“Critics of the industry warn that the stresses of competition, coupled with an extreme focus on physical appearance, can have a negative effect long before these girls will be eligible for Miss America.” (Triggs, West and Aradillas 160-168) The loss of self-esteem, the inability to show a full range of emotions, the fear of failure, the extreme focus on physical image, and the discord with or fear of parents are a few of the symptoms those little girls will suffer from. Each of these symptoms, or problems, is not associated with all contestants in beauty pageants. They are
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).
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. In this poem, when the subject gets older she is told all the ways that she is not beautiful, while all of her good traits are ignored. Ultimately, it shows how the pressure of trying to measure up to society’s standards can cause an end to someone’s life. The poet makes the point at the end of Barbie Doll that for some women, fulfillment might only come in death. At the beginning of the poem the girl is portrayed as a typical little girl without a care in the world.
How much more should we take the criticism of superficiality? For centuries women have been portrayed as weak and submissive. In experts about Barbie and military women there is a distraction on the point of view towards women. In an apology for the life of Ms. Barbie D. Doll, Rita Isakson is criticizing an article of Barbie’s that Marilyn Ferris Motz wrote. Isakson is proving Motz that he is wrong that Barbie’s do not harm young girls mind.
Shirley Temple in the Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison represents the American ideal girl and a representation of the stigma related to not being white in a society. In one way or another all of the characters in the Bluest Eyes are obsessed with beauty and defining what beauty is to them. The blue eyes closely tie to Shirley temple and baby dolls and their representation of a hierarchy of race. “Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another—physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought.
How popular she is and perfect she is, and so naturally these girls are beginning to want to be just like Barbie, happy and perfect all of the time. There is always so much to look, act and dress. And young girls worldwide feel the need to fit in and the only way to do that is to look and act a certain way. Barbie has always been there to set the trends. Feminist say that Barbie is the cause of worldwide eating disorders, low self-esteem and false perception of beauty.
Friends and family may see someone that is perfectly normal, beautiful even, but as far that individual woman is concerned, the image of beauty the world proliferates has become restrictive and unachievable (Fox, 1997). Women these days simply cannot see or appreciate their own beauty because they do not look the models they see on billboards and on t.v. Because women are criticized on their appearance more than men and standards of female beauty are substantially higher and more uncompromising, women are much more self-critical than men (The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, n.d.). Women are repeatedly assailed with images of the ultimate face and figure on TV, magazines, and billboards that make extraordinary good looks seem common and anything short of perfection seem strange and ugly (The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, n.d.). It has been estimated that young women now see more images of exceptionally beautiful women in one day than their mothers saw throughout their entire childhood (The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, n.d.).
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
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.
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.