Feminism has been a world issue in society for centuries and always will be. Society is taught to think of women as less powerful than men. Barbie Doll is a product of the 1970s second wave of feminism. This is when women’s equality in the workplace, cultural representations of women, and cultural equality were major issues. These issues still remain relevant today. In Barbie Doll, Marge Piercy compares gender and social behavior expectations. Gender is the cultural attitudes about maleness versus femaleness, while sex is the biological maleness versus femaleness: what you were born with. For example, a transgender would be a male that acts like a female, and a transsexual would be a male that gets surgery to change his biological make up. Piercy argues how gender is performative by listing everything that is expected from a female, and states that they eventually get worn out from the pressure, which eventually leads to their “death.” Marge Piercy grew up in a neighborhood where racial tensions were evident. She was very active in social and cultural issues throughout her life, so her works generally tend to focus on those issues. Piercy creatively uses a story to direct reader’s attention toward the cultural barriers to equal opportunity for women. Although the ending of Marge Piercy’s Barbie Doll can be interpreted in either a literal or figural way, if readers close read the text and understand the history of feminism, they will realize the end of the text is using figurative language. 

The first wave of feminist movements began with women’s suffrage. In the article Transitions in Mid- Life: Women’s Work and Family Roles in the 1970s, Phyllis Moen states that, “The 1970s were a remarkable decade; the women’s movement, in tandem with the rise in the service sector of the economy and shifting public attitudes about gender roles, produced unprecedented opportunities for women of all ages” (Moen 136). After women won the right to vote, the second and more modern wave of feminism came of age. Women began to acquire more rights for themselves. In the article American Women’s History During the 1970s, Hugh Davis Graham states, “Yet these events have been so recent that we lack both the historical perspective and the evidence necessary to understand their full meaning” (Graham 24). Feminism is something that continues to be talked about today, especially with a woman running for President of the United States. In the 1970s women were not given the same opportunities as men. They were not given the same pay, employment opportunities, education, or rights. Some women fought for their rights, while others just gave in to what they were expected to do. 

When reading Barbie Doll, the story lays out everything that is expected from a female in society. Marge Piercy starts off by saying, “This girl child was born as usual and presented dolls that did pee-pee and miniature GE stoves and irons and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy” (Piercy). From birth, women are taught that they are supposed to take care of the children, and cook for the family. Women are seen as nurturers and caretakers. They are given lipsticks and makeup because they are expected to look beautiful and always present themselves in a classy way. Piercy uses the word “girl child” to show that even when females are immature and not knowing much about the world, they still need to learn what is going to be expected from them. The girl is described as “healthy, tested intelligent, possessed strong arms and back, abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity,” and because she had some masculine traits, “she went to and fro apologizing” (Piercy). Society is taught to see females as uneducated, weak and unskillful. Women apologize because they are taught to be submissive and conform to how society wants them to be. Otherwise society won’t accept them. Sometimes society demands contradictory expectations from them, as when Piercy describes that “she was advised to play coy, exhorted to come on hearty” (Piercy). We want women to be reserved and shy, but we also want them to be lively and cheerful. Eventually it’s too much and women just give up and wear out, “like a fan belt” (Piercy). They can’t act and look like someone they’re not forever, there has to be a point where it ends. “So she cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up” (Piercy). The last stanza of the poem is capable of having a double meaning. In this stanza, Piercy describes the scene of a funeral. The girl is in a casket, with undertaker’s makeup painted on, dressed in a pink and white nightie. Although these all describe what a person looks like when they have literally died, Piercy is trying to get the point across that the woman has figuratively died by caving to the demands of society and giving up a life she would have wanted to live in order to please the people. “Consummation at last,” the woman has been forced to perform a certain identity and has been “consumed” into marriage. 

When interpreting the last stanza of the text, readers will realize it can have a double meaning if they understand the history of women’s roles. They can view it as both a figurative or literal language. Piercy claims, “so she cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up” (Piercy). When interpreting these lines in a literal way, readers will interpret it as women committing suicide due to all the pressure they cannot handle of not being accepted in society. On the other hand, Piercy could also be using a metaphor to explain that women give up and cave into the expectations that society puts on them just to have peace. Figuratively speaking, in the beginning of the text Piercy explains how children will judge girls when they are different, “Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs,” but in the 1970s women would obey what was expected of their image in order to conform to society, and then people would say, “Doesn’t she look pretty” (Piercy)? Literally speaking, in today’s society bullying is a huge problem. When children are young they get bullied, especially during the awkward stages of puberty. They then try to be someone they are not so the other kids will accept them. The pressure of these demands consumes them and they take the easy way out by killing themselves and ending their lives, leading to society finally accepting them because no healthy human being is going to judge a dead person. Piercy leaves the last two lines open for literal and figurative interpretation. These last two lines are very crucial to understanding the story. She states, “Consummation at last. To every woman a happy ending” (Piercy). Keeping the definition of consummation in mind, readers will interpret these lines in a figural way. When women became who they were expected to become: caretakers and beautiful on the outside, a man would marry them because men wanted to be able to do what was expected of them in the 1970s society: make the money and appear masculine, in order to also feel accepted. When readers who were raised in today’s society, they tend to interpret this in a literal way and embed with the funeral idea, and believe the woman has killed herself just to have peace. Today’s society puts so much pressure on girls and their images due to all the celebrity media where women will actually resort to committing suicide because they can’t handle it. Not “every” woman in history has killed themselves due to the pressures of society, but not “every” woman has conformed to society and been the perfect wife material. Some women care more about what people have to say about them than others. Reader’s interpretations may depend on how they were raised in society or what time period they were raised in. 

The way people interpret the text all depends on how close they read it and how much they understand about women’s history. People who grew up in the 1970s may understand where the text is coming from more than people in today’s society. Roles were a very cut and dry thing in the 1970s, whereas many women today are making more money than men and becoming much more independent. The text is creative in how it describes the expectations of women in a way that it keeps the reader open to different interpretations. Because the story was written in the 1970s it is rational to interpret it from that perspective. Readers should still keep an open mind when viewing Barbie Doll because it will allow them to compare how differently women are treated in past and present society.
