What are the motifs in Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy?

Sex roles is a recurring idea in the book. "Barbie Doll" speaks to the destructive influences of rigid sex roles in modern society, and how women, especially, have been socialized into making their bodies and behavior conform to those roles. We see this socialization at work when the "girlchild" is "presented dolls that did pee-pee / and miniature GE stoves and irons / and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy." Taught from early childhood that a woman should be pretty, intellectually passive, and domestic, the girlchild is apologetic for being none of these. Society, however, offers her compensatory strategies: she is urged to "play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty, / exercise, diet, smile, and wheedle."