The Girl Who Was Plugged In By James Tiptree

In the short story, "The Girl Who Was Plugged In", James Tiptree creates a society where there is no official advertising. The only form of advertisement is the use of celebrities or "remotes", who are forced to use specific products, to entice the general public into purchasing them. The story focuses on on a single character, known as Philadelphia Burke, who is transformed from her natural rancid state, as described by the narrator, into a goddess like figure that Tiptree's society holds as the epitome of beauty. P. Burke, having been a wretched being for seventeen years of her life, is given the chance to become a remote and through a new body live the life that she has always dreamed of. Using the character P. Burke, Tiptree highlights

the often unattainable and harmful nature of society's ideals regarding femininity and feminine beauty. From the story-line you can conclude not only that femininity is based on beauty, but that feminine beauty itself is based on unnatural acquiescence and learned behaviors.
The fact that Delphi is held in higher regard than Philadelphia points toward the conclusion that femininity is largely based on beauty. In almost every sense other than appearance, they are the same exact person with the same personality and tendencies. Despite technically being the same person, Delphi & P. Burke's appearances affect the way they are perceived and treated by society. Throughout the short story, P Burke is described horrendously. The narrator even goes as far to say that, “P. Burke is about as far as you can get on the concept girl. She’s a female, yes—but for her, sex is a four-letter word spelled P-A-I-N" (11). The narrator basically states that due to her hideous appearance, and thus her lack of desirability, that she can barely be called a woman. He only grants her the title of female due to indisputable anatomical factors. However, he sees no reason to call her a girl or a woman, based on her lack of sexual activity. This is not only demeaning to P. Burke, but it also presents the notion that femininity is based on whether you are considered sexually attractive by men.
To become a truly sexy attractive & desirable figure, P.

Burke not only must gain a new body, but she is forced to learn new habits as well. The story reads, “…training takes place in her suite, and is exactly what you’d call a charm course. How to walk, sit, eat, speak, blow her nose, how to stumble, to urinate, to hiccup—DELICIOUSLY.... But P. Burke proves apt. Somewhere in that horrible body is a gazelle, a houri who would have been buried forever without this crazy chance. See the ugly duckling go!” (5). These lines display just how large of a factor beauty is when considering femininity. By all accounts, P. Burke is the one committing these actions, although using a different body from her own, the actions are still of her psyche. She is perfectly capable of doing these things, eve possibly from her old body, but it didn’t matter. At the end of the day her appearance would overshadow any feminine behaviors that she could have done in her old

body.
Simultaneously, one can conclude from these lines that femininity is not something that those of the female sex innately have. Requiring P. Burke to learn all of these tendencies and change the way she naturally does them, implies that the femininity that society praises is not one that women innately have. Femininity, instead of describing how women act, prescribes how they should act. In a male dominated society, these prescriptions are often imposed on women and offer an ideal of femininity that many women will never be able to attain.
Society's idolization of Delphi also promotes the idea that feminine beauty is based on being young and petite. Both are traits associated with being submissive and easily suppressed. In the context of the story, feminine beauty is the ability to be controlled by male patriarchy and/or authority. Delphi is young and docile making it easier for her to be controlled by men, which is one of the many things that make her so attractive in this society. At one point the narrator describes, "...little Delphi, fifteen and flawless," as "eighty-nine pounds of tender girl flesh". This description provides insight into how Delphi is viewed by society, especially her male counterparts. Just like in our society younger women are fetishized by older men. This futuristic takes it to a new extreme, where under age girls are openly chased by older men. Pedophilia is seemingly not only frequent, but expected. Her young age and appearance aid in her image as a docile, timid, little girl who can easily be taken advantage of, culminating her beauty within this society.
When P. Burke is first hooked up to Delphi and begins to control her new body, the narrator describes the scene, stating, “Sitting up in the bed is the darlingest girl child you’ve EVER seen. She quivers—porno for angels” (5). This quote further points toward this idea that feminine beauty in this society is based on the woman, or girl to be exact, being dominated by the man. She’s described as a child and then she even quivers, an action often associate with backing down and being submissive. Delphi in a sexual sense is treated as a grown, fully developed woman, however she has no control of her own life. She is never really allowed to make decisions regarding her own happiness. Where she goes, the products she uses, and even many of her relationships are dictated by corporations. Even when she gets into a relationship with Paul she continues to be treated as someone that must be directed in the right decisions. Although he may actually love her, he continuously disregards her opinions and feelings. He decides what is going to happen with their relationship, no matter her objections.
The story of Philadelphia Burke implies a lot about how our world perceives women and the ideas of femininity that surround them.

In the end, P. Burke dies at the age of seventeen by the hands of the corporation, as they attempt to stop her from doing as she pleases with Delphi’s body. Her death by the hands of the corporations, direct or indirect, is a brilliant metaphor for the effect that the male patriarchy can have on women within our society. Femininity in much of society is largely based on beauty, what men characterize as beautiful. Feminine beauty is culmination of sever non-innate behaviors and even more so, a woman’s ability to be controlled by the male figure in her life and in society at large. To be female is to beautiful and to be beautiful is to be submissive. These implications in Tiptree’s exaggerated, futuristic story provide a valuable analysis and critique of our treatment of women in in modern day

society.