That Barbie Monologue

Reading between the lines of a rant

Here is a close reading of America Ferrera’s speech, considered a rallying cry for the modern American woman.

It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.

Yes, it is impossible. Not because of the patriarchy but because we’ve replaced it with a regime of intellectual authoritarianism we enforce among ourselves.

What is meant by ‘smart’? If it’s intellectual horsepower and ability to generate original ideas, Barbie wasn’t exactly a deep thinker, or at least, there was no opportunity to display it if she was.

If one considers it, no one is compelling us to be extraordinary. Messages from the media don’t count; no one is forcing one to imbibe them. And yes, there is some measure of expectation from the generation born of second-wave feminists. But from my experience, we’re probably putting those expectations on ourselves…