Society's Damaging Beauty Standards: A Critique

Barbie Doll

Women are expected to fit into the perfect image society has created. In “Barbie Doll, a poem by Marge Piercy, the woman is viewed by her thick legs and fat nose. Eventually the woman cannot take the standards anymore and decides to cut off her legs and nose, committing suicide. Many women today have the same issues as Piercy’s character. Scientists are trying to find the importance of beauty to humans, the workforce treats women differently, before the 20th century women were required to stay home, blacks were granted rights before women, it was not just white women it was all women, every society has a specific view for women.

Scientists have been studying why natural beauty is an important aspect to women.

Society has a picture women are required to fit, when they look different women are frowned upon. “But during puberty, while boys are amassing the bone and muscle of paleolithic hunters, a typical girl gains nearly 35 pounds of so-called reproductive fat around the hips and thighs (Cowley). Most people do not know this stage of women and just think women get ‘fat’. Society thinks men need to be muscular and large, while women are required to be petite. When a women does not fall into the picture society has, she does things to harm her body. In “Barbie Doll”, “So she cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up” (Piercy), she demonstrates what a women does to herself when she does not fit in. However, a woman’s image is not all she faces issues with, a woman also faces issues with treatment in the workforce.
In the 1900’s women began working outside of the home.

Up until this point the roles of women were inside the home. Women cared for the children and did household chores. Eventually women started getting out and getting their own jobs. It began when the women started taking low paying jobs during World War I. The beauty of women was not necessary, women were having to do the men’s jobs as the men were off fighting in the war. Looking into statistics, women run over half the world now. “According to a recent study by Cornell University economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn, American women are about as likely as American men to be company managers” (Hymowitz). Women are still paid a different salary than some men. “Gender wage gaps are a global phenomenon. If you are a woman, or at least if you are a woman with children, chances are you are making less than your average countryman (Hymowitz). However in some countries, women are still viewed as the house

slave.
In the 20th century, women were viewed differently than now.

Women were required to stay home, if they did not stay home and care for their children, society judged. Society believed a relationship was not good if the woman was not a “stay-at-home mom”. “Get a good education, because you don't know what's ahead of you. It's not like your husband will take care of you--nowadays it's a fifty-fifty world” (A Century of Women: Hooray). Now, if a girl does not learn to take care of herself, society assumes she is doomed. Women are not required to rely on men like the 20th century. “I had the right to make a choice” (A Century of Women: Hooray). Women were finally allowed to express their own thoughts and feelings, before the right to vote women were known by their husbands, they were not their own people. Women took the right to vote as their chance to become an actual person outside of the home. Women began to get jobs and branch away from the societal views, which took a turn for America’s

workforce.
Since women were viewed as housewives in the 20th century, they were worried about looks of themselves and their house. Now, women are required to work and look like a barbie doll. The image created by barbie dolls has ruined women and their self-esteem. When young girls see the dolls they are playing with, or the girls on the movies they are watching, they want to look just like them. Children think the women are beautiful and think they should look the same. Often times when a young girl is introduced to social media, her life changes. She sees the beautiful people's pictures and wants to be like them. She reads posts about how a woman is supposed to look and strives to be what everyone wants. Society says certain men are supposed to be with certain women, when a girl reads this, she finds how she is supposed to look. She then strives to fit an image.