Jan 2, 2010

Barbie Doll | Historical Context

In her essay, “Through the Cracks: Growing Up in the Fifties,” originally published in Partisan Review and later reprinted in Part-Colored Blocks for a Quilt, Marge Piercy describes the social pressures exerted on women to conform in mid-twentieth century America, claiming that those who did not were labeled “sick.” Piercy writes, “If you wanted something you couldn’t have easily or that other people did not want or wouldn’t admit to wanting, if you were angry, if you were different, strange, psychic, emotional, intellectual, political, double-jointed: you...