and expectations that are still imposed on women today. Marge Piercy’s poem, “Barbie Doll,” illustrates some of these oppressions by telling a story of a girl who is gifted a Barbie Doll at a very young age. Because of the rhyming and the airy sound of the poem, it first reads as a fairytale. However, the story takes a tragic turn as the young girl is introduced to the harsh realities of being a female and is ultimately bullied to death. This poem was written in 1973, a time when the Second Wave Feminist movement emerged. The goal of this movement was to give women freedom, equal rights, and control over their own lives. These are all things that the young girl in the poem did not possess. By understanding the motives and goals of the Second Wave Feminist movement that was occurring during the time “Barbie Doll” was written, one can better understand the tragic end to the story. 

Despite the fairytale-like beginning of the story, the poem takes a turn when the girl is immediately introduced to the superficial values of society. The light and airy sound that is used at the beginning of the poem gives off the impression that the story is a fairytale and that it will have a classic “happily ever after” ending. It begins by introducing the main character of the story behind the poem, the girlchild, and describes how she is presented with many gifts. However, as early as the sixth line, the reader is introduced to the negative aspect of the story of this girl’s life. This line describes the bullying that the young girl endured based on her appearance. While the poem goes into detail about the many amazing qualities the young girl possesses, like her health and intelligence, her classmates only seem to care about her outer beauty. The narrator even says, “Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs” (348 Piercy). Because outer beauty seemed so important to the young girl, she began to apologize for the way she looked, even though it is something she could not control. Ultimately, this bullying led her to cut off her legs and nose because they seemed to take over her life. The poem then goes on to describe the young girl’s funeral, where her corpse is painted with makeup. This final desperate act shows the importance of outer beauty during this time. During this time period in America, beauty was seen as something that defined a woman and her value. This is because many believe that women did not hold much value or importance outside of the household. The importance of outer beauty was something that the women involved in the Second Wave Feminist movement worked to abolish from society as shown by their protests against the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City in 1968. Women found these protests necessary because Miss America pageants “reduced women to objects of beauty dominated by a patriarchy that sought to keep them in the home or in dull, low paying jobs” (Rampton). 

The young girl in the poem is subjected to many gender expectations and gender roles that were also imposed on many women during the Second Wave Feminist movement. When the young girl is born, she is immediately given stereotypical girl toys. During this time period, women were expected to marry early, have children soon after marriage, and devote the rest of their lives to their family and their home. (Donnelly 43). In order to prepare the girl for this lifestyle, she is given miniature toy stoves and irons. These toys, along with miniature lipstick and makeup, emphasize the importance of gender roles and women’s outer beauty at the time. Even after she is dead, makeup is painted on her face, and she is given a putty nose. She is also dressed in a stereotypical girly pink nightgown in her casket. And the only thing that people attending her funeral have to say about her is, “Doesn’t she look pretty? (349 Piercy). This shows the importance of beauty even after a tragic death. One of the main goals of the Second Wave Feminist movement was to create the differentiation between sex and gender. They wanted the public to understand that sex is biological and that gender is culturally constructed and varies from culture-to-culture throughout time. They also wanted people to understand that even if a female did not fit the culturally constructed gender stereotype, it did not make her any less of a woman (Rampton). 

The contradicting expectations that are imposed on the young girl lead to her ultimate downfall. Right before the girl decides to end things and cut off both of her legs and nose, the poem goes into detail of all the ways that her classmates and society advised her to behave. She is supposed to play coy, come on hearty, diet, exercise, smile, and wheedle (349 Piercy). Many of these qualities are ones that counteract many of the girl’s natural attributes that were mentioned in the poem earlier. Society tells her to exercise in order to not have thick legs and to be coy, regardless of her true strength. The expectations even tell her to smile at all times, even though she is being pressured and bullied to be somebody that she is not. These were all legitimate expectations projected on to women during this time period. Some may even argue that these expectations are still very relevant in our society today. It is very hard for anyone to mold themselves by these expectations, especially because many of them contradict each other. The girl was supposed to act girly and shy, yet also come off very vibrant and healthy. Today the biggest contradiction one may see is the expectation that women be sexy, but not too sexy. If a woman is too sexy, she is said to be promiscuous. However, if she is not sexy enough, she is said to be a prude, or even less of a woman. 

Many of the conflicts presented in the poem “Barbie Doll” are reflections of the conflicts that emerged because of gender stereotypes and expectations that were placed on women during the 1960s and 1970s. Because the young girl in the poem did not match the perfect mold of what society thought a woman should be at the time, she was subjected to bullying and ridicule. This led her to give in to the pressures of society and rid herself of the things she was bullied for, which ultimately led to her death. All of these stereotypes and expectations were things the Second Wave Feminists fought and rallied to end. The author of this poem, Marge Piercy, stood beside these women and also fought for the equality of all women. By writing this story, she exposed the harsh reality of what could happen to a girl is she grows up and believes that she has to fit a certain mold in order to be a desirable woman. While the Second Wave Feminist movement made strides toward equality, some of the conflicts that arose in the poem are still very prevalent today. Most girls are still given Barbie Dolls when they are young and grow up thinking their outer beauty defines them as a human being. However, more and more women and young girls are beginning to understand the brutal effects of this mindset, and are working to break down these barriers once and for all. 
