Barbie movie 'iconic' monologue is BS

Anonymous
Agree wholeheartedly!
Anonymous
I haven’t felt pressure to fit an ideal, but as a pretty, thin petite woman, I found that I have faced a lot of sexual harassment at work. And I’m a lawyer, which makes it even worse.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:OP I completely agree honestly. I haven't seen the movie so maybe if someone saw the monologue in that context and before hearing about it separately, it would have a lot of impact because it's unexpected. But as a standalone that many women were posting on FB etc, I kind of rolled my eyes. No one is expecting most of these things. I have a career, am married with kids... I'm not extraordinary and no one expects me to be. I look fine but I also look like a 40+ yo woman as do most others in my circle. Life is pretty good.


People who have not seen the movie should not comment on said movie.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP I completely agree honestly. I haven't seen the movie so maybe if someone saw the monologue in that context and before hearing about it separately, it would have a lot of impact because it's unexpected. But as a standalone that many women were posting on FB etc, I kind of rolled my eyes. No one is expecting most of these things. I have a career, am married with kids... I'm not extraordinary and no one expects me to be. I look fine but I also look like a 40+ yo woman as do most others in my circle. Life is pretty good.


People who have not seen the movie should not comment on said movie.


The OP isn't really about the movie. It's about whether the monologue is accurate / resonates with other women.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP I completely agree honestly. I haven't seen the movie so maybe if someone saw the monologue in that context and before hearing about it separately, it would have a lot of impact because it's unexpected. But as a standalone that many women were posting on FB etc, I kind of rolled my eyes. No one is expecting most of these things. I have a career, am married with kids... I'm not extraordinary and no one expects me to be. I look fine but I also look like a 40+ yo woman as do most others in my circle. Life is pretty good.


People who have not seen the movie should not comment on said movie.


The OP isn't really about the movie. It's about whether the monologue is accurate / resonates with other women.


Which was said in the movie. The person didn't just say this on the evening news.
Anonymous
Is this out on streaming?
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:You’ve never experienced any of this, OP? I mean, ever Taylor Swift, who is much younger than me, talks about a lot of this in the song “The Man”.

Spent a few hours around the relationships, family relationships, and parenting boards, not even to get into the diet and fitness boards to see how women feel about their bodies due to media and societal pressure. Women who are scared to take full maternity leaves, women who even question Capri pants. C’mon.

Sorry, but a few hours driving on DCUM is the explanation for this monologue, if you have any awareness.


Aren’t we always told that social media isn’t real life?

I agree with OP. I am a 43 year old woman. I haven’t felt pressure like what’s described since middle school. After which I decided to do my own thing, as most reasonably secure and self-aware people hopefully do. I’ve never been beautiful enough to be vain. I’ve always worked hard and excelled. I don’t apologize for my family or work choices and I DGAF if you think I’m a monster for sending my kids to day care while I worked. I took 6 months unpaid maternity leave with each kid that I unplanned and saved for and it didn’t hurt my career at all. In fact I got promoted to the highest position I can reach at my workplace, while 6 months pregnant with kid #2. I’ve never been sexually harassed at work. And I have worked in all-male workplaces. I’ve also had terrific female bosses. I’m a religious minority but I haven’t experienced discrimination at work either.

I know there are women who have experienced all these things and I am sorry for it, but it’s not universal. And it is certainly not “literally” impossible to be a woman in America since, you know, many of us are females and alive.

You know where it sucks to be a working woman with a family? Japan. They’ve been stuck in the 60s since before the 60s. I lived and worked there for a few years and it’s exactly what my mother described of her life in the 60s and 70s where her employer tried to fire her when she got pregnant, her doctor threatened to spank her because she kept her maiden name when she married, and she couldn’t get a car loan in her own name when married even though all the income was hers (my dad was in grad school). If Barbie wants to write a screed about that, I’m all in. Modern expectations and barriers don’t remotely compare to what women experienced a generation ago.


+1. I am a very imperfect woman but am overall fine with it, as are my beloved husband, parents, and children (the only people whose opinions I care about). And the lyrics of “The Man” are 100% accurate but it is also 100% accurate to say that men have to live up to some ridiculously high standards too (athleticism, masculinity, income, etc.). In this day and age and society, I do not see women as more downtrodden and men. If they have built a cage of ridiculously high standards for themselves, they need to stop engaging with whoever is influencing them.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP I completely agree honestly. I haven't seen the movie so maybe if someone saw the monologue in that context and before hearing about it separately, it would have a lot of impact because it's unexpected. But as a standalone that many women were posting on FB etc, I kind of rolled my eyes. No one is expecting most of these things. I have a career, am married with kids... I'm not extraordinary and no one expects me to be. I look fine but I also look like a 40+ yo woman as do most others in my circle. Life is pretty good.


People who have not seen the movie should not comment on said movie.


The OP isn't really about the movie. It's about whether the monologue is accurate / resonates with other women.[/quote

Women who don't understand are women who have set low expectations for themselves and don't have enough world experience to realize that those low expectations are a result of our sexist society.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:It's not that no woman is happy or that you can't be an imperfect woman. The monologue is mainly just about how the expectations for women are constantly contradictory, and this makes it hard ("impossible") to feel like you are meeting expectations because no matter what you do, it's wrong.

Like I'm a thin woman and in theory this means I'm meeting societal beauty standards, but here's a short list of body shaming things I've heard about my thin body: real women have curves, you can't be that thin without an eating disorder, eat a sandwich, itty bitty titty committee, flat a$$, men don't like a woman without a little meat on her, skinny women age faster. That's my reward for being thin. It's great!

Similarly, women are pretty much universally expected to want to be mothers and the social pressure to have kids is quite great, but the minute you become a mom it's like people are annoyed at you for being a mom. They roll their eyes at moms who speak up for their kids but they criticize moms who don't "do enough" for them. Working moms are told they don't spend enough time with their kids, SAHMs are told they are lazy. A mom who is involved at school is a busy body and "bored" but a mom who isn't involved at school clearly isn't invested in their kid's education. Meanwhile, no one ever asks a man if he's going to keep working after he becomes a dad, and people used to walk up to my husband at the grocery store when he was there alone with our DD to tell him what a great dad he was.... for doing something I did all the time and no one seemed to care (or they'd be annoyed with me for bringing my kid to the grocery store).

And regarding work, women are told that they must be assertive to be taken seriously at work, but there is STILL a "likability" cost to women for assertiveness. I do feel this one has gotten better and that it's better in some fields than others, but it does still happen.

So I don't agree with every aspect of that monologue, but the gist of it definitely felt true to me. It's not that it's impossible to be a woman, it's that it's impossible to meet societal expectations for women because they are full of contradictions, and this keeps women feeling like we are failing all the time even when we're doing pretty well.

+1!
Be perfect but don't talk about it or act like you desire it, certainly don't go overboard striving for it, just be it! I think some of us may be more sensitive to the messages and contradictions, the sexual harassment and inequality.

I loved the movie and even though I agreed with the dialogue, it was just part of the whole. I didn't see it as preachy but several people said that to me. To them it was "nothing new" and stuff we all know but that doesn't mean we can't continue pointing out how stressful it is.

I also agree with one of the responses here about looking at these forums for clear examples of "damned if you do, damned if you don't"
Anonymous
I didn't like the monologue either especially the beginning..."it's literally impossible to be a woman"

It's not impossible. I am one everyday. So much of it was the helpless, victim role, but women never acknowledge how we feed into it especially things like beauty standards, plastic surgery, etc. Women put that pressure on themselves.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Op, I agree with you. Which legit authority is setting these impossible goals for woman? Which healthy women believe that these are reasonable goals? This speech is so much drama. The only people I'd guess would believe and repeat this are young girls, maybe teenagers with very limited life experience.

From my experience, that speech is a lie. Being a woman in US is just fine and a long way from "literally impossible." I look average, have an average job, never tried to perfectly fit a mold. Going against these supposed standards has caused me no harm because these goals are not real. I've apparently failed as a woman compared to these "impossible" musts and yet I have lovely children, a happy marriage, and a very decent peaceful life. Whoever wrote that speech is a liar and probably was aiming to manipulate a naive audience.


+100
The only people who seem to believe that speech is gospel are young women who - unfortunately - have been raised in a culture of victimhood. It actually makes me cringe.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It's not that no woman is happy or that you can't be an imperfect woman. The monologue is mainly just about how the expectations for women are constantly contradictory, and this makes it hard ("impossible") to feel like you are meeting expectations because no matter what you do, it's wrong.

Like I'm a thin woman and in theory this means I'm meeting societal beauty standards, but here's a short list of body shaming things I've heard about my thin body: real women have curves, you can't be that thin without an eating disorder, eat a sandwich, itty bitty titty committee, flat a$$, men don't like a woman without a little meat on her, skinny women age faster. That's my reward for being thin. It's great!

Similarly, women are pretty much universally expected to want to be mothers and the social pressure to have kids is quite great, but the minute you become a mom it's like people are annoyed at you for being a mom. They roll their eyes at moms who speak up for their kids but they criticize moms who don't "do enough" for them. Working moms are told they don't spend enough time with their kids, SAHMs are told they are lazy. A mom who is involved at school is a busy body and "bored" but a mom who isn't involved at school clearly isn't invested in their kid's education. Meanwhile, no one ever asks a man if he's going to keep working after he becomes a dad, and people used to walk up to my husband at the grocery store when he was there alone with our DD to tell him what a great dad he was.... for doing something I did all the time and no one seemed to care (or they'd be annoyed with me for bringing my kid to the grocery store).

And regarding work, women are told that they must be assertive to be taken seriously at work, but there is STILL a "likability" cost to women for assertiveness. I do feel this one has gotten better and that it's better in some fields than others, but it does still happen.

So I don't agree with every aspect of that monologue, but the gist of it definitely felt true to me. It's not that it's impossible to be a woman, it's that it's impossible to meet societal expectations for women because they are full of contradictions, and this keeps women feeling like we are failing all the time even when we're doing pretty well.

+1!
Be perfect but don't talk about it or act like you desire it, certainly don't go overboard striving for it, just be it! I think some of us may be more sensitive to the messages and contradictions, the sexual harassment and inequality.

I loved the movie and even though I agreed with the dialogue, it was just part of the whole. I didn't see it as preachy but several people said that to me. To them it was "nothing new" and stuff we all know but that doesn't mean we can't continue pointing out how stressful it is.

I also agree with one of the responses here about looking at these forums for clear examples of "damned if you do, damned if you don't"


My teen daughter calls that being a "try-hard" - you have to try hard but be all casual about it.
It's still hitting all generations.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:please designate your gender before you post on this one... Dudes can't relate.



I'm not a "dude" and I very much agree with OP.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Summary of OP: “I haven’t suffered personally, so nobody else’s suffering can possibly be real, because I am the main character.”


Summary of your post: "I consider myself a victim of the patriarchy and suffer every single day because of it. No one could ever suffer as I have."
Anonymous
I don’t think the speech is incorrect but I found it too be too heavy handed, it didn’t impact me the way it did some other viewers.

That said everything doesn’t have to resonate with everyone. If the speech made someone feel heard or seen I’m glad.

The outfits and set in that movie were top tier
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