 For decades, women have struggled to get their views and points across to men about women’s rights, but for a long time their cries went unanswered. In fact, feminism was not formally recognized in the English language until the 1890s (63 Interesting Facts about Feminism). The poem “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 poem “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 an event known as the Seneca Falls Conference in 1848 and it continued up until women’s suffrage in the 1920s (Bailey 18). For years women fought and protested for the right to vote, and for the longest time they were ignored. At one point, feminists changed their women’s rights campaign to emphasize that they were different from men so that sexist men at the time would even pay attention to their pleas (History 1). Some of the more well-known First-Wave Feminists include Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; these women, and women like them, are the reason that feminism and women’s rights exist today. 

After women got their right to vote First Wave Feminism came to end, but that was not the end of feminism. A few decades later, Second-Wave started in the late 1960s and early 1970s Second-Wave Feminism began (Bailey 19). The women who were part of this wave fought on a more personal level. Not only did these women fight for their Equal Rights Amendment, which included things like education and working, but they also fought for violence against women, abortion rights, women’s diploma about name in marriage, ambivalence about motherhood, and sadomasochism (Bailey 23). Basically, women wanted to be more respected and idolized for their knowledge instead of their appearance. 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. For example, women were expected to bear/take care of the children, cook, and clean. Although it is not clear when Second-Wave Feminism ended, people say it was between the late 1970s and 1980s (Bailey 23). 

When the poem “Barbie Doll” was written by Marge Piercy, Second-Wave Feminism was sweeping the nation. Woman no longer want or need to fight for their legal rights. Women now wanted to fight for their personal rights. “Barbie Doll” is a poem that represents and explains exactly what women fought for every day during the time of Second-Wave Feminism. More specifically, Marge Piercy focused her poem on the aspect of women being judged based on looks, which is also known today as body shaming. Starting the poem “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. In the poem, shortly after the child is born, she 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 what they 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 all day, and the lipstick could represent how women must always look nice and presentable. Another perspective could be that the doll represents a perfect woman. This flawless doll is what society expects women and young girls to look like, and straying from this expectation is not acceptable. 

Then the little girl that was in the beginning of the poem, turns into a teenager. At this age and time, all she cares about is if everyone thinks she is pretty, beautiful and flawless. No longer is being “healthy, intelligent, [or] strong” good enough (Piercy 348). Having one flaw or not being up to societies expectations can and will haunt her forever and this is exactly what happens. The teenage girl is made fun of because she has “a great big nose and fat thighs” (Piercy 348). She and society now cannot define her without seeing or talking about her flaws. She is then “advised to play coy, exercise, diet, and smile” to try to live up to societies standards, but “her good nature wore out like a fan belt” (Piercy 349). The advice people gave her was tiring and a constant reminder of her flaws, so she decided to “cut off her nose and legs” (Piercy 349). This gruesome part in the poem could represent two different things. The teenager could have literally cut off her nose and committed suicide, or she could have gotten plastic surgery, but either way, both were done because the girl could not live up to the expectations society placed upon her. Marge Piercy added this part to not only get people to realize what these expectations do to women and girls, but to let women know that they are not alone. The poem then goes on displaying her body in a casket with “the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on, a turned up-putty nose, [and her] dressed in a pink and white nightie” with people around her saying “doesn’t she look pretty?” (Piercy 349) To make the ending even more shocking Marge Piercy’s lasts sentence in the poem “Barbie Doll” is “to every woman a happy ending” (349). This symbolizes to women that for one to be truly happy one must be flawless, beautiful, and pretty, and if one cannot achieve this goal in life, then one can achieve it death. The author chooses to end the poem this way because she wants the readers to be in disbelief. She wants the readers to wonder why or when this would ever happen? Then she wants the readers to realize that this is the world and society they live in. Marge Piercy wanted to try to explain and show people that these expectations and standards that women must live up to are unreasonable and unfair.     

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. Women still get treated like they are less than men and not as smart or important. This in turn has caused women to make their way to the Third-Wave of Feminism, which is where we currently are today. “While Third Wave Feminists do not have an entirely different set of issues or solutions to long standing dilemmas” than First or Second Wave Feminists, there are a few things today’s women have because of these previous feminist groups (Snyder 1). These things include women being able to get a college education, work, be the breadwinners, and vote. Although today’s women have a little more freedom compared to the other groups, today’s women also have more obstacles and challenges. “For example, young women today face a world colonized by the mass media and technology” (Snyder 4). Not only do women get taught at young age that we must be beautiful and flawless just like the “Barbie Doll” poem pointed out, but women today have the constant reminder on television, social media, advertisements and the internet. These technological outlets make it easier for women to accidentally come across a picture or an article about the standards when are expected to uphold when it comes to appearance. These stereotypes have been instilled in people for generations and probably will be for generations to come. 

In the poem “Barbie Doll”, Marge Piercy uses the characteristics of First and Second Wave of Feminism to explain how the world viewed women during that time, and reading the poem today, one can see how it remains relevant. The poem “Barbie Doll” not only helped shine a new light on societies’ expectations of women, but helped start change. It helped expose the sexist views women were subject to on a daily basis that, at that time, were relatively unnoticed. With the introduction of this poem into society, people began to realize that the way they perceived women was ultimately sexist and wrong. This poem helped society realize that women not only wanted, but deserved the right to be whoever they wanted to be. 
