Barbie Doll- Marge Piercy

  This 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.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

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.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

To me this poem reminds me of how society looks at beauty. How the media influences people, to tell them how they are suppose to look like. It makes me think about the negative effects can take on people who dont have very high self esteem like a little girl, as it seems in the poem. Everyone is born different from one another, and yet it seems like the only beauty there is is the superficial "barbie" type beauty. You have to be this amount of skinny, your nose has to be this big, your hair has to be this length. It is just silly, intelligence doesnt seem to matter anymore, now its about what is on the outside that is beautiful to somepeople. But honestly Beauty should come from inside, because it projects to people. You should never hide the way that you look, and never feel any less than you really are. This poem I think really does relate to how people think in our current society and i think that is just sad and that it should be different but I don't think that it will change anytime soon unfortunately.