Feminism in 60’s music

The 1950s in the U.S. was a time when male and female roles were well defined.

The woman was expected to be the happy wife, mother and homemaker.

Women didn’t have independence and were not allowed to do many different thing that men could, like having a credit card, for example.

As we move into the 60s there are dramatic social and historical events that are shaping the times.

These include the Civil Rights Movement, urban riots, protests, cultural revolution, Vietnam War, Space Race, and political assassinations.

Music was becoming a vehicle for social change.

The protest songs and psychedelia of the 1960s were the soundtracks to a sexual revolution and anti-war marches. Popular music of the United States in the 1960s became joined with causes, opposing certain ideas, influenced by the sexual revolution, feminism, black power and environmentalism.

“The Times They Are a-Changin’” as Bob Dylan would say. Just as music began to hint at sexuality and drugs reflecting on the popular culture, it also need to change its attitude towards women.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T , Aretha Franklin

“….it also need to change its attitude towards women…”

Can you figure out want surprised me

about this song???

Can you figure out want surprised me

about this song???

It was written by a man!!

This song was written by Otis Redding in 1965, but Aretha Franklin the queen of soul’s 1967 version switched the role of the sexes and changed it into the-

classic feminist anthem of all time.

Respect supported both women’s rights and civil rights.

Aretha didn’t just ask for it, she demanded R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

The music industry was controlled by men.

The music-business hit machine, in which producers, executives, and talent managers — almost all of them men — “shaped” their artists into molds for commercial success.

Al Kooper, a man, who worked in the legendary songwriting mill known as the Brill Building in Midtown Manhattan, once explained the process: “I’d come into work and I’d go into this little cubicle that had a little upright piano . . . and every day from ten to six we’d go in there and pretend that we were 13-year-old girls and write these songs. That was the gig.”

Lesley Gore – You Don’t Own Me

This 1963 hit by 17-year old Lesley Gore has long been considered a feminist anthem. The singer tells her lover that he doesn’t own her and cannot tell her what to do. It became an inspiration for young women everywhere.

The simple idea behind the song, Madara said, was to write a song “about a woman telling a guy off. We always hear about guys saying things about girls, and girls pleading their cases. How about a song about a girl coming from her point of view?“

“You don’t own me/ I’m not just one of your many toys.”
“And don’t tell me what to do. Don’t tell me what to say. And please, when I go out with you, don’t put me on display.”
“I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please”

Female singers of the 1950s and 1960s such as Connie Francis and Brenda Lee were stereotypically cute and sexy.

The 1960s girl rock groups, such as the Shirelles and Ronettes, had beehive hair and high heels but projected a similar, if updated, cute sexiness. They often sang silly lyrics because record producers thought dumb was cute.

Women folksingers of the 1960s, such as Joan Baez and Judy Collins, were not self–consciously cute and often spoke out on political issues. But they had a saintly image and were not particularly sexual or involved in gender issues.

Janis Joplin was a new kind of aggressive female singer who became a unique rock superstar and inadvertently a feminist heroine by crossing. gender lines and raising gender issues.

Janis Joplin as a cultural model but not a feminist in the typical sense. With a life lived aggressively free of the trappings of stereotypical feminine expectations, the late musician was as much of a revolutionary as Abbie Hoffman or her beloved Odetta.

Today, Joplin’s sexuality and her unwillingness to hide it serves as a reminder by third-wave feminists of how far we’ve come in America. unconscious feminist symbol for younger women. she pioneered the braless look and wild, loose, individualistic clothes.

Joplin was the first big female rock star to sing songs written for men.

In 1970, Janis role–reversed her big hit, “Me and Bobby McGee,” which Kris Kristofferson had originally written to be sung by a man.

Janis Joplin’s most characteristic song, perhaps, was “Get It While You Can”

1967 This hedonistic stress complimented the impatient mood of youth, but it also struck a responsive feminist chord. Women were constantly urged to put off personal pleasure for a more suitable time. Young girls were told to save themselves for their husbands. Wives were supposed to sacrifice immediate pleasures for their children.

Joplin insisted that you were number one and that the present was everything.

Songwriters: Schuman / Mort Jerry Ragovoy for someone before her.

“Do Right Woman” , Aretha Franklin

Encourages men to respect women and treat them as equals instead of using them.

“A woman’s only human. You should understand.

She’s not just a plaything. She’s flesh and blood just like her man.”

Moving ahead in time, it is interesting to see how of all of this feministic music movement set the stage for women to later become popular icons and strong female entertainers.

Now these women do not need men in the background to pull their strings.

In our generation women are empowered singers and songwriters.

Before we say goodbye,

here is the final song just for you to enjoy

“You make me feel like a natural woman”

Aretha Franklin in 2015