The societal views of women’s rights have changed a lot throughout the course of nearly 100 years. Women couldn’t even vote in the United States until 1920. The talk of women’s rights hasn’t been a large topic of discussion through many years of history, but now many women stand up for what they believe in. Bitch Planet is more of a stand for women’s rights where Barbie Doll is how a typical woman would be understood to act if treated a bad way. After a quick first glance, these two readings seem very different, but they both involve how women are treated by others and a reaction by both main characters; this is important because the time periods that each author is in greatly affects both readings.

The 1970s, when Barbie Doll was published, were a time of exploration of mind and body for women and men alike. Nearly nothing was accomplished during this time period for women’s rights. This time period mainly consisted of music, drugs, and social unrest. The 2000s, when Bitch Planet was published, has been the opposite for women, women have spoken up and established a key role in societies. Many achievements have occurred for women in the past ten to fifteen years. Women have challenged the stereotypes that surround them and have strived to become the best at what they do. Social and gender barriers have been broken because of the drive that women have, a lot of ‘firsts’ have occurred involving women recently.

Barbie Doll is about a girl who is as normal as any other girl. She grows up and as most girls do, she hits puberty. She then is called out by her peers as to having a big nose and fat legs. That’s all her peers see in her now, a big nose and fat legs. This girl also only sees a big nose and fat legs in herself. She then responds, quite dramatically, by cutting off her nose and her legs, which inevitably kills her. At her funeral, all of her peers say how beautiful she is which is pure irony. This is ironic because it took a death for these people to see her true beauty. Bitch Planet has a similar story line with a different ending. This story is a comic but that shouldn’t take away from the pure message it presents. This is about a woman who is being judged greatly by men and these men want to fix her. This woman’s story is told by flashbacks into the past. She hates the typical woman image and enjoys who she is. Despite all of the men wanting to change her, her preferred image of herself is exactly who she is now. 

Barbie Doll and Bitch Planet have two very different main character bases. The character from Barbie Doll has a very complacent attitude. She listens to what the people around her say and lets it consume her. As she lets the words that are used to describe her get to her, the insults begin to break her down. The character from Bitch Planet is the exact opposite. She does not care about what others think of her. The men in this story run the world and if someone is not ‘normal’ or with the status quo then they are labeled as non-compliant (DeConnick 1). Most of her flashbacks consist of people judging her. These people are disgusted with her and call her terribly mean names, worse than the names the girl is called in Barbie Doll. The author, Kelly Sue DeConnick, titles the work the way she did because of irony, Kelly says that the ‘b word’ is a terrible word and that women are afraid to be called this word because women want to be very liked (1). The Bitch Planet character does not seem amused though. She actually likes the way she is, this is news to a lot of the men in the room around her. The men assume that a woman with this past of crime would want to change. They are all in dismay when the prefect image of herself is unscathed. The main character then alludes to something her grandmother says earlier in her life that goes something like, if it isn’t broken then it shouldn’t be fixed, she mentions that she isn’t broken and that she will never be broken by these men. 

These two stories have a lot in common as well. Their commonalities may be way more clear than their differences but they still need to be mentioned. Both stories have a woman that is being oppressed by others, these oppressors are understood to be men. Both women react to the oppression in some sort of way, because it is human to react to that type of behavior. Both characters actually end up satisfied in the end. The character from Barbie Doll has sort of an eternal happiness because she died knowing that others around her accept her for who she is. The character from Bitch Planet ends up happy because she proves to these men judging her that the ideal image of yourself can be ugly to other people. Her main point is to not care what other people think of you. Why does all of this matter? Well, it matters because two very different writings end up being very similar in the end. Both works touch on feminism, one acknowledging the presence of feminism in society and the other noting the lack of feminism in society. Barbie Doll has a simple message and it is to not care what others think about you because it could lead to your death. It’s an extreme message but it does what it needs to. Bitch Planet delivers the same message but in a much better and more relatable way. Anthony J. Scimone, a writer for the English Journal, says that insecurity is brought upon kids at an early age (34). Both of these stories acknowledge that and try to bring some light into what can be changed and done to prevent overreacting when insecurity is brought upon a child.

The results from the woman revolting in Bitch Planet is that she can be her own person and be who she desires to be. She doesn’t have to live like she is being controlled by anyone else. She lives the majority of her life being looked down on and she hates it, this leads her to commit crimes. This woman hates what she stereotypical woman has become and she strives to be nothing like it, in the end, she succeeds. The results from the woman acting how she does in Barbie Doll lead to her death. She cannot take the constant ridicule and being made fun of. The poem ends in a very different way. After all of these bad events, Piercy says “to every woman a happy ending” (CR 349). What does she mean when she says that? The reader could take many things away from that. When an author mentions a happy ending, people usually associate marriage, children, happiness, and longevity. Piercy could be simply saying that the main character of Barbie Doll did die happily. She died knowing that everyone around her was now content with the way she looked because she cut off her ugly ‘parts’. Her funeral could have been the happiest part of her life. Her funeral was where she received the most amount of praise for how she looked. Scimone points out again that adolescents expect all girls to reach “that perennial icon of unattainable and artificial female glamour” (33). This is why the young girl in Barbie Doll ended up cutting off her ‘bad’ parts, she couldn’t handle the other children not realizing that all girls do not reach this conceived standard of looks all at the same time.

The characters in both of these works revolve around the fact that they are mistreated. The recurring theme throughout the stories, and this paper is how they react to the mistreatment they are given. Both stories also take an opposite view on how to react to the mistreatment. Both stories are sort of the two options women have when they are judged by others around them. Women’s rights have made huge leaps over the past twenty years and so have the rights of many mistreated individuals. These stories both acknowledge feminism, one shows the need for it and the other shows the results from it. 
