
In Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll”, the protagonist suffers from the delusions of gender roles and society’s idea of beauty. Gender roles are the “attitudes about which roles men and women should fulfill in families and careers” (Axinn and Barber).  Having to cope with gender roles, stereotypes and society’s idea of beauty can affect all people, and in the case of the female protagonist, some go to extreme ways to make sure that they fall into normalcy, like plastic surgery or self-harm. These gender stereotypes surround people every second of every day, so most people, including the protagonist of “Barbie Doll”, feel like they are worthless and irrelevant in all situations, especially when dealing with the issues with mid-twentieth century femininity. Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” shows that stereotyping a person into their gender or the 1950s and 1960s-societal idea of perfection negatively affects the appearance, especially of females, and gives insight into how these young women deal with the struggles of body image problems daily.

“Barbie Doll” specifically looks at how femininity and gender roles in the 1960s was harmful to many women. Most women in the span of 1950-1960s were expected to fill one of three roles in society: wife, mother or lover. Because of this, marriage was something that all women thought of, and if getting an education or a career was something the woman wanted to do, it was frowned upon. For example, “a woman may feel that she should fulfill a homemaker role, but may herself desire or plan a career” (Axinn and Barber). Those women who wanted to marry in 1950s and 60s were expected to look and act in certain ways, in their gender specific roles, so as to attract suitable mates to marry. It was important for men to find the perfect woman because the family was the “central unit” of society in this time period, and without a family and a beautiful wife, a man could seem untrustworthy or unapproachable (Birmingham Feminist History Group). So, women had to be beautiful and act in a gentle, motherly way to not only attract men but also to fit in with society. 

The poem “Barbie Doll” really ties into this femininity that was expected of women in the 1950s-1960s. The first line of the first stanza describes the protagonist as a “girlchild”. The author included this made-up word so as to present the idea that when a child is born, instead of being simply a non-gendered human, which is what all babies look like, they are put into their gender roles immediately. This was also to show how early on genders are forced onto people. This idea continues later in the protagonist’s life. Femininity used to define a woman by placing her into three categories: mother, wife and lover. Some of these roles pop up in the poem at a very young age for the protagonist, for example, when she is young she is given “dolls that do pee-pee and miniature GE stoves and irons and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy” in order to prepare her for one of the futures she was to hold. Each of these play things are actual toys that were given to children in past years, so women are raised in a way that allows for them to fall into their gender stereotype. At this point in the poem, the protagonist is not really being harmed, but is learning at an early age that she herself does not matter. The last two lines of the first stanza, though, begin the conflict for the protagonist, and most women who grew up in this harmful era. She goes through puberty and it makes her have a “great big nose and fat legs”, which was loudly noticed for the first time by a classmate. This action transforms the protagonist for the first time into the anxious young woman that most women were in the 1950s and 1960s.

The second stanza looks at the protagonist as a young woman in a world of gender roles and damaging femininity in the 1950s and 1960s. The beginning of the stanza describes the young woman as healthy, intelligent and strong with an “abundant sex drive and manual dexterity”. Yet this does not seem to be enough for the people that surround the protagonist because she apologizes to everyone she sees for her fat nose and thick legs, which is all they see. Women of this time period were seen as objects, or parts of bodies, and this is happening to the protagonist. Women could be well educated, intelligent and otherwise beautiful, but if they had a fault like the protagonist, they were not considered worthy of marriage. The protagonist was born with freedom to love herself, as all women are, but that was slowly taken away from her until she was owned by everyone’s opinions. 

The third stanza begins to explain how women, and especially the protagonist, learn to act around others so that they seem like the perfect woman. The first two lines are ironic because they say that she is told to play coy but also come on hearty, meaning that all the advice that is given to her so that her big nose and legs are ignored is contradictory. This goes to say that the protagonist does not know how to fix herself to make herself seem more worthy of attention and love. The protagonist is also given the advice to “exercise, diet, smile and wheedle”. This also accurately follows how women acted in the 1950s and 60s. A good character to compare how women acted in the 1950s and 60s to is Sandra Dee from the movie and play Grease. She acts like a proper woman – she refused to lose her virginity until marriage, she will not drink or smoke and she sees the good in everything. She is a classic example of women in the 1950s and 1960s who had to fit themselves into the social binds that were created for women. Yet, at the end of the play, she changes herself for a boy and is forever happy (Scheiner). This stereotypical mid twentieth century woman is probably what the protagonist of the poem felt she had to be, but was unable to because, as the poem says, eventually “her good nature wore out like a fan belt” and she receives plastic surgery to change her nose and legs to receive that perfect happiness that all women searched for. 

The last stanza of the poem is perhaps the saddest and ties in the self-harm that women go through to become perfect. While some may think when reading this that the protagonist went through so much plastic surgery that she died, it is more accurate that the woman did change herself and it was not satisfying in the end, therefore ending her metaphorical “life”. So her satin coffin is the constraining life that she has chosen to put herself into. Many in this time period thought that getting married and having kids was like a fairytale ending, like Cinderella or Snow White. The girl finds a guy and has eternal happiness. But this was not the case for the protagonist because she had to change herself, and therefore did not love herself, prior to finding a husband which is a very depressing way to finish the rest of one’s life. Although she had the respect and acceptance of most everyone who thought she looked “pretty” finally, this was not enough for her. 

In conclusion, Marge Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” does confirm that people, especially women, do suffer from the social binds of gender roles. Many women try to overcome this battle in various ways, like self-harm or plastic surgery, but the feeling of worthlessness is still inside of them. This poem is still very relevant today, if not more so. Death by suicide has risen exponentially in the past decade due to body image issues, and one of the main reasons why modern age feminism exists is to combat these feelings of loneliness and depression. Self-harm is also still an issue today for women, especially aging ones that want to continue to be young and beautiful. In turn, the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy is then a statement for the past and present, and probably future, about how people deal with their body and self-image issues. 
