Analysis Of The Secretary Chant By Marge Piercy

Women are disrespected in the workplace. Women have struggled a lot to find their self-worth and identity in the workplace, women feel as if they have to keep proving themselves Every time to these male - dominated jobs and never getting the credit that they deserve at the end. Women feel discriminated and unappreciated because nobody is giving them support that they need in the workplace this is why women have struggles with finding their identity in the workplace. The speaker in "the secretary chant" describes herself as an overworked machine. The speaker feels much trapped in the workplace and has a sense of feeling overwhelmed with her job. The speaker In Marge Piercy’s "the secretary chant” makes the use of metaphors a lot in the poem. The speaker says "My Hips are a desk/ from my ears hang chain of paper clips/Rubber bands form my hair" (1039) meaning that she makes the focus about her hips to her workspace at her job as a secretary. Also the speaker in John Updike 's “Before the Mirror" also talks about the struggle that she has with her identity as well because the speaker is looking at two stages with in her life and the speaker knows that she is not going stay young forever. however, sexism comes to play in the roles of both speakers in the two poems and the speaker for “Before the Mirror” is …show more content…
Both of these women feel like they are trapped because of what sexist discrimination has done in both poems, making women feel like that they have little value in the workplace and they are both women who are trapped in their environment and are trying to get out and see what more opportunities there are out there for them that is what both “the secretary chant and “Before the Mirror” represents