
Second-wave feminism is the American feminist movement during the 1960s and 1980s. As opposed to the first-wave feminist movement, this movement focused more on sexuality, reproductive rights, and equality in the workplace. A lot of the progress women tried to make can be seen in literature. Authors such as Marge Piercy, author of the poem Barbie Doll, used literature as a platform to discuss the changes they felt were necessary to work towards gender equality. By using outside sources, one can gain more background knowledge of the subject. Authors such as Susan Gelfand Malka and Anne M. Valk also used literature as a platform to get their message across, but in a different form. Piercy used literature such as poems as opposed to Valk and Malka who used articles as their means of getting across the message. By using these articles from the time period of the second-wave feminist movement, a reader can better understand the context of literature such as Marge Piercy’s Barbie Doll.

In Kara Dixon Vuic’s review of Daring to Care: American Nursing and Second-Wave Feminism by Susan Gelfand Malka, Vuic discusses how the progression of the education and even the outfit of nurses began to create a less sexually stereotypical profession. Vuic opens up her review by talking about the historical context in which Malka’s work was written. It starts in the 1950s and discusses the uniform of a nurse in that time period. Typically, a nurse at that time would wear a white uniform and a white cap to symbolize a woman’s purity and also her feminine features. Vuic then goes on to explain how it has progressed into a less gender-defined outfit. Nurses in the time period of second-wave feminism began to change the look of nurses and wear scrubs. She then goes on to discuss how the education of nurses began to progress during second-wave feminism. Originally, nursing degrees were just taught by hospitals in three-year diploma programs, not giving the nurses a very broad education. However, during the second-wave feminist movement, universities began to offer baccalaureate programs. This gave nurses more of a choice in their education options meaning they could study subjects such as women’s history. Also, the movement of nursing education from hospital programs to university degrees helped define nursing’s intellectual movement as an academic discipline. This education helped nurses become more empowered and join groups such as labor unions. Even though women in the nursing field took great strides to create a less sexist and stereotypical profession, many women still saw the nursing field as sexist and stayed away from it. 

In Patricia Hill Collins’ review of Radical Sisters by Anne M. Valk, Collins discusses the feminist movement amongst black and poor people in the city of Washington, D.C. She begins by talking about how Valk redefines radicalism and makes it popular again. Collins states that Valk’s definition of radical is “instructive” by stating that women who wanted to transform instead of reform society constituted the radicals. Valk uses the progression of welfare rights, reproductive control, black liberation, lesbian feminism, and sexual violence to expand feminism to groups of women that were overlooked during the time period of the second-wave feminist movement. These groups include African-American women and poor women. The second-wave feminist movement mainly took place during the 1960s and 1970s when the civil rights movements for African-Americans was going on. Collins then goes on to discuss the main themes of Valk’s Radical Sisters. First, Collins states that Valk’s definition of radical allows her to reach out to a larger group of feminists, such as African-American and poor women. The next theme Collins presents states that the feminist movement was layered with many different groups with politics based in particular experiences. The feminist movement was not “owned” by any one group of feminist but was a coalition of different women from different backgrounds helping make their fight stronger. Valk says that the different groups of feminists would organize around a particular idea and fight towards their goal making their cause stronger. The third theme Collins presents is that the coalition of these groups sometimes did not help because of their different views. On topics such as reproductive control it was harder for them to come to a full agreement because of all the different values in each group of women. Valks redefining of the term radical helped the feminist movement by bringing different groups of feminists to work together towards their common goal, but because of the difference in values of these groups it was not always easy to move forward.

Marge Piercy’s Barbie Doll is an American poem written during the second-wave feminist movement in the 1970s. This movement helped propel the mind and body of the woman by progressing their education and professions and also expanded the new definitions of feminism. The poem discusses feminist themes such as gender roles, intelligence, and physical appearance of women. Piercy uses examples such as toys given to young girls like miniature stoves and ovens to show how gender roles were forced upon women at an early age. In the article reviews by Patricia Hill Collins and Kara Dixon Vuic, these gender roles are shown through professions such as nursing and in women’s fights for rights. Also, the poem talks about how people put an emphasis on girls to look pretty or thin. In Vuic’s review she talks about how nurses helped changed this idea in the work place by progressing the nursing uniform. Vuic also talks about the progression of education for nurses and women studies. This relates to the second stanza of the poem where Piercy says that the girl in the poem is intelligent but no one cares because of how she looks. Having an understanding of the historical context of a story or poem can help the reader better understand the context pf the story. The reviews by Vuic and Collins can help the reader understand the underlying issues being talked about in Piercy’s poem. By knowing what points women in the second-wave feminist movement emphasized more, the reader can better understand why Piercy uses certain examples to make her point.

To better understand historical pieces of literature the reader can refer to other pieces of work, such as articles, from that time period. Having a basic knowledge of the time period or subject of a piece of literature is beneficial to the reader because they can better understand why the author wrote a specific way or used the information they did. By using articles from the second-wave feminist movement, the reader can better understand the message Piercy is trying to portray. The articles by Valk and Malka both contain important knowledge of the second-wave feminist movement, thus helping the reader further understand Piercy’s Barbie Doll.
