In her poem, “Barbie Doll” Marge Piercy relays the ideas of femininity and beauty culture in the 1970s. Her ideologies found in this poem begin to explore how beauty culture is viewed and how women were expected to look and act in this time period. Society places a huge weight on women to want and need to look perfect or to fulfill the unrealistic expectations of Barbie dolls and this poem explains exactly how this affects a woman. This poem was written when second-wave feminism was transforming America, and the gender roles that are expressed in this poem reflect this significant historical time. Society and culture puts the idea of beauty and the roles women should have into this confining box, however these expectations and standards for women are unattainable and unfair. The perception of beauty is very distorted and provides women with an unrealistic and unhealthy image of what beauty is and this begun with the Barbie dolls that are idolized by little girls everywhere. Marge Piercy explores how beauty culture correlates with the gender roles that were being expected during this time period and how eventually it kills the woman.  

Women have been taught that appearance is everything. Media and culture have just expanded this and it has made women start to feel that they must change themselves in order to fit this mold of “Barbie” set before them. The unrealistic expectations that Barbie dolls give women is that they must have this perfect ideal body in order to be beautiful. Piercy places this line in the poem, “She was advised to play coy, exhorted to come on hearty, exercise, diet, smile and wheedle. Her good nature wore out like a fan belt” (Piercy 349), to explain what society and its expectations for beauty does to the woman. The constant need to be thin and to be physically perfect mentally wears out the girlchild in the poem and eventually, “She cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up” (Piercy 349). The girlchild feels that she must conform to this standard of beauty placed before her by cutting off her non-ideal nose and her imperfect legs and giving in to the ways of society. During the 1970s, when this poem was written, plastic surgery had just been discovered and was beginning to become a huge trend. Numbers of adolescent girls with anorexia and nervosa bulimia began to skyrocket. Women took the opportunity to change themselves through plastic surgery in order to reach the ultimate goal of looking like Barbie. Eating disorders also became more prevalent as women felt that starving themselves was the only option for them to become thin like the Barbie dolls they received as a child. Allan Mazur explores these trends in beauty in his “US Trends in Feminine Beauty and Over-adaptation” by discovering that numbers of women who had plastic surgery, anorexia and bulimia had increased greatly during the 1970s. Based on the research of these topics, Mazur expressed the conclusion that “The overall trend in self starvation has been produced by our culture’s increasing idealization of slenderness as the model of beauty” (Mazur 298). Generation after generation, women are still trying to reach the unattainable standards of beauty that are before them by getting body-altering procedures and purposely putting strain on their bodies by not eating enough food in order to try to make themselves look more like the Barbie dolls that they have always idolized. Women have gone to extremes to fit the unrealistic expectations and model of beauty that Barbie places in the eyes of women and young girls and the journey for women that this encompasses, as well as the gender roles during the 1970s are implicated in this poem. 

The second-wave feminism that is ongoing during the time “Barbie Doll” was written, is depicted in the beginning of the poem, “The girlchild 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 348). Women during this time period were expected to follow the path of marrying early, starting a family and spending the rest of their time homemaking. A woman was expected to cook and clean and very few had actual professional jobs. Piercy expresses how the girl was “born as usual” and was presented with miniature GE stoves and irons, this shows how women were just expected to follow the path of life set for them by society and to understand and follow their role when they hit puberty. Johanna E. Foster in her “Woman Of A Certain Age: “Second Wave” Feminists Reflect Back on 50 years of Struggle in the United States,” explores the lives of 31 women who were activists in the second-wave feminist movement to understand how gender roles were perceived in this time period and how that has changed. Her observations led her to the conclusion that the second-wave activists “…express great pride in their role in the historic successes of the second wave, a sense of real triumph in what they perceive as monumental changes in the life chances of today's generation of women and girls compared to their own, a sustained joy in their memories of comradery of shared struggle, and a persistent optimism for a progressive future” (Foster). The article of observations from actual second-wave activists provides a clear understanding about how women in this time period really felt based on what they experienced with gender roles and beauty standards and how they have tried to overcome them. The girlchild in the poem seems to have a similar background as some of these second-wave activists in how they let societal standards dictate how they would act and look and what they would do. 

Marge Piercy and “Barbie Doll” give an inside look as to how the gender roles in society and the expectations of beauty eventually end up killing the woman, “Consummation at last. To every woman a happy ending” (Piercy 349). The poem explains the unrealistic roles and expectations that society places on women and how even though women have so much to offer, a woman’s appearance and set role in the world is all that matters. The examples throughout the poem give a clear understanding of how society is dangling what the “perfect” woman looks and acts like over women’s heads and how they are just trying to please society. The girlchild in the poem listens to society and believes that conformity to these standards is the “happy ending” although it ends up killing her. Second-wave feminism and beauty standards in the 1970s give historical context and reference to the poem in the underlying theme of how women of this time period felt. 
