Respect: Women and Popular Music

For more than the first half of the last century, the voice of women in Top-40 popular music has been one of neediness and dependency. Please love me; I'll do anything for you; just be my baby, even if you're no good and treat me bad; hey, I'll even do the cooking and pay the rent-just LOVE me and I'll stand by my man. But if you leave me, well, it will be the end of the world. By the end of the century, things were quite different. Popular music had come far enough with songs of women looking for the hero within themselves, wanting a man to stand beside them--rather than in front of, being urged to get on their feet and make it happen, ready to stand on her own with or without a man. A lot happened in between. Women's own voice in Top-40 hits went through transitions during that time, from dependency to sex pot, which started in the 30's with the Betty Boop phenomenon. During World War II there was a short reprieve from doormat-status when men went off to war and Rosy the Riveter took over. There was even a woman's minor league baseball association established in 1943. Music of women now had some strength, but that quickly faded when the war ended and women went back home. From the 50's through mid-sixties, the message was one of rigid gender roles--oh how she enjoys being a girl-of focus on materialism-diamonds are a girl's friend, after all--to more whining, wishing and hoping and praying that he will just love her. Perhaps it was the publication of Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique or the protest movements, but something changed in the late 60's. The tone changed from total dependency to a sense of unease, that is, something was not right. She was still powerless in his presence, but she was beginning to see her deal was not so great. Sure, he was a sweet-talking guy and not to be trusted, but he was her kind of guy. About the same time that Affirmative Action and EEOC became law, our woman singer started to push back with anger, saying "you don't own me" or all she wants is a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T, which turned to revenge and the promise of how her boots were gonna walk all over him. It was the dawn of consciousness. Hit songs began to show the kicking back of denial, a new awareness of just how wronged she had been all these years. By the seventies, she was ready to show her own strength, just as Billy Jean King did in 1973 when she beat Bobby Griggs in the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match. That new strength was reflected in song, too. Initially, it was power born of anger and demand for respect. Helen Reddy's "I am woman" or Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive" were still sung by pushing back, while Donna Summer asserted the fact that she does, indeed, work hard for the money and should be respected. But even the new awareness was too much to bear, because the 80's brought a rash of songs that were filled with cynicism. Gushy hopes were gone as the nation finally recognized a new syndrome. In 1985, Connecticut's Tracey Thurman became the first woman to win a civil suit as a battered wife. Similarly, Madonna and Tina Turner were not singing mushy love or even anger, but rather a sense of hopelessness about the pipe dreams they had lived. They belted out messages of what's love got to do with it, anyway, or how the material girl of today doesn't care for love, but only wants cold, hard cash. Inner strength finally appeared in the nineties. Oprah became the highest paid entertainer in 1993 at $49 million per year, the very same year Mariah Carey's #1 song crooned advice to find the hero within. At the end of the decade, JoDee Messina wanted a man who would stand beside her, not in front. It was the first time that women could stand on their own, without leaning on a man or pushing back against him. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was the first time that women's popular music outsold that of male singers. The new era had arrived.