- by GH
- The Guardian
- Issue #2187
In 1963 Lesley Gore’s You Don’t Own Me reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, with similar success in the UK and Australia. It was sung from the heart with such honesty that young women reacted to its message. The song strongly contrasted with other songs of the time: pleading, heartbreak, and the promise of marriage. Little Peggy March’s I Will Follow Him was all devotion to her man, while The Chiffons’ hit He’s So Fine had been infatuation. In 1965, Patty Duke’s Don’t Just Stand There, had a similar message to Gore’s song, peaking at No. 8 on the Billboard.
There were earlier women’s-rights songs, telling of women’s collective protest on labour rights, suffrage and autonomy. Bessie Smith’s Poor Man’s Blues (1928) and Young Woman’s Blues (1926) were about sexual autonomy and economic independence. Ma Rainey’s Prove It On Me Blues (1928) was about defiance of gender and sexual norms.
These songs had nothing like the simplicity of Gore’s song. It was acceptable to radio and strict parents, yet unmistakably defiant against patriarchy of the time. By denying emotional, sexual, and social ownership the song anticipated second-wave feminism, and gave language to consent. The song symbolised women’s empowerment, showing the strength of a woman standing up for herself against the dominance of a man, who saw her as his property. Gore was 17 and she began a life of feminist activism.
The year 1963 was the time of Civil Rights activism which normalised public dissent. The contraceptive pill in 1960 began sexual autonomy, and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) was highly influential. Within a few years women’s-rights music emerged inside civil-rights and anti-war movements. Early feminist consciousness came through folk and protest traditions, rather than explicitly “women’s liberation” language.
Major themes included legal inequality, sexual double standards, women’s civil-rights struggles and women’s anti-war moral authority. Joan Baez’s We Shall Overcome (1963) was about the voices of women as a movement, not as background singers. Aretha Franklin’s 1967 Respect made feminism vivid and political. Women stopped singing about sadness and began singing as political actors.
The 1970s was the era of explicit feminist anthems. Music was a conscious tool mirroring second-wave feminism. Themes included autonomy, workplace equality, reproductive freedom and attacks on patriarchy. Joni Mitchell sang of feminist pacifism in The Fiddle and the Drum while Helen Reddy’s I am Woman (1972) was a defining feminist anthem.
In the 1980s, women’s-rights songs fracture into race, class, sexuality, and state violence, reflecting the backlash against feminism and neoliberal politics. Its key themes were domestic violence, racism and sexism, poverty and police power. Tracy Chapman’s sang of domestic violence as political failure in Behind the Wall and her Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution was about women, class struggle, and systemic inequality. Neneh Cherry’s Buffalo Stance sang about female autonomy in commodified culture, and people are still now bopping to the Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin anthem Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves.
By the 1990s songs exploded with anger, sexuality, and refusal, with feminism becoming loud, queer, and youth-driven. The key themes included sexual violence, reproductive rights, media misogyny, and female rage. PJ Harvey’s Me-Jane (1993) was patriarchal language turned inside out. Bikini Kill’s Rebel Girl (1993) was feminist solidarity as power. Ani DiFranco’s Not a Pretty Girl rejected male validation. Hole’s Violet was rage against objectification.
In the 2000s women’s protest shifted toward systems: war, religion, corporate power, and state control of women’s bodies. Ani DiFranco’s Subdivision took on surveillance, conformity, and gender. M.I.A.’s Paper Planes made vivid migration, empire, and racialised femininity.
Today’s women’s-rights songs are more testimonial, global, and survivor-centred, with themes such as consent and accountability, climate justice, indigenous sovereignty and emotional truth as politics. Noname’s Rainforest is all about capitalism and feminist refusal. The struggle continues.
