Barbie Doll

“Barbie Doll” sits among a range of other feminist literature of its time. “The Feminine Mystique,” written by Betty Friedan and published in 1963, explores the ubiquitous, nameless unhappiness of housewives in the 1950s and 1960s. Friedan, a psychologist, conducted a survey of her former classmates at Smith College and noticed how unhappy they were with their lives as housewives. In her book, she criticizes Freud, whose theories were particularly influential at this time, she criticizes functionalism, which assigned women to biological roles as mothers and housewives, and she advocates for women to find fulfillment beyond the home. The “miniature GE stoves and irons” (Line 3) touch on those damaging expectations to be a housewife and caretaker—and what that type of invisible labor can do to a person—that Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique investigates.

Adrienne Rich’s 1973 poem “Diving into the Wreck” (Rich, Adrienne. “Diving into the Wreck.” 1973. Poets.org, Accessed 9 October 2021) puts words to the struggle to obtain equal rights for women. Piercy’s poem, however, is unique in style, with graphic, memorable imagery and accessible, direct syntax. Published in 1971, it’s placed approximately in the middle of the second-wave feminist movement—taking on those same topics.