Barbie Doll
Barbie DollNo Name Woman vs. Barbie Doll: Battle of the Millennia
Let's face it. Society is chock full of subtle, and not-so-subtle, demands to conform to the "norm", and going with the flow is a big part of life. Ideas of conformity are beaten into us as soon as we're able to comprehend the world we live in. A large piece of the conformity pie deals with the role of the woman, and how she should look and act. A good pair of literary works that illustrate the conflict which I assume that all women encounter are "No Name Woman" by Maxine Hong Kingston and "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy. I say that I assume because, being male myself, I really have no idea what the female gender is all about. However, I'll see what I can do. When viewing the two works together, one realizes that although the price for rejecting cultural norms can be shame, torture, and even death, fully embracing the ideals is often a worse alternative.
"No Name Woman" is an excellent example of the possible horrors awaiting those who won't fit the mold. The story is set in the culture of China in the early 1900s. The female role in this culture bears strong similarities to that of a slave. Women were essentially not supposed to have their own opinions, thoughts, or wants. Their main goal in life was to marry a prosperous man and serve him. They went to great pains making themselves look perfect, hoping to attract a wealthy male much like male bird's bright colors do the opposite. To have a child out of wedlock was an unforgivable sin, and with it came a hefty price. In the story which Kingston's mother told her, Kingston's aunt violated the social norms of the culture and suffered grave consequences.
"Barbie Doll" shows the opposite end of the spectrum concerning choices made when confronted with an unfavored social norm. The poem was written in 1970s America, when the roles of women had begun to change drastically. Women's Lib and the sexual revolution all both come into play in this work. The poem boils down to a sarcastic attack on the image of the ideal woman, which the media showed America and the feminists fought to destroy. Women were meant to be thin, have fair skin and hair, to cook, clean and sew according to society, and they were definitely not supposed to have an opinion or a sense of independence. In short, women were simply considered to be of less substance than men.
Although the two works are from different eras, each with their own separate histories, languages, customs, and mentality, their attitudes toward women, and what was expected of them, is strikingly similar. At the simplest level, women of both cultures were inferior to men. This is expressed in "No Name Woman" by the fact that the adulturing male was free from blame by the village. Not only that, but he also "joined the raid...
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