Barbie Dystopianis Duhamel Analysis

In Making Faces: The Cosmetics Industry and the Cultural Construction of Gender, Kathy Peiss argues that cosmetics transformed society’s criteria and standard of beauty which segmented the industry and heightened cultural constructions of gender, class, and race. Before cosmetics were commercialized, make-up was solely worn by prostitutes, thus it was considered offensive, degrading, and improper. As the market grew, it began to represent sexuality, femininity, and womanhood. The cosmetic industry popularized the idea that beauty could only be achieved by wearing specific products, thus persuading women to believe they needed to wear makeup at all times. It led to the assertion it was a woman 's duty to be beautiful to her husband, the world,

Some women are just too obsessed with their appearance. Do you want to live in a society where some women are unable to be truthful with their appearances? Do you want to live in a society where women have figures of sticks? Do you want to live in a society where the most essential piece of equipment a woman carries with her is either make up or a mirror? Nowadays some women are so obsessed with the idea of looking perfect that they go to extreme lengths to become what they consider is pretty.

First, Friedan stresses the severity of Freud’s ideas by stating, “It is a Freudian idea...that has trapped so many American women today,” and “the new mystique is much more difficult...to question...because the mystique is broadcast by the very agents...that are supposed to be the chief enemies of prejudice…” Freud had many ideas and theories concerning why women were not happy in their roles as housewives and mothers. One such concept was penis envy, which was seized in this country as the literal explanation of all that was wrong with American women. When women showed their desire to grow, their ambitions were brushed off as penis envy, and this strengthened the mystique. Friedan argues that this Freudian thought was embraced by academics and intellectuals across America, and women accepted it since it would be difficult to counter such established ideas. When penis envy, basically the view that women could never really be man’s equal, was so prevalent, how could women grow and achieve self

Although these stereotypes are horrific, they are the harrowing reality women face every day. Kincaid uses repetitive details to critique women’s role in society. These repetitive details, a subset of realistic details, illuminate social issues. Similarly, many other authors employ realistic details to expose societal critiques or unwritten messages within a narrative. For instance, Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and

By repeating this line, Abramovic challenges conventional beauty standards and calls upon modern female desires to be physically beautiful. Not only does the performance extract from physical appearance, the piece questions whether art must be beautiful. In performance art, the actions often challenge the performer and bring it to the extreme by putting emotional and physical stress on the artist’s body and mind. Art must be Beautiful, Artist Must be Beautiful puts continuous stress upon the artist’s body by reclaiming the figure as the artist’s own and exposing the harsh realities of social expectations. Consequently, as an artist, Mariana Abramovic’s piece challenges physical beauty and

She goes on to use Abercrombie & Fitch as an example of an outside force causing girls to be sexual because they put out a shirt that says “who needs brains when you have these” on the chest. She goes on to make the point that a group of teen girls joined together to boycott these shirts, but she does not acknowledge that this boycott was led by Girls as Grantmakers, a feminist group. She wanted to work around the facts to prove that girls do not want to sexual and are willing to prove this by boycotting an institution. Laura Sessions Stepp uses examples that support “the emotional/ physical movement” by saying sex causes women to suffer from diseases and mental illness. She believes hookups cause women to become distant and no longer want relationships.

Both “A Work of Artifice” and “Barbie Doll” were made in the 1960s, which during the  Feminist Reformation. Marge Piercy wrote these poems to rally citizens to strive for an overall female equality. Like “A Work of Artifice”, “Barbie Doll” arises the idea of unnatural beauty and unreal expectations. Piercy fights against the idea that as a woman of the 1960s, females were expected to be beautiful in order to satisfy the history of the male attraction.

The media portrays these unrealistic standards to men and women of how women should look, which suggests that their natural face is not good enough. Unrealistic standards for beauty created by the media is detrimental to girls’ self-esteem because it makes women feel constant external pressure to achieve the “ideal look”, which indicates that their natural appearance is inadequate. There has been an increasing number of women that are dissatisfied with themselves due to constant external pressure to look perfect. YWCA’s “Beauty at Any Cost” discusses this in their article saying that, “The pressure to achieve unrealistic physical beauty is an undercurrent in the lives of virtually all women in the United States, and its steady drumbeat is wreaking havoc on women in ways that far exceed the bounds of their physical selves” (YWCA).

A world where ideals of beauty constantly shift . A world where the central power gets to decide what the standard for beauty is through the media. A world where women are judged for their outward appearances and compared to the overarching base for beauty—the Western ideal. That subsists as the reality of Earth in the year 2017. Although conformity can lead to unity, the Western media’s distortion of beauty destroys all of the unique standards of beauty that different cultures have, leading many people to do plastic surgery.

Stereotypes can be changed by addressing the differences between the stereotype and reality. There is a word that goes with the word macho, “marianismo.” It reflects a belief in an ideal woman such as the Virgin Mary. This model woman is gentle, passive, virtuous and self-sacrificing. According to historian Barbara Welter, in the middle of the 19th century, there was a belief in the "Cult of True

In the article "Totally Impractical Size Chart for Women’s Clothing," Claire Suddath, writes a letter about the way women 's clothing is sized. She thinks measuring system for clothes is ridiculous. She is addressing the clothing industry but also she might have intended the letter for women as well. It 's obvious that Suddath wrote this letter to the clothing industry because she addresses the letter to Totally Impractical Size Chart for Women’s Clothing.

In the short story ''Barbie Q,'' Sandra Cisneros portrays that Barbie dolls can impact girl's lives as they grow up, and influence the way they act and perceive themselves. These girls grow up in a poor family environment considering that they acquired the rest of the dolls in a toys sale after a store burned down. In ‘‘Barbie Q,’’what is the thematic significance of the damaged dolls after the fire? The girl’s enthusiasm to get the new dolls -when they said that they prefer to receive new doll’s clothes- suggests that the meaning of these Barbie dolls is more than just a new toy.

In the article “Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes” by Mark Snyder, the various researchers help construct evidence of stereotypes in our society. Theses stereotypes affect both men and women as well as various racial stereotypes. For example, Snyder mentions that college students of the opposites sex were to have a phone conversation with one another. Each of the men were given a picture of the women they were supposedly talking to. When some of the men received a photo of an unattractive female, they predicted they would be awkward, unsociable, and boring (Snyder 543).

Ever wonder how hard women worked in order to obtain the same rights as men? Can you imagine being a female during the nineteenth century and marching to protest the right to vote? Throughout our history, the ability of women has been questioned. Many individuals view women as inferior to men and feel that women are incapable of fulfilling the roles that were originally designed for men. But, even now in the twenty-first century, women still face prejudice and are seen as simple objects.

In society today, the female body is something tough to compete with. Writer Susan Bordo, focuses on the relationship between femininity, notions of control and illnesses such as anorexia and agoraphobia in her written work “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity”. Similarities are touched upon in the documentary “Codes of Gender”. This is a film surrounding commercial realism, and how both men and women are looked at in advertisements (Sully 2012).