Compare And Contrast Barbie Doll And Homage To My Hips

Feminism is one of the major issues in the United States that engage the advocacy of women's rights supporters toward the ending of sexism. Authors such as Marge Piercy and Lucille Clifton reflect this movement in their writing. The poems by Marge Piercy “Barbie Doll” and by Lucille Clifton “homage to my hips” have very unusual viewpoints and attitudes in expressing their story on similar subjects. Both poems present the aspect of women rejection of society’s expectations concerning their physical appearance. In both Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll” and Lucille Clifton’s poem “homage to my hips,” each poet condemns the traditional feminine stereotypes of body image and self-esteem; however, Marge Piercy provides a more effective critique of social expectations about body image. Marge Piercy is a poet who often writes …show more content…
Society’s views, and especially those that the entertainment industry presents are very judgmental of a woman’s body. This societal perspective is evident in many of the shows on TV running today. For example, Susan J. Douglas, a columnist for In These Times says about The Bachelor that the show is not about a bachelor, but about females’ behavior and their looks. Douglas says, “Female viewers see an array of personas, identifying with some and rejecting others, as they calibrate what kind of woman succeeds in a world where appearance and personality still powerfully determine a woman's fate” (par. 8). Piercy demonstrates this hypercritical view of women that do not fit societies stereotypical image in the poem “Barbie Doll” when the speaker says, “Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: / You have a great big nose and fat legs“ (ln. 5-6). Just like in The Bachelor, in Piercy’s poem, society judges the looks of a