Barbie Vs Woman

Barbie vs Woman

Every day, girls are being bombarded by the society through social media, internet articles, and even television advertisements. My response to the poem “Barbie Doll” is not influenced much by my own experiences because I cannot directly relate to or identify with the feelings of the “girlchild”. However, although I have not directly experienced her situation, I can still understand her feelings because I see how society affects girls in general on a daily basis. Its effect hurts their self-image as well as their confidence level.

For example, the pictures of models that are seen all throughout the internet and even on magazines are all sending false messages. In most of those cases, the girls are never as thin, smooth skinned, or blemish free as in those pictures. Those are all just a direct result of this day and age where there are computer programs available which can photo shop an image and make someone look different than they do in real life. Another example is that certain clothing companies sell clothes that are in smaller sizes rather than plus sized. A few instances of these are stores such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, Charlotte Russe, Express, and Pacsun. These stores are targeted toward young women while at the same time only appealing towards thin women. We see these outlets as we walk around department stores and we even see how thin the manikins are that the stores have to display the clothing items. This all negatively results to women having this false extremely skinny image of themselves and I can see how this pressure from society could lead them to extreme feelings such as low self esteem and confidence levels. Which in turn can lead to even more extreme cases such as cutting or suicide. The poem reveals the girl dismembering her body by cutting her legs off.

The media definitely has an affect on me and it does influence my response to this poem. These days I find it hard to believe that people aren’t being affected by the media in at least one way or another. We are constantly exposed to the media in ways such as billboard advertisements, commercials, radio stations, television talk shows, magazine articles, etc. For instance, I constantly see commercials, magazines, and movies advertising about working out and being fit. In the past few years these types of media outlets have really