"Barbie Doll"

I believe the poem "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy is about the female image and how much pressure girls are under to be perfect. "The in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:/ You have a great big nose and fat legs"(lines 5-6). Even just one comment can burn that image into a persons mind and make them feel imperfect and that they have to change themselves, "So she cut off her nose and her legs/ and offered them up"(17-18). I thought this meant she had plastic surgery done to make her perfect in the eyes of others and that she had died. But when reading further on it said the undertaker had to put a putty nose on her face, so she must have actually cut herself. "Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said./Consummation at last./ To every woman a happy ending"(23-25). The whole time people thought she was pretty, but that one comment made by a classmate made her self-conscious and she tried to fix her imperfections but in the end she kills herself. So many girls feel self-conscious about themselves and it is impossible to live up to the barbie doll standard and the pressures sometimes put people over the edge.