Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History 20140831

Just as a kind of baby boomer nostalgia for the days that were. What weve been trying to deal with is this sense of pervasive disappointment, that the revolution somehow ended in the early 1970s. The popular music became a disappointment, aesthetically, politically. Thats the cliche. We saw plenty of evidence for it. What weve been trying to do is to say ok. Maybe if we shift perspective, maybe if we dont simply buy the assumptions that went into the age of countercultural music, if we do that, we may well see music engaged in a different way. And the way i suggested, the way weve started out is by saying isnt it the case that popular music in the u. S. In the 1970s was doing what popular music typically had done well before the 1960s . Which is to mediate relationships between men and women, to mediate notions of gender, to rethink sexuality. And thats where we started last time, with ideas about masculinity. And the way in which theres a radical transformation of ideas about masculinity tied up with the emergence of the Gay Liberation movement, bound up in music such as glam rock, david bowie, lou reed, bound up in disco. As we said, in a sense, that music was inherently political. Something that the really vicious antidisco campaign drove home. So it seems to me weve started building the idea that post60s, American Music still is politicized, still is engaged but in a different way, a way that rejected, as we saw with david bowie or we saw with mott the hoople, that rejected countercultural rock. Thats where i want to go today in talking, as i promised, about issues of women in popular music in the 1970s. Weve already dealt with this before in thinking about the very limited place accorded to women in popular music as a business, as performers really with the idea that women couldnt place instruments, that they could only sing. With the idea that women couldnt play instruments, that they could only sing. Weve seen thats deeply embedded in western culture, western ideas. And yet this is a period in the 1970s of real change in thinking about women. So theres an opportunity for us to say just as there was this political agitation over gay rights and over the nature of masculinity, what can we do with the emergence of feminism, of new feminisms, liberal, radical and what musical implications did they have . So i want to do five things. As i said, you should get your bets down about me getting through this. But i will. I have not lost yet. First of all, i want to think a little bit about the context. Do you know this . Its familiar but lets remind ourselves of the way in which american societys relationship to women, notions of women changed so radically with the emergence of what was then called womens liberation. We want to use that as a backdrop for looking specifically at music, four different settings here, two, three, four, five. First of all, with the thing thats the most stunning and yet were ready for this, the idea that, in fact, countercultural rock, acid rock, whatever you want to call it, was much less radical in terms of gender than we would have thought. That in fact, ar gluably it was arguably it was quite conservative. It was in the terms of this famous essay ive given you to start our assignment that it was cock rock, that it was completely defined by the needs of masculinity and almost completely obliterated the place of women. I want to look at the debates that emerged from that, the radical shift of perspective on rock. It didnt really change either, as youll see, the business hardly altered. And that sets the other three music genres we want to talk about in a different perspective. Disco, again, subject of much contempt, nonetheless had a larger space, arguably, for women and the articulation of their concerns. Even though youll see once again theres a tendency to try to make that disappear, to explain it away. And then stunning to me, but weve built on this, too, Country Music which is supposed to be so conservative, so anchored in older notions of family, as weve seen in talking about Country Music in the 1950s or Merle Haggards music in the 1960s. Its country that has this surprising space to articulate a kind of conservative feminism or country feminism. And its summed up in that piece that gives this lecture. Its titled your squaw is on the warpath, by loretta lynn, that i want to work through with you. Though im not going to sing it. Again, no costumes, no singing. Thats my guarantee to you so were never fully embarrassed. And then last i want to think about where a more open kind of feminist politics emerges in the 70s. It does to a degree in disco as well see, but the real place is in mainstream popular music which you could argue is the least adventurous kind of music in the 1970s. In musical terms, its there that with helen reddys hit i am woman that you have a stunning rind of breakthrough whose history is interesting and completes this picture of what is a very complicated response within music to the rise of the Womens Movement. And at the end im going to want to draw that together. But thats where i want to go here. And as i say, well start with what you know already but lets get a common point together from which to work here which is the emergence of new ideas, new activism among women that would lead almost inevitably as i want to suggest to you to a new critique of popular music generally in rock music in a new critique of popular music generally, and rock music in particular. All of womens liberation is not a preparation for journalism about rock music, but thats going to be the key linkage. You know this. And history of modern feminism is very complicated. You see that in those sources that i gave you, and i wont take time to work through them. But in very simple terms, were talking about a couple of basic sets of ideas here. And we can flesh them out as we go along. You know this. The first wave that emerges in the late 1950s, early 1960s, the socalled liberal feminism. Liberal in the sense that its a middleclass movement focused on demands for equality both in the workplace, equal pay, for example, for women. Equality in the workplace and also the idea that women should have full representation politically, should have power politically, not just the vote. Liberal feminism, too, because these are women who believe that activist liberalism of the kind that john f. Kennedy and even more so president Lyndon Johnson embodied, that activist liberalism Government Intervention could create equality just as it was doing in response to the black freedom struggle. The most famous founding figure you know is betty fordan, author of the feminine mystique, arguing how ideas of womens equality get embedded in american society. Shes one of the key founders of the National Organization for women. Now theres a sense of the urgency, now in 1966 that becomes the most important vehicle for liberal ideas. And one of the ultimate expressions of liberal feminism and one, of course, that would never be granted, an equal rights amendment to the constitution, the e. R. A. Changing government to promote equality. Almost as soon as that emerges and this is what makes it complicated you have slightly later in the 1960s what people very quickly called radical feminism. Middle class mostly to be sure, but somewhat younger women with roots in the black freedom struggle, the push for civil rights and also campus activism, a good number of campus radicals. Radical feminists shared many goals with liberal feminists. Whats interesting are some of the emphases. An emphasis on both public life and private life. The slogan the personal is the political sums that up. The idea that what happens in the intimate spaces of our lives, that thats political, too. As you can see from this course, that idea is one of the things that animates the idea that music matters. That music is political precisely because so often it is about intimate relationships that often werent traditionally considered political. Some of you in my 60s class have heard me talk about this in another setting. But radical feminism is one of the most important intellectual developments in the modern world. Not simply for the arguments about power relationships between men and women, but by redefining whats important. Classes like this exist not just because aging allegedly hip baby boomers like me want to relive our youths. That does seem very important to me. But also because of the intellectual terrain opened up by radical feminism. Part of this focus on the personal includes issues about male violence, especially in the home, about womens control of their own bodies, concerns about rape, forms of abuse, about abortion, which is, of course, a liberal concern, too. Its radical feminists who also played more, argued more about the nature of feminine identities themselves and wanted a broader range asserted along the lines of the Gay Liberation movement that weve talked about, including a celebration of lesbianism thats relatively absent in liberal feminism. Radical feminism is especially important for us to for its focus on culture. Much many radical feminists zeroed in particularly on the importance of words and culture categories, ideas like beauty. The way people, mostly men, could use words to put people in their place. Words like whore, for example. Categories like beauty. This is, of course, a famous moment. Youve seen the pictures. This is the protest against the miss america beauty pageant in Atlantic City, 1968 famous poster that parodies what you see in a butcher store where a piece of beef is sliced up so you know what the cuts are. Heres a woman presented that way. Welcome to the miss america cattle show, cattle auction. So the idea that women are sold in part through the world of beauty and, of course, preabs. That concern on culture immediately gets us because it makes it very likely that in turn, radical feminists would focus on music. That they could see music as one more cultural area, one more set of categories that could be used either to denigrate or to celebrate women. Now, they dont monopolize everything. These are truly radical ideas that are disturbing to people on a whole bunch of levels. So theres a substantial backlash. You know this already by the late 1960s into the early 1970s. Theres an active antifeminism, also middle class but culturally different. Heres a big bestseller from 1973, marabel morgans the total woman. Its only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, reveres and worships him and is willing to serve him that she becomes really beautiful to him. She becomes a priceless jewel, the glory of femininity, his queen. It produces a strong womanled movement against the equal rights amendment to the constitution led almost paradoxically by an important conservative thinker, stop the r. A. You get the point. This is a very rocky terrain in which to think about music and the place of women in music. Even arguably more than in response to the emergence of the gay rights movement. The First Response is here. Its from those radical feminists who thinking over culture, thinking over words, thinking over the power of words to put people in their place. You know, in the same way, say, that the n word was a way of putting africanamericans in their place. Its feminists who first come to terms with music. And what they criticize is not so much Country Music, which you might have expected. Not even, say, disco, which you might have expected. It is mainstream rock n roll. Countercultural rock n roll. The biggest icons of 60s rock n roll. I want to take some time to work through these sources that i gave to you. Theres three of them. Weve got three radical feminist critiques. Or almost radical, of countercultural rock as a form of male privilege. Thats obvious, and we want to work beyond it. In particular, i want to note a couple of points here. One, in line with what weve seen this sense of disappointment in the 70s, youve got these women saying weve misunderstood the 60s. We need to reinterpret the 60s and not see it as some revolutionary liberating moment but instead as a continuation of the kinds of power relations of male domination that weve had in the past. And that ties, in turn, to their subverting the whole idea that the 60s represented some kind of revolution. Instead, it becomes a weigh station toward the revolution that still needs to happen. So theres a very powerful set of ideas here and some real differences among them. But the question of how much impact is something were going to need to gauge. The first piece is this one from susan hiwat. It appears in 1970 in rat magazine. A feministt publication a few can see here. You see womens liberation with the rat highlighted. It was anthologyized long after. She took the name susan hiwatt, which is a musical joke. It was a British Company that produced amplifiers. The who used them, among others. So this is someone whos hiding her identity but playing with already the rock n roll world but more than playing it cock rock even now is a stunning title. Even now, is a stunning title. For her, she describes it, the personal is the political. Each one of these three pieces you see this personal journey that leads to a new set of ideas and a new set of attitudes. For susan hiwatt, its this idea when shes growing up in school, in school, in college, rock n roll was a generational thing for her. She saw it in those terms. Not in gendered terms, not in social class terms, but as part of dealing with the gulf between young and older. It was the only thing we had of our own where the values werent set up by the famous wise professors. It was the way not to have to get old and deadened in white america. So thats a common sentiment. Weve heard that a bunch of times. But this is where she goes. It took a whole it took me a whole lot of going to the fillmore, the auditorium weve talked about whose demise is part of this whole nostalgia for the disappearing 60s, and listening to records and reading Rolling Stone before it even registered that what i was seeing and hearing was not all these different groups but all these different groups of men. And once i noticed that it was hard not to be constantly noticing all the names on the albums, all the people doing sound and lights, all the voices on the radio, even the deejays between the songs, they were all men. Powerful moment. And to her in turn that leads to the obvious conclusion. That rock represents the massive exclusion of women. It keeps them out. Because in the female 51 of Woodstock Nation that i belong to, there isnt any place to be creative in any way. Its a pretty exclusive world. She says, there are no women electric guitarists, there are no women drummers, there are no Women Leaders of big rock bands, nothing. There are women singers, but as she says, they have to be twice as good just to be acceptable. Just to play this traditional role that women have fulfilled in music. Its strongly argued. But it rests in reality. Its the reality that we started to talk about in discussing girl groups back in the 60s. As she says, to become the top of the heap in black music, Aretha Franklin soul sister number one, she says better by far than anybody else, and there are not that many others of them. In rock, janis joplin. And of course, what precipitates this piece is the death of janis joplin, which weve mentioned before. And she sees joplins demise as this sad acknowledgement of what music does to you. She says, joplin for audiences was an incredible sex object, a cunt with an out of sight voice easy to fuck and easy to dismiss when shes dead. Thats what drives underneath this anger in the reality of the narrow space that women can occupy. As she says what you can do to be a woman is strum an acoustic guitar. Nothing powerful, no highwatt amplifier, strum an acoustic guitar, be like zoni mitchell, judy colins. But you cant electrafy, you you cant electrify, you cant get out of line, you cant get out of the line the way janis joplin did. Again, borne out. She says that people who play guitars, the people who get to use the power of electricity through highwatt amps, are men. Male guitar gods like jimmyi also dead by jimmy page, do we really have to interpret this here . I didnt think so. Again, as i said before, arguably the best female electric guitar player in the 70s is in the 60s is the bass player carol kay, whos a studio musician. Nobody knows she even exists. Shes on all of these hit records, no one knows who she is, no one even knows that a woman is playing bass on those records. Thats susan hiwatts point. Deejays, i gave you the opening for this, deejays as weve seen have been a basic phenomenon mediating rock music from the 60s forward. And theyre overwhelmingly men. The first almost sole famous woman deejay emerges just in this period in new york city on wnew fm, allison steele, known as the nightbird. Theres her famous opening. The flutter of wings, the shadow across the moon, the night bird spreads her wings and soars above the earth into another level of comprehension where we exist only to feel. Come fly with me. Shes on in the middle of the night. Daytime, when lots of people listen, its all men. Thats susan hiwatts point about the world of rock. Women are invisible. But its more than that. She argues rock is fundamentally nasty, its misogynist. Heres truly where the edge comes in again. You feel when it she talks about what happens to the janis joplin, the flip side of it is when she describes the underlying attitudes of men. Men who sing songs, men who write the lyrics. Because when you get to listening to male rock lyrics, the message to women is devastating. We are cunts, sometimes ridiculous, 20th century fox, sometimes mysterious, ruby tuesday, sometimes bitchy, get a job, sometimes just plain cunts not common language at the time. Radical language opened up paradoxically by the Counter Culture. Heres susan hiwatt occupying this new space of language and blowing up words and the way theyre used to put people down. All that Sexual Energy that seems to be in the essence of of rock is really energy that climaxes in fucking over women, a million Different Levels of womanhating. After all the groovy celebration of rock music, the 60s, the spirit of woodstock, this represents a really stunning shift in perspective. Really radical. She also finally makes a point. She says, women are excluded but theyre necessary. They still do have a role to play in music. Women are required at rock events to pay homage to the rock world. A world made up of thousands of men. Homage paid by offering sexual accessibility, orgiastic applause, group worship, gang bangs at alta mont, women are there to be worshippers of men and provide them with what they need. So drawing it all together, susan hiwatt ends with the really striking point. That revolutionary as the Counter Culture seems to be, as much as it represented a blowing up of old values, as much as it represented an attack on capitalism, as much as it rested on the idea that property should be communal, think of the diggers and their ideal of a free city in san francisco. The exception is women. And so women remain the last legitimate form of property that the brothers can share in a communal world. Cant have a tribal gathering without music and dope and beautiful groovy chicks. For the musicians themselves, there is their own special property, groupies, which particularly enrages her. So you get the point. There is a powerful set of arguments. Shes not alone. Theres a whole proliferation of this line of thinking which is why ive given you a couple more examples. The next one year later is from marian meade, a little older, a feminist, northwestern journalism graduate. She wrote a wellknown book a year later called bitching, a summary of womens conversations about men, still really interesting. Its very susan hiwattish but its the New York Times folks. No fourletter words, much more buttoneddown. But she drives home the same analysis with a couple of really interesting points. One of them, again, with this project of rethinking the 60s, changing our understanding, her jumpingoff point is woodstock. She says, you know, it finally dawned on me, not at the concert, it dawned on me when i saw the film a couple of years later, she says, finally dawned on me that this is a fantasy land that welcomed only men. How about the women . Barefooted, sometimes barebreasted, they sprawled rotcally in the grass, looked after their babies, dished up hot meals. And of course it is interesting to see again how women are portrayed at wood stock. Theres the admiration. Thats michael lang again on his motorcycle, one of the two key organizers of the woodstock festival. Look at him soaking it in there. Nudity, though, its interesting. Most of it is shared nudity. Meades point seems kind of selective to me. Whats not selective, the thing you see over and over, is women and babies. You look everywhere for signs of men taking care of children. And you dont see it. Womens basic role is have sex, conceive, and then maybe some nudity there. But taking care of children. Meades point is really well taken. And you can see why it would sink in. The other thing that she does is really build on this idea that the 60s revolution wasnt real. Just like woodstock is a fantasy land. She says, we were told that the 60s was about the reconfiguration of masculinity. Youve heard me talk about it. Shes saying, nuhuh, dont be fooled by unisex clothes, dont be fooled by long hair, dont be fooled by the beatles. Nothing really changed. All those things she says are just hip camouflage for the same old sexism, the same set of power relations that existed before. Style changed. Culture may have changed. But underneath, power didnt. In fact she says the 60s were , worse than the 50s. Here you see how this feminist critique blows up conventional rock history. Instead of being a history of progress, musically, culturally, politically, from the 50s to the 60s, instead she says, look, earlier rock didnt at least treat women in such a nasty way, misogynist way, such a false way. Women were passive sexual partners to be sure. But not that passive. Bitchy emasculators, thats counter cultural music. Thats not the 50s, thats the 60s. The people who are most guilty of it are the biggest male heroes of the 60s. Bob dylan, the beatles, the Rolling Stones. So all of it blown up, including this idea that rock is a history of progress. The last one is ellen willis. Youve probably had enough. Im getting looks. But work with me. Because these ideas, those of you who had to do this assignment, analyzing these sources, you know what im talking about. These are a little more complicated. So its worth being careful and laying the foundation. Ellen willis, 1941. Pioneering rock music critic. Heres a woman at the center of rock culture, she was the rock critic of the new yorker magazine for a number of years. Also a feminist activist. She was a member of two founding radical feminist groups. The new york radical women, who helped organize that Atlantic City protest against miss america, and then followup group, the red stockings. Willis was a creative and original thinker across a range of areas. Shes really interesting for us because she liked rock music. Theres much more struggle within the piece i gave you than there is in, say, cock rock or marian meades piece. She is more positive. She says, before we succumb to another set of stereotypes in place of the old ones, she says, think about what rock did. Insofar as the music expressed the revolt of black against white, working class against middle class, youth against parental domination and sexual puritanism, it spoke for both sexes. Insofar as it pitted girls against all their conscious and unconscious frustrations it spoke implicitly for female liberation, implicitly, which is a big concession. For all its limitations, rock was the best thing going. So her stance is different. Shes not as ready to give up on what rock was. But, like meade, she believes its gone wrong. She believes that its gotten worse. There is an alarming difference between the naive sexism that disfigured rock before 1967 and the much more calculated, almost ideological sexism that has flourished since. What had been a music of oppression became in many respects a music of pseudoliberation. Its an attempt to fool people, to fool women into believing that theyre living a kind of freedom, when in fact their circumstances are the same as before. She also does, willis does one other really interesting thing thats striking given our own interest in the degree to which popular music tenthds to reflect reflect outsider culture, outsider values, the way its a music of people from the peripheries, on the complete outside of power. Africanamericans, White Working Class americans in particular. Willis says, look, mainstream rock in the 60s, Counter Culture rock, is middle class music. It is the product of middle class people. And not even just any middle class people, but an educated middle class elitist. She says something interesting. She says, men are contemptuous of women, yeah. But these men, these men, the elites who lead rock n roll, theyre contemptuous of everybody. They hate everybody. They look down on everybody. Their attitude toward women is a part of that, is a product of their class and educational position. And she says also, they use women as scapegoats. They dont want to admit the middleclass culture they are rebelling against, that middleclass culture was a male product. Men were in charge. Women forthey blame representing those values . Is says the misogyny of rock based on class forces, too. Difference and you can see this rooted in her affection for rock music, she says, 19 71, things are changing. Things are going to change. She believes that rock will open up to women. That the same kinds of expressive power that its had for men could be used for more politically liberated reasons for women. She says there are more female rock musicians, more openly feminist ones. She notes one example in particular. The group joy of cooking which is a pun, you realize joy of cooking, bestselling cookbook in history in the United States, everybody had joy of cooking. So theres that domestic image of women. But joy of cooking, cooking in musical terms, playing hard, playing fast, swinging, rocking. So this idea that traditional domesticity has crossed over into the male preserve, cooking of women, cooking of men in music. The leaders were two women, toni brown and terry garthwaite, she was an electric guitarist. From willis point, heres a woman breaking into the world of maledominated rock. They had their first album, capitol records. One of the Biggest Record labels, one of the four, five, six big labels in the u. S. They made two more. So she says, see, things are changing. Now, i wanted to give you the other side to this. Theres actually not so much. The neatest piece is from this priest of all people who writes to the New York Times after hes read marian meades piece and he says, you know, wait a minute, look. Just a minute. He says, look, youre overrating the Rolling Stones, theyre not as important as you think. Youre misinterpreting bob dylan by picking his most misogynist songs and ignoring the times when he has a much more redemptive view of women. And he says, youre misinterpreting the beatles, too. Theyre not so bad. And an interesting point, he says youre contemptuous of eleanor rigby, a song weve spent a good bit of time on, why are you rejecting not the song, why are you rejecting her . If youre about sisterhood, why is it that feminist critiques of rock would condemn songs about female subjects . Interesting. But not much. Not much of an answer to these powerful critiques. But the real answer is here in impact. These feminist critics achieve a lot on an intellectual level. They subvert the history of rock as rebellion. Said they force you to rethink what exactly we mean by the revolutionary nature of the music. But in the process, theres a curious thing. And this is a final exam question waiting to happen, i realize this, actually. Theres something very similar about their condemnations of rock in the early 70s to the condemnations of rock n roll in the 1950s. The idea that its an inherently corrupting music. That it turns people into degenerates or outcasts. The terms are shifted here. But again, heres the ideal, that male rock turns you into bad people. Its rather curious in the end that this radical set of ideas is so close to the sort of conservative critique weve had in the 50s. Something to think about and well build on. But all that said, as well see in the weeks to come, very little changed. For all of the optimism of ellen willis, women do not emerge as a major force in rock n roll in the 1970s. Not really. Especially not really when you think about comparisons to other genres, which is what i want to do the rest of the way. As i said, this is really surprising to me. But on reflection, it shouldnt be. First area is disco. Disco, which weve analyzed largely in terms of its relationship to race, the influence of latinos in music. Disco teskes and the sexolets. And thetheques sexolets. Africanamericans like van and the hustle. Weve talked about it in terms of male sexuality and its relationship to the gay rights movement. Its interesting to come back, weve come back to counter cultural rock, and consider it in terms of gender. What you have are a much larger role of female performers in disco. And i want to work through them. What were known as disco divas. You know them. Major star, arguably the biggest star of disco, donna summer. Born in boston 1948, so younger than the critics weve been discussing. Changed her name, Ladonna Gaines summer is the version of her married name. Interestingly for us she was the front singer for crow, the lead singer for a psychedelic rock band and left it. You would think for some of the samesince of reasons reasons that animate the anger of those feminist critics. That theres a very narrow space for her. She becomes a disco singer. The queen of disco as shes billed. The 1975 breakthrough hit love to love you baby. Theres the cover. She had numerous hits into the early 1980s, including hot stuff, which you may have encountered. Another one is gloria gaynor, year younger, born in newark, another africanamerican. Had the first really big hit disco album never can say goodbye. Weve talked about the importance of dance and all of this, never can day goodbye the lp is famous for the first side, there are only three songs. Were not talking 2 30, 3 minutes like traditional pop records are were talking long songs and club deejays would play the whole side of the first album. 19, 20 minutes of essentially uninterrupted dancing to three different pieces, all of them featuring donna summer excuse me, gloria gaynor. And then two years later, big hit, i will survive. Which youve heard, yes . Its okay, were not going to do this as a group number, touching first this side of the room. Ok. The last one makes the point finally. Grace jones. Again, notice the narrow age banding here. 1948, like donna summer. Jamaican. Looking ahead. When we talk about the origins of rap and hiphop and the bronx, one of the things youre going to see, just planting this now, is the importance of caribbeans and caribbean migrants to the United States in creating this new culture. Heres one of the first signs. Grace jones had the hit, 1975, with i need a man. Here it is. There you go. She was billed as the queen of the gay discos. There she, famous picture. Notice the collar on the other guy. Famous sequence of photographs of her includes this one with the whip. Theres another one of her biting the whip. You get the point. Very popular figure. A lot of women, we could extend this list more. Especially in comparative terms. Far more visible presence of women in disco than in rock. To deal with this ive given you another primary source which is this piece by the music critic in the New York Times John Rockwell who says, straight out in almost kind of engagingly, bumbling, and helpful way for us, why are there so many women in disco . Whats up with that, is his attitude. He says a number of striking things. He says, first of all, a high piping sound like the voice of women suits the silly, partying mood and bounciness of many disco songs. In other words, unimportant music, something weve talked about before, unimportant people of course to seengs it, natch. It, natch. He also says, women singers suit the National Mood of sentimental escapism. As he says, when the country doesnt want to deal with reality, it turns to the voices of women. Its really astonishing. You get the drift again. Hes almost saying, women play such a big role in disco precisely because theyre really so unimportant, so useless. And then his third act of dismissal focuses on the importance of gay culture within disco. Without wishing to generalize too loosely about a gay sensibility, the fact remains that many women, especially ones with exaggerated feminine characteristics or particularly aggressive ones, have become cult figures for homosexuals. And his prime example, as youve seen, is grace jones. So theres a funny kind of slippage going on here. Where hes starting off with the idea, well, women are so important to disco, and you lurch your way through the article paragraph to paragraph and women are gradually becoming less important and disappear. In a way draws it shut. He says, look, after all, lets face it, men run the world of disco. Men run the business of music. Just as they have the labels, they have they run the production facilities, they control all of it. Disco music is ultimately a producers music which means mens music which means the exploitation of women to suit male fantasies, be they homosexual or heterosexual. So here hes instead of seeing the emergence of Gay Liberation, poststonewall as a liberating thing, hes saying, no, men are men are men. At worst its a puppetlike acting out of a male fantasy of women as objects or slightly grotesque figures of exaggerated lust and dominance. Youre excited but its bad. You know, youre thinking, this is not good. Its almost its really too simple. Its a very weird piece. Its smart, but its this disappearing act. Its like a magic act. Heres the rabbit. Phoot, going to be gone. Here are women, theyre gone. They dont matter. It effectively erases all of these very visible disco divas. Summer gaynor and jones have no , identity of their own. Its really striking because of the intensity with which those women portrayed, exuded, embodied, a particular kind of identity. But so, you know, John Rockwell is light years away from the antidisco movement that we talked about the other day. But hes engaged in the same kind of enterprise. Of making it disappear. In this case, for Different Reasons that have to do with women. Also, its too simple in the sense that hes making identity be one thing or another thing. Art serves one purpose or another. A song is this or a song is that. Which is striking for us because weve seen how in the world of glam rock, for example, identity is becoming this mercurial thing that shifts and takes new forms just as david bowie would take on a new appearance from album to album, tour to tour. Gaynor Gloria Gaynors i will survive was simultaneously known as a gay anthem for gay men, but also as a feminist anthem too. That it was a one and the same time it spoke to men and to women. Werent you the one who tried to crush me with goodbye . Did you think id crumble, did you think id lay down and die . Oh no, not i, i will survive. Different people could see in that something different. And they could find a kind of community. The 70s is in part about breaking down these iron barriers between categories. Its as if rockwell wants to deny that. Wants to make it go away. It can only be gay music, it can only be mens music. You get the point, then. For women to occupy visible, powerful space in music in the 1970s, just as before, was very, very difficult. Almost close to impossible. Then you hit this truly strange thing. Which is to say by now weve come to expect that Country Music is different. That if you want a contrast to rock, its different. If you want a contrast to the way power works, its different. Country music had lots of women in it. Something weve seen before. Mostly overwhelmingly singers. But werent they conservative in politics . Well, lets see. Theres a kind of paradox here, then. Country conservatism. Country women had more women star singers. They were fulltime working women. They were women who balanced career with motherhood. They were women who, in a time when the personal is the political, made music that was personal. But the message that they conveyed about gender when they focused so much on women and womens identities, like dolly parton here, seems very conservative. If youre going to think about whats the music for marabelle shapley, ifhyllis you wondered why i put them in in the beginning its for this, this is the background music for total woman, Country Music, which weve seen is reacting say in Merle Haggard against change in the 1960s. Not that simple. Two really good cases for you. Ive given you these wont play the music for you now. But first Tammy Wynette, rural mississippi, bounds, mississippi, 1942. A bit older than these disco divas weve talked about. She did songs, just the title youre thinking, oh, really . You make me want to be a mother. Absorb that. Some of you are grimacing there. Yes, i know, i know. You make me want to be a mother. Make me your kind of woman. Which is sung to a man, by the way, its not what you think. Dont liberate me, love me. You get the point. Marabelle morgans going, yes, dear, this was great. I was visited by a delegation of women, womens liberationists, who wanted me to change, wanted me to see you in a different way. She says, i didnt want to do it, i didnt want to do it, i know my job really is to support you and care for you. You are reading this going, this is conservative, isnt it . Then at the end she suggests, thats because you need basically all the help you can get. And thats when you begin to realize that somethings going on in Country Music, as usual, that underneath the hairspray and the apparent convention, somethings going on. Reminds me a lot of patsy montana, the cowboy sweetheart we talked about in the 1930s, i want to be a cowboy sweetheart, i want to learn to rope and ride. Youre thinking, gee, she wants to define herself in terms of a man. No, it turns out she wants to learn how to rope and ride from him then live a fairly independent existence. Countrys complicated. Wynette is complicated. Theres instead a kind of resistance on the part for traditional women. Its not radical politics, its not proliberationist, nothing at all. Your good girls going to go bad. Which is a song that says, look, keep behaving the way you do, my husband, keep doing what you do, and what youre going to end up with is me copying you. Your good girls going to want to go bad. You supposedly want women to be like this. Well, you think you really want me to be this way . Of course the answer is no. Driving home in the end the argument that what men really want is different from what they think they want, and that theyd better behave. Complicated. Your good girls going to go bad. Then the ultimate one. Stand by your man. Number one billboard country hit. So big, big record. Number 19 on the billboard hot 100. So again, the list that tracks sales across all kinds of popular music. Huge hit. Supposedly the ultimate in female submission. You know, boy, this is going to date me. Talk about age. Hillary clinton famously paints herself into a bad corner by saying that shes not going to be like Tammy Wynette and stand by her man. Says, of course, the most famous stand by her maner in modern American History. You wonder if she knew the lyric s, which are really fascinating. Tammy wynette cowrote this. Billy cheryl. Sometimes its hard to be a woman, giving all your love to just one man. Youll have bad times and good times doing things that you dont understand. But if you love him youll forgive him even though hes hard to understand and if you love him, oh be proud of him. Youre thinking, oh, god, really . Youre going to put up with him doing what you dont understand . Because after all, the most famous putdown, hes just a man. Its a stunning song. So its saying, okay, stand by your man, but not because youre so inferior to men. Stand by him because hes just a man. Thats how Country Music works. So its weird. Tammy wynette said, im not a radical here, im not a womens liberationist. But over and over her songs are about pushing men toward a uniform standard of behavior and theyre framed by this idea, not all marabelle morgan that men are so wonderful, but rather, that they are so pathetically the best of it that you can. And shes not alone. The other great example that gives us the title of this lecture is loretta lynn. Again, beautiful example of outsiders music, the way in which Country Music remained deep into the 60s and beyond, music of a White Working Class. She was billed as the coalminers daughter, born in kentucky in the 30s in the depression, because thats what she was, her father was a coal miner. Cultivated a very traditional image. Heres an early publicity picture of her. Shes canning. Shes selling music by putting up preserves. In ball jars. Thats how far they go in packaging loretta lynn as conventional. She married in 1948. Do the math. Pretty damn young. Six children. Heres a woman defined by marriage and family. But as she says, because her husband urged her to do it not she herself her husband urged her, she becomes a singer, a fulltime professional. Someone with a career and who still has marriage and family life. She is enormously successful because shes talented but also because she taps into the same vein that Tammy Wynette did. Of taking what is seemingly a conservative world and a conservative stance and inside it saying, ok, im accepting these ground rules, but i will push for change within it. Early example of this is, dont come home adrinking with loving on your mind. Number one country hit for her in 1966. I was so excited i threw in another quotation mark, extra value for you, number one hit, we dont have to do the lyric, you get the point from the title. Here again negotiation. You want to carry on, you want that much freedom . No sex for you. Look how conventional the cover is. That does not scream womens liberation. Ala the 1960s. And yet the personal is the political. Then you have your squaws on the warpath. What an album cover by the way, again what an astonishing thing, front and back. Here she in a whole series of squaw scenes. When you download this youre going to get a look at it. Also the way they write about her. Here she is taking on still more of an outsider identity. In racial terms you can cringe. But shes actually doing the squaw thing, as youll see, to do something fairly radical. Very much in the performance of this, which i gave you, im not going to play it for you here today, the performance, shes standing there smiling. Its like Merle Haggard doing a kind of passive, ironic grin while performing okie from muskogee. Youre going, this is safe, bland, kind of dull. Then you listen to the words. And again, thats a reminder for us. Country music as weve seen has been more wordcentered than most of popular music. Again, in an age when radical feminists are arguing, Pay Attention to words, its Country Musicians like Tammy Wynette and loretta lynn and the songs theyre writing that are playing around with words and categories in new ways. These words are just stunning. Well, your pet name for me is squaw. When you come home adrinking and can barely crawl and all that loving on me wont make things right. You leave me at home to keep the teepee clean, six papooses to break and wean remember, six children is exactly what shes got your squaw is on the war path tonight. Nice novelty song, you get the point now. Hes using the native american language to reduce her, supposedly to a greater level of subjugation. Well, i found out a big brave chief the game youre hunting for aint beef, get off my hunting grounds and get out of my sight. Do i have to do it, hunting grounds for you . Youre supposed to be hip, come on. This war dance im doing means im fighting mad, you need no more what was youve already had. In other words, youve committed adultery, which was a constant theme through these songs. Your squaw is on the warpath tonight. All pretty good. And then she goes where as far as i know no popular song, certainly no number one hit in the u. S. , had gone before. Really just shes smiling. You saw it in the video i gave you. She smiles along and says, well, that fire water that youve been drinking makes you feel bigger, but chief, youre shrinking. Youre with me there . We could break up into small groups and discuss what that means. But i am going to trust you on this. Makes you feel bigger, but chief , youre shrinking since youve been on that lovemaking diet. Dont hand me that old peace pipe. Come on, come work with me. Dont hand me that old peace pipe, this aint no pipe can settle this fight. Your squaw is on the war path tonight. Well, i found out a big brave chief, yeah, your squaw is on the warpath tonight. That is a stunning piece of work. And again, this is the way you push the envelope. She looks so conventional. Shes dressed in this very sedate, middleclass, Phyllis Shafly sort of way, smiling, strumming a guitar. Yet she just completely undid him. The worlds first mainstream reference to shrinkage ever. All conservative. Two years later, by now with an enormous constituency of female fans, she does one of the first songs about birth control. The pill. Look at the cover for the sense of this. Very kind of wistful thing. All these years ive stayed at home while you had all your fun, and every year thats gone by another babys come. Again, her fan base knows, six children for her. Theres going to be some changes made right here on nursery hill. Then in a really stunning image, youve set this chicken your last time because now ive got the pill. And the song goes on. Kind of angry. And again, the song thats saying, all right, im not going to walk out of this relationship. But the balance of power within it has to shift, has to change. Nobody in american popular music, mainstream, major hits, was dealing with this set of issues as continuously as loretta leadership. As loretta lynn. And of course shes seen as conservative, dowdy, all the rest by mainstream commentary. I couldnt even give you much discussion and primary source of loretta lynn because its not there. John rockwell doesnt even bother with that. Its those country people, what could they possibly know . Now, of course, to add to all of this naturally loretta lynn says feminist, womens liberation, absolutely not. In the piece ive given you, you see this, too. Im not a big fan of the womens liberation. The womens liberation. But maybe it will help women stand up for the respect theyre due. Neat, very nice politicians remark. Im not in favor of this, though it might be a good thing. Thats how you do it. Thats how you push the culture while seeming to be conservative. Weve seen this before. The beatles as weve said. If you smile and youre dressed in suits, you can get away with a lot. Well, loretta lynn, same thing. So you get you know where im going with this. What weve seen is, then, astonishingly difficult, how astonishingly difficult it is for women to open up space within popular music to raise the sets of issues that are raised by liberal and radical feminism in the 1960s and 70s. As i say, ironically but not really ironically, because we now understand the mechanism. Ironically its Country Music and disco that in certain ways advance womens issues more aggressively than rock ever did. And finally, to complete this, the most successful womens song, the most successful form of womens message music to go with the kinds of message songs weve seen, whether its eve of destruction or say it loud, im black and im proud, Merle Haggards im proud to be an okie from muskogee. The most powerful message song comes not from rock but mainstream popular music. Helen reddy, i am woman. I gave you her performing that song. That is very conventional pop music. Its not hard edged at all. In fact, the Critical Response to that is music is pretty negative. Reddy, again, a bit older. Born in 1941. Australian. Interesting case of rebellion. She came from a show business family. She hated that. Her rebellion as she said was, i wanted to be a wife and a mother. Instead of a performer like her parents. Thats how she starts out. But eventually she realizes what she wants to do is to perform and that she wants to make it in the u. S. Where she arrives in 1966. So 25 years old. She arrives divorced, a single mother with a 3yearold child. So making balancing the things that loretta lynn was balancing, Tammy Wynette was balancing. She gradually made it as a singer. Worked through a series of different styles. She remarries to a man who becomes her manager. They move to l. A. In 1971 she has a number of 13 billboard hot 100 hits so across all genres. I believe in music. But much as shes glad to have succeeded, shes become involved in the womens liberation movement, as she says, i was part of a consciousnessraising group. A group of women who get together to raise one anothers consciences by talking about the realities of their lives as women. Building a notion of sister hood. Reddy said, i realized i wanted to do something musical about that. The result of this reflection beginning in 71 is i am woman. And she says, you know, at first i didnt think of writing a song. I would have performed somebody elses song. I wasnt confident in myself yet as a songwriter. When i looked around i found when i looked around i found only total doormat songs for women, that in pop music thats all you find, that theres not really anything there that expresses what she wants. So she writes her own statement instead. Neat history. She writes i am woman. Radio stations wont play it. Weve seen in that system of popular music, the business of popular music, you needed radio play. You needed air play to get people to go out and buy the records. Radio stations think its awful. And remember, weve completely male dominated world, they think not just awful, they think its sickening, this song. Just sickening. So reddy and her husband come up with an interesting idea, to kind of grassroots build this record. What they do is go around to afternoon talk shows in different cities in the u. S. Where there were talk shows for stay at home women. Talk shows its out of this world that, say, Oprah Winfreys show would grow. Heres reddy with one of the most famous ones, a show in philadelphia, mike douglas. Smooth, pleasant man. Reddy would go on these shows, talk about her life, talk a bit about what led to the song, shed perform it, and what she had hoped would happen happened. The women that women viewers would hear this and then phone their radio stations and say, why arent you playing this song . I heard this incredible record, play it. Well, the volume of calls is enough to gradually i am woman gets attention and it gets played and it takes off. The lyric just like your squaw is on the war path. Its worth actually. It does a couple of very interesting things. I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore. And i know too much to go back and pretend cause ive heard it all before and ive been down there on the floor. No ones ever going to keep me down again. Which is one of the most carefully modulated descriptions of the violence against women youre going to find. But people get it. Ive been down there on the floor, no ones ever going to keep me down again. So it starts off with this issue. Yes, i am wise but its wisdom for the pain, yes i paid the price but look how much i gained. If i have to i can do anything, i am strong, i am invincible, i am woman. And then, you can bend but never break me because it only serves to make me more determined to achieve my final goal. I come back even stronger, not a novice any longer because you deepen the conviction in my soul. Youre thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then really fascinating. So she started with this very subtle image of violence between the sexes and implicitly heterosexual relationship between sexes. I am woman, watch me grow, see me standing toe to toe. So growth pitted against a willingness to be aggressive and confrontational. As i spread my loving arms across the land. So women is love, nurturing, growing. But im still an embryo with a long long way to go till ill make my brother understand. So a long that begins implicitly with male as potential romantic opposite and perpetrator of violence, ends with the idea that a relationship between men and women is that of sister and brother. So not necessarily sexual. So as i say, its a complicated song. Whether you like the rhymes or this or that or the background, which is an interesting stylistic mix of pop music. The guitar backing is interesting too. But whats going on ideologically is really striking. This notion of pride. And that pain is deni grace or denigration or translated into strength. Again, that violence is an issue and ultimately the relationship between men and women needs to be understood differently and in different terms. Thats what popular music does. Thats a very conventional thing. But this is a much less conventional form of that message. The male reaction to this is pretty striking. Helen reddy is beneath contempt, shes a purchase vary of all she is a purveyor of all that is silly in the womens lib movement. Boom, done. I gave you a really neat review. Music writer in cleveland who writes on the eve of reddy turning up to perform, as an admitted male chauvinist pig in the one or two areas in which my own wife has not yet beaten me into submission speaking of images of violence i must admit the libbers anthem of sorts would normally raise my hackls. But miss reddy sings it so well that her modicum of breastfeeding or should i call that chest beating for the cause on that one song is fair enough. So one time, one time. Its like, just this once ill let you sing i am woman and i wont puke, just this once. Yeah. Thats the reaction. Reddy though was used to it. In an immortal moment she says, for a lot of men thinking about the Womens Movement makes them grab their groins. What can i say . I didnt say we were going to cut their dicks off or anything, you know. Speaking of male violence. Great moment. You can see mike douglas going, yes, and now a commercial from dove soap. I love that picture of her. You do not find any pictures of helen reddy where shes looking at you going, oh, yeah . But thats underneath all of this. Ok. What can i say . Number one billboard top 100 hit. So heres a song that radio would not play. That many men considered openly revolting. Not just in the sense of being in favor of a womens revolution, but being sickening. In spite of all of that, number one hit in the United States. The following year she wins a grammy award for best female vocal performance and it is another fabulous moment, another controversial moment. She gets up and says, i want to thank god, because she makes everything possible. People go, what . She gets a ton of letters. As she says in one of her favorite ones begins, you skinny blasphemous bitch. [laughter] abbreviated. Usbb. Skinny. And again, interesting. Its radical feminism that argues that notions of beauty are used to discipline women. To be skinny here is clearly to be somehow unfeminine. Its part of being a bitch. The history of this song is just stunning. And there she is accepting it. Theres her husband behind her. You skinny blasphemous bitch. She goes from there, the United Nations has its International Womens year, 1975, which of course settled for alltime all issues about womens equality. Thats irony. They have a symbol. They also have for the International Womens year a theme song which is i am woman. So again, this song becomes international on the basis of all of this. The reaction by now is not so much for men who have gone, ok my wife likes it. , it is from a number of feminist activists who dont think shes radical enough. I spared you, i was going to give you one more source. Ellen willis writes a review of helen reddys work for the new yorker. And its this very twisted, convoluted thing of saying, i dont really like the music but her values are the right values but i dont like it and i cant really quite explain why i dont like it. And youre on page three of this going, ellen, just say it. But the saying it part, whats striking, gets us to the questions weve dealt with all along of how music can be politically effective. I am woman is really much of a piece with kinds of music that weve dealt before. There are no policy prescriptions. Verse two isnt about, i dont really like the wording of the equal rights amendment and i think they ought to redraft it, theres none of that. Nothing technical there at all. Its lowest common denominator music, which is not a putdown, as weve seen. Working on collective identity, on a sense of pride. Weve seen this before. Thats whats revolutionary about rock music and Country Music and aspects of soul and funk in the 60s. Is this evocation of pride by saying, this is what unites us. This one is striking. Even though it is i am woman, even though it seems so subjective, its a collective song. It is about the group pride of women. And so its a very familiar kind of music. Its whats driven message music across several genres. Weve seen repeatedly that its the political act of outsiders that rebellion begins with claiming a sense of pride, taking whats been offensive and a putdown, turning it around and saying, no, its the basis of my strength, ive been put down before. And that that pride in myself in turn is what begins to unite us collectively. Say it loud, im black and im proud. As james brown puts it. Merle haggard does this james brown does it. All you need is love. The beatles song for that first Global Television broadcast in 67 functions as the same kind of lowest common denominator value drawing together a group of people. As i say, what helen reddy does is very old in one sense and really quite conventional, conventional in many ways as music in performance terms. But whats different is its done in the service of politicizing women. Now, reddys reaction to this, of course, is to say, i gave you this material, im not defined by that. I dont do womens libber songs all the time. She says, i do a lot of other things. Like, say, bob dylan. She doesnt want to be imprisoned in one identity. She knows she doesnt have to do it all the time. That in the terms of that Cleveland Rock critic, ill let you do this just once, she knows to do it just once is to do a great deal. Is to begin to change things. So that draws us together to this point. If were trying to build an argument here about postrevolutionary popular music, after the supposed fall of rock, the place we end up looking is not in rock itself. Its among people who consciously pulled away from mainstream counter cultural rock, if you can use a term that counter cultural had become mainstream, who stood outside that. And instead respond to new kinds of imperatives. Who respond to the ways about the ways in which the status of gay men has arisen as a political issue, the way the status of women collectively, lesbian, heterosexual, have emerged. They respond using these musical tools that weve seen emerge in the 1960s. Rejecting the politics of 60s music in many ways but appropriating the kinds of tools. The weapons, the cultural musical weapons that had been forged in this musical cultural that they were rejecting. You get the paradox there. Very, very effective. The third element in this, the third thing as we build forward, weve already seen this period of time represents an intensified sense of economic decline. Weve seen that already in the music of Merle Haggard, working class centered music which already was registering. What deindustrialization would mean what stagflation would mean mean, the strange slowing , down of the u. S. Economy, including hyperinflation. Theres another line of transformation. And one that weve lived with for a very long time. Just as weve lived with these developing notions of rights and new sexual identities that weve discussed these last two days. So the next pathway i want to take out of here has to do with the economy, the transformation of capitalism, the limiting of the opportunities that once had seemed so limitless that you could dream of a free city and free music and free rock n roll. What if theres a u. S. That can no longer afford to have everything be free . Thats what i want to do next. We will see how that builds on, even if it opposes earlier rock culture. With that, we are done. Enjoy the rest of the day. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] join us each saturday for classroom lectures from across the country on different topics and eras in American History. Lectures are also available as podcasts. Visit our web site or download them from itunes. Day, on the cspan at 5 30, on cspan eastern, and Education Department summit on bullying in schools. At 8 00, bill nye the science guy and Creation Museum founder debate evolution. Eastern,2 at 7 00 congressman James Clyburn talks about his youth in the south to his leadership position in the house of representatives. 8 30, the author on her book about playwright, diplomat, and commerce woman claire booth luce. At 10 00, the author discusses the hidden world of highfrequency stock trading. Eastern,3 at 7 15 american artifacts looks at declassified documents related to the 1964bit of tonkin incident that led to the escalation of the vietnam war. At 8 00, president Warren Hardings newly released love letters. The life of milton friedman. Find our Television Schedule at www. Cspan. Org. Let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. Call us. Or email us. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. On American History tv, edwin fountain of the u. S. World war i Centennial Commission talks about efforts to develop a National World war i memorial. The proposed location is Pershing Park in washington, d. C. Currently, the park is a memorial site is immoral to general pershing. Introducedion legislation to congress that passed in the house but is awaiting action in the senate. This event from the National Press club is about 45 minutes. Welcome to the National Press club. We are fortunate to have mr. Edwin fountain discuss the world war i memorial. My name is tony gallo. I am your moderator. I am with the National Press club. Memorial e eisenhower now. That has been going on for years. We have no idea when the eisenhower memorial is being built. We have several of the but not a world war i memorial. Therefore, there is much excitement about this project