Feminist movement has been broken down into three period or waves, first-wave feminism, second-wave feminism, and third-wave feminism. The second-wave feminist moment is what inspired poems like “Barbie Doll” to be written by Marge Piercy. Second wave feminism occurred in the early 1960s to the early 1980s. The poem “Barbie Doll” was published in 1971, thus the events prior to that influenced the poem. Second wave feminist movement attempted to break the stereotype of what it meant to be feminine, the idea of what a woman had to look like to be beautiful, over-sexualization, and more. This feminist movement was helped with the use of television, books, articles, and protest.  Books such The Feminine Mystique, reviews on the book, and protest such as the Miss World 1970 protest help make it clear that “Barbie Doll” was influenced by second wave feminism and the poem attempted to convey the feminism movement and how it affected women.  Second-wave feminism movement wanted to break barriers and they used all they had to be able to. 

Feminists of the time wrote many articles and books. One well known book is by Betty Friedan titled, The Feminine Mystique. The book is considered to be groundwork for the movement because of everything that was mentioned in the book. Each chapter of the book conveys the aspects of a woman’s world during the movement and moments that caused such movement. The whole concept of the book however is to speak about the “the problem that has no name” which was the unhappiness of woman. The problem with no name is the name of the first chapter of the book.  Throughout the first chapter she mentions women education, the domestic side of a woman’s life, and what is considered the “feminine fulfillment.” In her chapter, she makes the clear statement that the problem is more than the “loss of femininity, too much education, or the demands of domestically” (Friedan 32). Instead the problem goes deeper in emotion and has more to do with women wanting more than this but not being able to follow through with what they want because of having to follow the “feminine mystique.” . As Friedan said, the voice inside the women says, “I want something more than my husband and my children and my home” (Friedan 32). The chapter that follows, titled, “The Happy Housewife Heroine” follows through to give the details about the demands of domestic life. It also informs one about how a woman made the choice of marriage and family over what they really wanted, either being more educated or just living a single life following their dreams. The chapter explains what the “feminine mystique” is and how it ties with a woman’s feeling about wanting to become free of this life they have. The feminine mystique is the idea of a woman having to be a homemaker makes woman truly feminine. Which goes along with the poem, “Barbie Doll” and how in the poem the girl is told to change her ways to be able to find a man. The lines, “she was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on heart, / exercise., diet, and wheedle” are talking about the advice the people told the girl she must follow to be able to obtain what she wanted (Piercy 12-14). In this case, what she wanted according to the people is to find herself a man to be with and become a mother. That is because that is what is considered to be feminine and the idea a true woman should follow. The girl is told to become healthy and lose weight because she must be of a certain physical type for a man to look at her and be considered beautiful. The physical looks a man wants is also one of the topics that second wave feminism touched. Feminists wanted it to be clear they were tired of people wanting a woman to look a certain sexual way for them to be considered marriageable and wanting. The first three chapters are the most revealing because they concentrate on the problems and explaining them. Chapter three titled, “The Crisis in Women’s Identity” is about Friedan’s own experience with the feminine mystique and she then ties it to other women having to choose leaving their education and life goals for marriage and the domestic life. Friedan states that this issue of women having to choose domestic life over anything has been happening for hundreds of years. According to Friedan, a woman’s identity is 

determined by her biology” and that identity obviously is to life a domestic life (Friedan 136). However, in the generation of the time that idea must not be followed any longer. Women must leave that idea and find their identity depending on their own self and not what man tells them. 

 The article “The problem with no name: Rereading Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique” breaks down certain chapters and the meaning behind them that help set up ideals used by feminist. Bowlby says that higher education was used to make sure girls got in their minds that their sex role was hat of a wife and mother was their natural role and that their “human capacity to create and achieve in the working world” was the unnatural role (Bowlby). Friedan’s book claimed just that and that the idea of this role was passed on and on by the mothers. They passed this down by giving their daughters dolls and toys that showed what a woman should do. In the poem, “Barbie Doll” the girl was given gifts, dolls. The dolls were given to describe the type of toy a girl should play with. The child was also given “miniature GE stoves and irons”, these were given to her so she can see what her future will be (Piercy 3). That is in the future she will be a housewife, her job in life will be to cook and iron her husband’s clothes. This job of hers will bring her happiness not her achievements. The mothers are said to be in a way the reason this domestic idea came back. “The next generation did not follow up the victory, but returned to the same domesticated forms of femininity from which their mothers had sought to free them from”, when Bowlby said this she is talking about how in her book, Friedan says, “To women born after 1920 feminism was dead.” To further explain, Friedan was trying to tell people that because to some feminism died down that did not mean they had to go back to this old sex role of being a housewife and they did not have to teach their children that either. However, she is trying to point out that this led to women losing their free choice and thus going back to this tale of being a wife. Now as time went on the media did not help in bringing back the idea to women that they had their own choices and could go on to be educated. Instead the media brought it out more that being a housewife was the dream, the goal. (Bowlby 64-65). The media made cooking seem like the greatest thing for women and the use of magazines to advertise the sale of cook wear while using a happy woman in the picture all dollied up made women believe it even more. Bowlby goes on to talk about how Friedan herself mentioned she subscribed and wanted to write in magazines such as Mademoiselle and Good Housekeeping because they made this housewife tale seem so amazing and feminine, this tale is what the feminine mystique was. 

This feminine mystique made Friedan keep repeating the word “waste”. According to her waste was “what happens when the mystique takes over” (Bowlby 66). This waste connects with the unhappiness a woman would feel when they feel into this femininity ideal. That waste also caused women to feel diminished because they were not educated the way they wanted to be due to them marrying and not following their true desires. This waste is the potential the woman has let go. There is more to this “waste” than personal there is the national waste.  National waste was caused when “the whole nation stopped growing up” and went back to the “ideology of domestic togetherness” (Bowlby 69). As stated,  Friedan speaks about her own experience with the feminine mystique and her waste. She had been given a psychology fellowship but because a man told her since he did not get one that she would never be happy nor have a future. This prompted her to deny the fellowship, marry and having children, thus falling in the feminine mystique. The second wave feminist movement spoke a lot about how women needed to be educated, not fall into the idea of society, and for their future daughters to be taught they can be who they want and do not need a man to carry them. In the poem, the girl “was healthy, tested intelligent” but that was not enough for the girl to be feminine and for her to be enough woman (Piercy 7). This made the girl apologize to people for her being the way she was, intelligent and having a “fat nose and thick legs” (Piercy 11). The girl’s intelligence means almost nothing because it will not help her achieve her identity goal, to find herself a man and have her happy ending.  Just like Friedan, the girl fell into that idea and she had “consummation at last” and thus achieved the “happy ending” a woman desires (Piercy 24-25). In this story the girl became exactly who people wanted her to be, a perfect bodied woman who is now beautiful enough to find herself a man and have her happy ending of becoming a housewife. The feminist during the second-wave wanted that to end, they wanted women to understand they no longer had to keep falling into this idea of being perfect bodied, wanted by men, and to fall to just a domestic life. 

The Feminine Mystique was one of the first books published by a feminist to help the movement and express what a woman feels and looks for. The second wave feminist movement was more than just trying to break the idea of a woman needing to marry it was also to stop making woman believe they should be of a certain physical aspect to be considered attractive, of how they should stop downplaying themselves, and how they should teach their future generations that they can find their own identity. Beauty pageants at the time were under some scrutiny because of what they stood for, which was that a woman’s beauty was based solely on her looks and the physical look a woman should have to be considered beautiful. The pageants also made women look more sensual, thus angering some feminist. During the pageant the host would also make some jokes that would be sexist and such, which also angered people. 

The second wave feminism movement impacted the world.  This is the second time a pageant was protested the first being Miss America in 1968. Miss world is an international beauty pageant.  Sally Alexander, a feminist who was a part of the protest at the pageant described it was an “eye-opener” and a mark leaver for the movement and the future. Her interview talks about why she did it and what happened at that moment. The idea to protest according to her her was to “disrupt the spectacle” as they called it. They wanted to disrupt the world that Miss World brought, “women being judge by their looks and their bodies.” They called it that because of how the pageant focused on a woman’s beauty, how she looked and if she looked very feminine. Also, her body and how her body looked. Alexander claimed that the protestors had nothing against the contestant but instead they were protesting about why someone must be “beautiful … look like this before you get noticed as a woman.” This goes along with the poem “Barbie Doll” and how one of the biggest ideas of the movement was that women were told by society about how they should look to be considered beautiful. For example, the lines “she was advised to play coy, exhorted to come on hearty, exhorted to come on hearty, exercise, diet, smile, and wheedle” play to the tunes of society saying that a woman must be of certain build and look a certain way to be wanted by men (Piercy, Lines 12-14). The girl in the play was described as intelligent and having “abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” but because she had “fat nose on thick legs” she was not considered wanted nor beautiful by people and that why she was told to exercise and such. Just like the woman at the pageant possessed the looks the men wanted and the looks that women were desired to want instead of the looks some of the women had, such as “fat nose” and “thick legs” (Piercy, Lines 8-10). The interview shows footage of some of the women and their signs. One of the signs read “Women have minds.” That quote is exactly what Friedan and many feminists wanted society to understand. Women are more than their body and the ideas that people sought at the time. Alexander also says that not everything went as planned as the leader of the protest became angry at the jokes that the host was saying. As mentioned before many of the jokes were considered sexist or degrading to women and people.  Alexander talks about how the feelings they felt were that of leaving a mark for a change and that at the end they did. The truth is that it did because it left a mark for woman all over the world and even the contestants and help to influence future writing of people. Alexander says that she did see the “Miss World as one of the spectacular of consciousness raising episodes” because it did the job of leaving a mark. 

The second wave feminist movement impacted the world and many people. It helped bring more gender equality for women and better lifestyle. It helped women understand that their happiness was more than they were taught their lives at the time. The movement influenced many poets such as Marge Piercy. Piercy’s work addressed many issues one of that including the gender stereotype of being a female and what being a female meant. Her poem “Barbie doll” was influenced by the many ideals and movements of the second wave. The Feminine Mystique laid the foundations used by feminists of the movement, which influenced women to take part of protests that they found to help bring the wrong ideas to people. That idea being that being a woman meant being a domestic, beautiful, and sexual being. Second wave feminism continued until the 1980s and it brought upon change in society about the ideas of a woman being a housewife and changed how women saw themselves. 
