Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" is a poem which uses the idea of the Barbie Doll in its positive and negative aspects to develop a theme related to a real woman in the real world. The Barbie Doll is used both as an ideal and as an impossible goal, and the theme reiterates the idea that women are expected in this society to live up to this impossible ideal. Women are thus made to feel that they are failures when they do not achieve that level of perfection, a level unrealistic in its demands and met only by a tiny percentage of women.
The theme is developed in four stanzas. The subject is a "girlchild" like every other girl child--she was "born as usual" (1). As she grows up, she is treated as every other girl child is treated--given the same toys, raised with the same expectations, and presumably loved by her parents for herself. It is only when she leaves the warmth and separateness of the playroom that she encounters a new attitude, and the fact that this attitude takes place outside the home emphasizes that it is a societal attitude which is then imposed on the girl, no longer a girl child but a girl in school:
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs (5-6).
The mention of puberty makes this revelation even more hurtful, for this is the time when girls begin to want to be admired by boys. The world of "miniature GE stoves and irons/ and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy" (3-4) is a world both of childhood and of societal expectations--girls are socialized to be housewives, mothers, and mannequins who use makeup to attract men. This is also the image of the Barbie Doll.
The second stanza expands on the theme by detailing the virtues of this particular girl child, which in the end are seen as meaningless. She is described as healthy, intelligent, strong, with a healthy sexuality, and with good manual dexterity. Thee should be characteristics signifying success,...