¶ … Linda Pastan's "Marks" and Marge Piercy's "The Secretary's Chant" use the medium of poetry to provide powerful social commentary. Their respective poems use vivid imagery to convey the constricted roles in which women find themselves: especially as wife, mother, and office aide. These roles are subservient and underappreciated. The women speakers in these poems receive no respect for their hard work. Although Pastan's and Piercy's poems focus on two different aspects of female roles, their poems both convey similar notions related to the subjugation and oppression of women. Both "Marks" and "The Secretary's Chant" use metaphor to convey the central idea related to the oppression of women; for Pastan the metaphor is school grades; for Piercy the metaphor is office supplies. In "Marks," the speaker refers to the way her husband and children both grade her continually. She receives, for example, an "A" in "last night's supper," and a "B plus" in bed (lines 2; 4). The children also grade her, showing that the father is negatively socializing his children in to believing that women are simply domestic slaves that can be evaluated. Although the poet makes some commentary at the stupidity of school grading systems, as they inaccurately capture the true talents of the students, the main gist is that the woman speaker is being compared with a child. She is being compared with a child who receives all her validation from the outside world -- in the form of rigid grading systems. This metaphor helps to drive home the point...

By including the children's "passing" grades, the poet also shows how patriarchal social systems are perpetuated by people passing down their values and gender norms to children. Piercy also uses an extended metaphor to convey her concept of the oppression of women. Instead of using school, though, Piercy uses the office environment. Because many women are trapped into serving men rather than leading them, the metaphor of secretary is as apt as the metaphor of children in school. The woman speaker in Piercy's poem laments the fact that she is so identified with her job, that she has ceased to be viewed as a human being. "File me under W / because I wonce / was / a woman," (lines 22-25). Her entire body has become office supplies, to the point where she is indistinguishable from them. Her hips are a desk, her head a "badly organized file," (line 10). Like Pastan, Piercy shows how strict gender roles inhibit a woman's personal development and personal empowerment. While Pastan's speaker is denigrated due to her receiving grades in school like a child; Pierchy's speaker is denigrated because she is treated and viewed like an object.
The two poems finish differently, sending different messages to the reader about what to do about patriarchy. Pastan finishes "Marks" with the ominous line, "Wait 'till they learn / I'm dropping out," (lines 11-12). The speaker is clearly asserting her desire and intention to leave her family. The reader sympathizes with the…