Barbie Doll at first glance, is a short poem that describes what it is like to be a girl who doesn't look like all of the other people in society want her to look like, however if you look deeper you can find the true message of the story. The story says that this girl was completely normal on the inside, she just looked different than the other girls. Just because this girl had a larger nose and legs that were fatter than most other girls, she was made fun of and always apologized for the way she looked. She went to the gym and changed her diet so that she could get skinnier and fit in with other girls, but this didn't work as well as she had hoped. She was able to handle all of the rude comments and how she was treated for most of her life, but like most things, she got worn down and decided to finally change who she was to impress the people around her. This girl went in and got plastic surgery to make her legs smaller and to make her nose look like the ones other girls had. On her death bed she laid there all dressed up with makeup on her fake nose and beautiful cloths on her fake legs. All the people around her admired how pretty the new her looked as she was laying there.

This short story/ poem was written by a female author named Marge Piercy, in 1973. The 1960's and the 1970's marked the start of the second wave of the feminist movement. In this time period women wanted to break free from their traditional roles as house wives, and to gain many freedoms such as equal rights for working outside of the home and to break free from being controlled by their husbands. In order to obtain these goals women started to advocate their rights by doing things such as, protesting in the streets, writing poems about their hardships, creating new art works, and having some of the first women to ever study. Feminist poetry and writing were two of the larger movements, in which women "challenged the traditional notations of form and context." In their works women tried to bring attention to their own realities. They would write about their life styles that they were forced to live, and the struggles that they faced on a daily basis. Hundreds of famous female writers emerged in this movement such as Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, Amy Lowell, and Emily Dickson.  Some of the stories that were written were truly inspiring and so when other women would read about the message that these women had, it would encourage and motivate these other women to join the feminist movement. This lead to women getting together in huge numbers and collaborating their famous protests.

One fantastic example of feminist writing is "Barbie Doll" by Marge Pierce. In the story, Marge describes how much pressure there is on women to be normal and look like other women. In her writing Marge uses some subtle hints such as metaphors, and she uses some very blunt straightforward sentences about how women are expected to live. She will write things about how from the moment a little girl is born girls are given and shown objects that are there to show her place in the world. One quote saying "This girlchild was born as usual and presented dolls that did pee-pee and miniature GE stoves and irons." This explains how in the story the little girl is given miniature ovens to learn how to cook, presumably for their husbands, and they are given little dolls that pee and act like real babies so that she can learn how to act around and treat little kids. This is how Marge shows that women are trained to become a housewife from an early age, which at this time period is the only thing that men want the women to be allowed to do. 

Another example of Marge Piercy attacking the lifestyle of women in the story Barbie Doll says "She was healthy, tested intelligent, possessed strong arms and back, abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity. She went to and fro apologizing. Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs."(p149) This quote talks about how everyone around this girl tells her that she isn't good enough, and that she isn't as pretty as the other girls are. If you read closely and research the background of what women had to deal with on a daily basis, you realize that this quote isn't really talking about the girls looks at all. In the 1970's women were looked at as being inferior to men. Women weren't allowed to get a job outside of the household because they were viewed as being weaker than men and it was thought that they couldn't do as much as the men, when in reality women are capable of doing all the same jobs that men are. Just like in the story women were judged by physical appearances and the false though that they were inferior to men, when in reality women are the exact same as men on the inside and can do the same jobs.

In part of the story Marge writes that "she was advised to play coy." Which is what husbands did to their wives when that talked about wanting more power in the world. Women talked out and in most cases they were just brushed off or laughed at because men didn't think women were capable of doing all of the things that men could. Much like in the story when it says on page 149, "Her good nature wore out like a fan belt. So she cut off her nose and her legs and offered them up." Women all around the United States grew tired as always being treated poorly and not being viewed as equals. They eventually got worn down and decided it was time to make a change. In the story that change was to get surgery and look like all of the other girls, and in the real world women started to protest and talk out about not having equal rights. After she lived most of her life as not being as pretty as other girls she decided to make that change and she laid on her death bed, along with her new nose and her skinny legs she was finally viewed as being a beautiful woman. Just like women in the United States went their whole lives, or part of their lives, being told that they weren't as good as men are, so they fought to change that and in the end they were granted their rights and were finally viewed as equals to men.

In conclusion the feminist movement had a tremendous impact on all aspects that came out of the 1970's. You can see how much this movement impacted the United States by reading a few of the Poems and stories that feminist writers produced. The large feminist movement helped to inspire and shape many women authors. They commonly used metaphors or just blatantly wrote about the oppression of women as the main subject in their works, which in turn, helped support and fuel the feminist movement.
