Barbie Doll clearly displays a strong sense of feminism. It specifically attacks the modern day pressures that women are faced with as far as appearance goes. The author seems to have the opinion that women are pushed to make themselves perfect in the eyes of society. I think this is why this poem has a very negative and almost angry tone to it. Barbie Doll has a few main themes that can be easily recognized; the main ones that Piercy addresses are the pressures of being a female and the desperate attempts to please others.
That was a good demonstration of how sadness is inherent in life. I think much of who we are as adults has to do with how we socialize, interact and are raised as children. The first four line of the poem “Barbie Doll” speaks about the child’s innocence. “Entertaining toys such as dolls, lack certain ingredients that teach cause and effects but will have psychological effect on how a girl child interprets what is beautiful and eventually how she see herself” says Dr. Hall, a child psychoanalyst with twenty years experience (preschooler.thebump.com). The following two lines and second stanza speak of puberty and what her class mates think of her.
It is bad that Barbie, a 6 foot tall, 100 pound, size 0, infertile doll is possibly believed to be realistic and perfect (Bennett, Saren). She is one of many reasons young girls eventually develop a low self-esteem and an inaccurate idea of body image. Due to Barbie, young girls have also developed eating disorders, and the lust for unnecessary, unrealistic material objects. Girls should not be pressured about the way they look, act, and dress (Bennett, Saren). By definition, Barbie is a trademark doll representing a slim, shapely young woman, especially one with blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin (Barbie).
Mini Barbie Dolls Child beauty pageants should be banned. The expanding trend of child beauty pageants is growing rapidly in the United States and should be stopped immediately. Mothers enroll their daughters into these beauty pageants and the little girls, sometimes as young as four years old, compete against one another almost entirely based off of their outer beauty. The pageants throw in the “talent” section for the girls to compete in where they show off a gymnastics routine or something physical that supposedly directs the judges eyes off of mainly beauty, but all in all that is exactly what they are judging these little girls on. These children are way too young to be worrying about what they look like when they look in the mirror.
Instead they show praise towards her and her whiteness by buying white baby dolls, even for black girls. “The big, the special, the loving gift was always a big, blue-eyed Baby Doll….all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured.” Not only do the girls of this novel learn that whiteness is superior through the white baby dolls and the idealization of Shirley temple but adult women too have learned to despise their own color and learn as they grow that whiteness is the desired color. Whiteness is considered the cleaner color. When Pecola spills berries all over the clean white ladies house this
Child Beauty Pageants Should Be Banned When you were younger, you probably played dress up, for fun and games. Well, some irresponsible mothers in the United States are taking the concept of dressing up and turning it up several levels, and transforming their children into replicas Barbie dolls. The young pageant model is adorned with fake tans, hair extensions, 50 layers of make-up and fake teeth. After being put in extravagant, often inappropriate costumes, being fed health derogatory substances such as sugar packets and mixtures of high-energy drinks that even children twice their ages don’t even drink and performing tantrums of her reluctance to do her pageant, the juvenile Prima Donna is ready to go. Plastering on an over-exercised smile, the six year old walks on stage, cheered on by the joyful screams of her most-likely overweight mother.
Although advertising promotes new products to improve people’s lifestyles, advertisers in Seventeen magazines target teen girls using a fantasized model causing the reader’s self esteem to go down and creating an easy opportunity to sell their product to the vulnerable reader to cover the flaws these girls believe they have. In Seventeen magazines there are many subtle signs and imagery that is directed towards the young women reading the magazine that cue them to believe that sexuality is power. Seventeen magazines’ message of gaining self worth through emphasized femininity and beauty resonates with teen girls, regardless of class or race. Teen girls define this sexualized power as the ability to control one’s own life. Likewise, teen girls often use exaggerated sexuality to resist outside control of their lives.
In today’s society there is a growing controversy of how women are supposed to look. If they are slightly overweight or if they are too skinny, if they have acne, if they have freckles or if you are “flat-chested” your look isn’t that of the “ideal” female body. Everyone as individuals are different, inside and out. But the media in today’s society have put in girls mind at a young age that they need to fit into this character and look just like that of a barbie doll. Growing up, reading magazines and watching reality television.
But according to (Lalan Maliakal), she states that “the mothers pressurize their children to work their appearance to look like a Barbie doll.” Young Children forgo their improvement and childhood years for beauty pageants and pressure by their mothers to be the best, which for the most part is not good because the child’s virtuousness have been blemished and compress by false synthetic similes and counterfeit eyelashes and sophisticated appearance . Therefore the parents are stripping their children of being normal and not knowing how to interrelate with children their own age. As the children continue to develop their psychological mind set have altered where they feel that if they are not
Some might say that the unrealistic shape of Barbie will hurt young girls’ perception, but as one of the designers of Barbie company say “girls’ perceptions are so different than grown ups’ perceptions about what real is and what real isn’t….. Girls view the world completely differently than grown-ups do” (Birdie, 2014). This statement explains the unrealistic shape of Barbie dolls as it shows that the Barbie dolls are created to fit in young girls’ world and not the opposite. The thought of Barbie dolls having a bad influence on kids is totally wrong. Barbie dolls are just a source of entertainment for kids and meanwhile it cherishes their dreams.