 For decades’ women, have struggled to get their views and points across to men about women’s rights. Even “the term feminism” did not “[appear] in the English language” until “the 1890s” even though the “struggle against discrimination and sexism is much older” than that (63 Interesting Facts about Feminism). The short story “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy precisely describes one the of feminist’s major fights during the Second-Wave Feminist Movement. The long and hard journey of First and Second-Wave Feminism relates to the short story “Barbie Doll”, and the struggle that many feminists still encounter today. 

To fully understand Second-Wave Feminism one needs to know exactly what First-Wave Feminism was and what it accomplished. First-Wave Feminism started with the “Seneca Falls Conference in 1848 and [ended] with the passage of women’s suffrage in 1920” (Bailey 18). For years’ women fought and protested for the right to vote. Women even went as far as changing their campaign from “women [deserve] the same rights and responsibilities as men” to “women [deserve] to vote because they [are] different from men” just to get men to listen (History 1). Although many women fought this battle for many decades, it was women like Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton who made all this possible. 

After women got their right to vote First Wave Feminism came to end, but that was not the end of feminism. Around the “1960s or early 1970s” Second-Wave Feminism began (Bailey 19). The women who were apart of this wave fought on a more personal level. Not only did these women fight for “the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment)” which included things like education and the workforce, but they also fought for “violence against women, abortion rights, women’s diploma about [their] name in marriage, ambivalence about motherhood, and sadomasochism” (Bailey 23). Basically, women wanted to be more respected and idolized for their brains instead of just being a pretty face. These feminists not only wanted to change how the world perceived women, but they also wanted to change what was known as women’s roles. Although it is not clear when Second-Wave Feminism came to an end, people say it was between the late “1970s and 1980s” (Bailey 23). 

When the short story “Barbie Doll” was written by Marge Piercy, Second-Wave Feminism was sweeping the nation. No longer did women want to or need to fight for their legal rights, women wanted to fight for their personal rights. “Barbie Doll” is a short story that represents and explains exactly what women fought for every day during the time of Second-Wave Feminism. More specifically Marge Piercy focused her short story on the aspect of women being judged based on looks, which is also known today as body shaming. Starting the short story “Barbie Doll” off with a “girlchild” being “born as usual” creates an innocent atmosphere (Piercy 348). Marge did this to show how children are born innocent and can only be taught the corrupt things in this world. Although the child is born, not shortly after the child is given a “doll that [does] pee-pee and [a] miniature GE [stove] and [iron] and wee lipstick the color of cherry candy” (Piercy 348). Marge specifically names these things to not only show that these are items that children play with, but she wants the readers to realize what kind of toys they are and represent. If one looks deeper the doll could be a baby which at that time only women took care of, the stove and iron could represent cooking and how women cooked and took care of the house, and the lipstick which represents how women must always look nice and be presentable.   

Although some things have changed since the First and Second-Wave of Feminism have come and gone, there is still a long way to go. 
