Despite advertising being illegal ("ad" is, in fact, a dirty word), corporations are still able to persuade and control consumers by the celebrities they create for product placement.
While recovering in the hospital, she is chosen by a scout to become a "Remote Operator" for the beautiful corporate creation, known as Delphi, who was grown without a functioning brain from a modified embryo in an artificial womb.
Though Delphi appears to be a normal fifteen-year-old-girl, she is controlled through a satellite linked to P. Burke's brain, which is still physically located in her original body.
Her job is to act as a celebrity traveling all over the world, all the while subtly buying and promoting products to influence the public in favor of a company.
Paul Isham, the rich and rebellious son of a network executive, notices Delphi on the set of her Soap Opera and falls in love with her.
The underlying discussions that take place in relation to "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" tend to focus on the female body and gender embodiment.
[1] Tiptree uses phrases like "pumped-out hulk", "girl brute" and "carcass" to devalue P. Burke, which further increases her feeling of uselessness in the story.
Hicks explores this idea further, saying "P. Burke welcomes the chance to shed the ignominious flesh and bone that have caused her so much suffering" in order to become more valued.
The author, whose real name is Alice Bradley Sheldon, uses the male pen name of James Tiptree Jr. in order to be successful in the world of science fiction.
To Hollinger, "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" is about the ways women experience pressure from society to fulfill the set standards of femininity as seen in P. Burke's desperate desire to fully leaving her real body and re-embody permanently as Delphi.
[7] In a society where the only way to achieve happiness is by conforming completely to a constructed ideal, P. Burke has little choice but to live through the perfect girl body that is Delphi.
[7] She discusses "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" in terms of how gender can act as a form of imprisonment when society expects an unrealistic display of femininity[7]).
"[7] Another way disembodiment and oppression of the female body is seen in "The Girl Who was Plugged In" is by the words used to describe the main character, i.e. the description of P. Burke.
No surgeon would touch her.”[9] In the opinion of Scott Bukatman, of Stanford University, Tiptree forms the body into something unclean and decaying through phrases such as "dead daddy", "rotten girl" and "zombie".
[10] Hicks suggests the use of crude words for the main character only gets worse as the story progresses to emphasize an unappealing display of female disembodiment.
While Hollinger reads "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" through the ideological lens of gender as a performance,[7] Hicks believes Tiptree connects female disembodiment with women's relationship to technology.
[8] Delphi, who was made for the sole purpose of advertising, is the living example of the perfect woman, and through her work for GTX she participates in reinforcing the cultural ideal of the femininity she's created after.
[10] Bukatman points out that technological advances in science fiction are synonym with the furthering of a patriarchal power structure, as seen in the control of the female body in "The Girl Who Was Plugged In".
[10] He also points out the negative impact of altering your identity in Tiptree's story, and states that it serves as a symbol of oppression rather than liberation from society's conventions.
[11] Hicks believes that Sheldon herself may have experienced a form or disembodiment where she could only fulfill the ideals of the science fiction community by assuming a male persona.