Feminist Transformative Music

Respect

Aretha Franklin, 1967, Soul

What you want
Baby, I got it
What you need
Do you know I got it?
All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)
Hey baby (just a little bit) when you get home
(just a little bit) mister (just a little bit)

I ain't gonna do you wrong while you're gone
Ain't gonna do you wrong 'cause I don't wanna
All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)
Baby (just a little bit) when you get home (just a little bit)
Yeah (just a little bit)

I'm about to give you all of my money
And all I'm askin' in return, honey

Is to give me my propers
When you get home (just a, just a, just a, just a)
Yeah baby (just a, just a, just a, just a)
When you get home (just a little bit)
Yeah (just a little bit)


your kisses
Sweeter than honey
And guess what?
So is my money
All I want you to do for me
Is give it to me when you get home
Yeah baby
Give it to me (respect, just a little bit)
When you get home, now (just a little bit)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB

Oh (sock it to me, sock it to me,
sock it to me, sock it to me)
A little respect (sock it to me, sock it to me,
sock it to me, sock it to me)
Whoa, babe (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)
I get tired (just a little bit)
Keep on tryin' (just a little bit)
You're runnin' out of foolin' (just a little bit)
And I ain't lyin' (just a little bit)
(re, re, re, re) 'spect
When you come home (re, re, re ,re)
Or you might walk in (respect, just a little bit)
And find out I'm gone (just a little bit)
I got to have (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)

"Respect" was actually written and released by Otis Redding 2 years earlier. Coming from him, the song was about males asking for respect from their wives. Aretha's version two years later noticeably out-paced Otis' and was one of the leading songs of the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s. The fact that she covered this song is enough to deem it Equal Opportunity. Because it came after Otis, it was a pointed response to the first version – "you can't ask for respect from me until you respect me". Coming from Aretha, the song's lyrics about money show that she can financially fend for herself – she's the one giving away the money!

Blood in the Boardroom

Ani DiFranco, 1993, Folk

These businessmen got the money
they got the instruments of death
but I can make life
I can make breath.
Sitting in the boardroom
the I'm-so-bored room
listening to the suits talk about their world
I didn't really have much to say
the whole time I was there
so I just left a big brown bloodstain
on their white chair.

The story of “Blood in the Boardroom” is pretty self-explanatory – it’s about a woman who gets her period in the middle of business meeting. Instead of being embarrassed about it, after excusing herself she talks to the other woman on the floor (the secretary) about how powerful she is for being able to create life. She also devalues the valued by talking about how boring and destructive the typical “suits” are.

When I was a Boy

Dar Williams, 1993, Folk

"I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike
Riding topless, yeah, I never cared who saw.
My neighbor came outside to say, "Get your shirt,"
I said "No way, it's the last time I'm not breaking any law."
And so I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived
And I say, "Now you're top gun, I have lost and you have won"
And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see,
When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked.
And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too.
And you were just like me, and I was just like you."

Most of “When I Was a Boy” focuses on Williams’ own experiences as a tomboy, and how when she was younger she used to act the same as any boy – climbing trees and going on adventures with Peter Pan. It goes back and forth between her experiences in the past and present, such as friends telling her that she needs a man to walk her home (internalization of gender roles). She also takes jabs at the institutionalization of gender roles – because she is now a full grown woman, she can’t ride her bike topless like she used to. At the end, she takes a look at the other side of the Polarization, showing a man who “used to be a little girl” and how he also feels hindered by gender roles.

Anthem

Superchic[k], 2003, Pop

We are fire inside
We are lipstick and cleats
We are not going home
And we are playin for keeps
We are girls who skin knees
We are concrete and grace
We are not what you think
Can't keep us in our place
Here's to the girls on their boards with bruises and scars
Here's to the girls whose fingers bleed from playing guitar
Here's to anyone who never quit when things got hard
You'll never let them say
You'll never get that far

Many of Superchick's songs deal with issues of poverty, abuse, self-abuse, and many other issues that strongly affect girls and women in modern American culture. This song is particularly inflammatory. The title, "Anthem", suggests the song as a call to metaphorical arms for all the young girls who are being criticized and degraded. Like many of the women's rights advocates of the 20th century, it does little to value traditional women's work (noted in lyrics "we are not going home" and "we have our own goals to score") but rather emphasizes equal opportunity and destruction of gender roles.

If I Were a Boy

Beyonce Knowles, 2008, Rhythm and Blues

If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man
I'd listen to her
Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
Cause he's taking you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed
If I were a boy
I would turn off my phone
Tell everyone it's broken
so they'd think that I was sleeping alone
I’d put myself first
and make the rules as I go
Cause I know that she’ll be faithful,
waiting for me to come home, to come home

The lyrics to the song "If I Were A Boy" point out the double standards of "manhood" versus "womanhood" in terms of policing women's sexuality and embracing men's promiscuity. In it, Beyonce questions and envisions by imagining a world where she could be a man. In particular, she thinks about the self-serving behaviors that would suddenly be acceptable to her as a man and the culture that often socializes men to disregard women.

This page was created in November 2010 with analytical content written by Aileen Patimeteeporn, Heidi Wang, Naomi Takaki, Esther Gonzalez, Cynthia Lee, and Shannon Coyne. The website pages were created by Heidi Wang and Shannon Coyne. The layout template was provided by Professor Matthaei.