It seems that for as long as there has been society, there has been a pre-set standard of what the ‘ideal’ woman was supposed to be like. It is not hard to think of what this ‘ideal’ looks like – just look at any early Disney movie, most of the films coming out of Hollywood even today or even in many of our advertisements and fashion mags. The ideal woman is quickly identified as a woman with long, flowing hair; a thin body; a pretty face; proportional figure; quiet disposition; an eagerness to become involved in the maintenance of the home and an excitement about one day taking up the role of mother.
However, for as long as this ideal has existed, there have always been women who did not live up to it for various reasons. Women in the lower classes of society didn’t have time to coddle their looks or their hair, they couldn’t afford to restrict themselves to only engaging in the domestic duties of the home if the family was to survive or they may have simply been born with a constitution that tended toward larger frames, less proportionate body development or less common facial conformations.
When the proportion of women who didn’t fit the mold heavily outweighed the proportion of women who did, as could sometimes be found in the upper classes, this was not as much of a problem. But in modern society, where every woman regardless of class, culture or background is held to the same standard as it is constantly reinforced through modern media, the damage this can inflict can be great. This so-called “Barbie-doll” conception and its potential effects upon the individual and the family can be discovered through a comparison of Mary Gaitskill’s character Kitty from the short story “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” and the theme discovered in Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll.”
Within Mary Gaitskill’s short story “Tiny, Smiling Daddy,” the character of Kitty is portrayed as a rejected daughter because of her inability to conform with social expectations as they are imagined by her father. The child Kitty is described in bits and pieces, as if her father only has these scattered memories of her to cling to instead of strong, full memories. He remembers her “eyes sparkling over her knuckles” as they played the childhood game of playing with nose hairs and her “long, thick brown hair, which she had just washed and was brushing,” both important elements of the classic outward signs of beauty.
As she began to define herself differently, however, a distance begins to grow between her and her parents, particularly as they continue to insist upon her perfect performance as the ideal daughter. This is suggested in the continual references to the parents’ anger over Kitty’s refusal to set the table, a symbol of Kitty’s resistance to traditional female occupation. Through the course of his strained relationship with her, the father describes Kitty as ugly in several instances, indicating times when he can’t even see her anymore.
Although she begins to regain her beauty in his eyes when she visits at the age of 22, she is not the classic female example he envisioned his daughter would be and an emotional distance remains between them. This distance is so profound that Kitty discovers it is easier to tell the world about what hurts her in her relationship with her father than to talk with her father directly about these feelings.
The major theme of the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy is the concept that today’s society expects girls to conform, no matter how impossibly this might be, to a pre-set standard of feminine excellence. This is brought forward in the first stanza as the poet introduces a little girl who meets with all the natural early requirements as she “presented dolls that did pee-pee / and miniature GE stoves and irons” (2-3). This illustrates that the little girl has bought into the concept that her value can be measured by how well she cares for these dolls, how familiar she is with the appliances of the home and how pretty she can make herself with her toy make-ups.
However, as she enters adolescence, her appearance changes so that she is no longer the perfect likeness, having developed “a great big nose and fat legs” (6). Although she had numerous other qualities, “healthy, tested intelligent / possessed strong arms and back” (7-8), she was not able to overcome her perceived ugliness enough to regain the approval of others and became confused by the conflicting directions she was given as to how to deal with other people. Finally, the girl in the poem kills herself as she “cut off her nose and legs / and offered them up” (17-18) to achieve the look of beauty and perfection she desired as she lay on the satin interior of her coffin.
In comparing these two pieces of literature, it is clear that the concept of the Barbie-doll female is widely held and largely damaging to society. Girls and boys grow up believing that the perfect female is someone who looks like the fashion model figurine and concerns herself only with outward appearance and domestic activity. Girls who fit these ideals are accepted and prized, as both Kitty and the young girl of the poem were as children.
In both poems, adolescence brought changes to the young girls that were somehow outside of these accepted social standards. For Kitty, it was in a growing sense of homosexuality as well as a rebellion against the constricting accepted occupational goals open to her gender. For the young girl of the poem, it was in a changing body that somehow was perceived to not fit the ideal. Adolescence for both girls is described as a time of ugliness and unacceptability.
The girls are somehow revealed to be defective and this defectiveness contributes strongly to the troubles they experience. While Kitty essentially becomes dead to her parents, having run away from home at the age of 16 and then leaving again as soon as possible following high school completion, the girl of the poem becomes literally dead, having struggled to lose those elements of her self that are unacceptable. Although neither girl could conform for differing reasons, the girl of the poem suffers a literal death in trying to conform while Kitty suffers a partial spiritual death as she accepts who she is but must also accept the realization of her parents’ inability to do the same.
Works Cited
Gaitskill, Mary. “Tiny, Smiling Daddy.”.
Piercy, Marge. “Barbie-Doll.”.