For the young who want to
by Marge Piercy
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Reading about Piercy’s life, I feel as though she was born one decade early. She went to college in the 1950s, when it was all about getting your MRS, when she would have clearly fit in much better in the 1960s, when it was all about–well, thanks to innumerable books, movies, history channel specials and general fawning over the times–we all know what it was all about.
So there is a thread of bitterness that runs through her poems which I respect because she earned her bitterness the hard way. No one has ever told me I should have a baby and for that I thank the hard work of Piercy and her contemporaries, and all the feminists who come before them.