Helen Reddy's Song I Am Woman

889 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Social norms in the 60s

The 1960’s is a period of time known for the fight for women's rights and equality. This reflects in Helen Reddy’s song, I Am Woman. The song was released in 1972 as a single on her first album, I Don’t Know How to Love Him. The song was co-written by Australian songwriter Ray Burton. Reddy and her song became very popular during this time period, and her music is still recognized because it emphasized the fight for women. I Am Woman reached #1 on the top US charts in 1972 and won a Grammy for best female pop vocal performance in 1973. Many different groups of people liked this song, including women and those who supported women's rights. The song was first played in 1971 after it was released on her album. She performed this song at a variety …show more content…

Women wanted to get jobs and earn money like men, instead of staying home to take care of the family and do household tasks. They also wanted to gain better control of their bodies. In 1968, many women protested the Miss America Beauty Pageant because it was developing the idea that a woman's looks were what she was made for (Sink para. 7). Women saw themselves as equals to men but pageants were proving that women don’t work like men. About 38 percent of women worked in 1960. The jobs for the women that worked were restricted to jobs for helping people like teaching and nursing. Women weren’t wanted in professional programs, therefore only six percent of doctors were women and three percent of lawyers were women (“The 1960’s-70’s American Feminist Movement: Breaking down Barriers for Women” para. 2). Women were very offended by their lack of respect because they wanted to work and be as useful as men were seen. Reddy uses the lyrics “until I make my brother understand” to show that she sees all men as equals by calling them brothers and to support the idea that men didn’t understand what women were worth. She is showing that women are fighting to help men see that gender doesn’t mean

Show More
Related

  • Coal Miner's Daughter Analysis

    1420 Words  | 3 Pages

    she had in the coming years with many great songs being recorded in the sixties. Lynn soon became best friends with Pasty Cline, another female country singer who helped Lynn navigate the music world. Cline would tragically die in a plane crash leaving Lynn heartbroken and lost with no one there to help her. Lynn songs were influenced by the world around her singing about the struggles of motherhood and wives in her songs “Blue Kentucky Girl” and “Wine, Women, and Song”. Lynn felt what every woman at the time was feeling and that was the suffocation of being stuck in a role and not being able to break out and accomplish what you want, but soon that would change. Lynn also wrote about the Vietnam War with her song “Dear Uncle Sam” she was not afraid to tackle issues of the period. In 1967 Lynn be the first to win Female Vocalist of the Year.

    Read More

  • Aretha Franklin's Success At A Young Age

    1189 Words  | 3 Pages

    Aretha Franklin is a well known pop, R&B, and gospel singer. She has been nicknamed “The Queen of Soul” and is an internationally known artist and a symbol of pride in the African American community. Her popularity soared in 1967 when she released an album containing songs “I Never Loved a Man”, “Respect”, and “Baby I Love You.” Throughout her career she has achieved fifteen Grammy Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Legend Awards, and many Grammy Hall of Fame Awards. In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Time magazine chose her as one of the most influential artists and entertainers of the 20th century. She sang at Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral and at former President Bill Clinton’s inaugural party. Although she has all these accomplishments and awards there are other reasons that have driven Franklin to fame and landed her on the front cover of Time magazine on June 28, 1968. The reasons I believe allowed Aretha Franklin to become so successful are the following: Her family’s involvement with religion, the inspiring people that surrounded her, and the pain she suffered.

    Read More

  • Comparing Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Eighty Years And More

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    This discrimination towards this sex was reinforced by the idea that women was made for man. Not only was this idea prevalent within society but it furthermore is resonated through the laws and documents the government put in place. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony fought to establish equality between both sexes within the nation. This is illustrated within the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions at Seneca Falls when these women stated, “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object he establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.” This quote expresses the past of women rights and how from the beginning of time women have been seen as inferior to man. This furthermore resonated to express the idea that women were not only inferior but also a material object in a man’s life. Stanton and Anthony put a large emphasis into this ideal, making it their driving force into establishing women’s rights in America.

    Read More

  • Comparing A Doll's House And Hills Like White Elephants

    1941 Words  | 4 Pages

    As women, there has always been an issue with equality between themselves and men. Even though there has been a significant amount of progress in the United States throughout the years, there are women that still suffer with equal rights around the world. In A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, there are many aspects throughout them that relate to each other in numerous ways. The main theme between them is the way woman are treated and how they appear to be less equal of the men in their lives. Even though men are presumed to be the more dominate gender, women should be just as equal socially, financially, and academically, and not feel pressured by men. For the women and girl in A Doll’s House, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, and “Hills Like White Elephants”, they suffer with the idea of feeling compelled to do what the men say and follow his direction of how their life should be.

    Read More

  • How Women Writers Of Uncle Tom's Cabin By Harriet Beecher Stowe

    1095 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women and all of mankind need to live a life together, not of solitude, working towards the greater good for all. Sadly, this key concept is often discovered aftermath of mass destructions, devastations, ill treatment, in-equality, and so forth. Feminism and women’s movements were not created for women to be “bigger and better” than men, but for women to work their way up to what men have. Many misunderstood this then, and continue to do so

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Women And Civil Rights Movement

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women had been “denied basic rights, trapped in the home [their] entire life and discriminated against in the workplace”(http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/). Women wanted a political say and wanted people to look at them the way people would look at men. in 1968, many women even protested the Miss America Beauty Pageant because it made it look that women were only worth their physical beauty. A stereotyped image was not the only thing they fought, “Women also fought for the right to abortion or reproductive rights, as most people called it” (http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/). These were the reason why the Women started the Women’s Liberation. African Americans, however, had different causes. After almost a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, black men are still being treated unfairly. They were being oppresed by the so-called “Jim Crow” laws which “barred them from classrooms and bathrooms, from theaters and train cars, from juries and legislatures” (http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/). They wanted equal rights, equal facilities and equal treatment as the whites. This unfairness sparked the African American Civil Right’s Movement. This unfairness was seen in the Women’s Liberation as well. Both were treated unfairly by the “superior”. Both wanted equal rights, from the men or whites oppressing them. They both wanted equal treatment and equal rights. During the actual movement

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Letter To My Daughter

    1119 Words  | 3 Pages

    The author was able to convey this message by writing about how men treated and saw women “… laugh at women’s hats” , and how women are beginning to get their rights and working so that they will soon be seen as equals to men in both the private and public sphere. The author also wrote about how some women are oblivious to these changing and go about their daily life without any respect and that the hope is that the daughter does not become one of them “ … although there are plenty of women who haven’t heard the news yet. I hope you, my daughter, will be more enlightened” . The author goes on to say how the dream is that one day both sexes will be equal, and that men and women will be able to do whatever work they desire regardless of the stereotype of certain work forces, “ it’s a serious fact that he belongs at a sink just as much as a women. Men have proven over and over again that they make wonderful cooks” . This tells the daughter to see people not just as their sex, but as their skills and if women were to become equals to men, then that not only means that women being able to do what men do but men being able to do what women do without

    Read More

  • Women's Movement Of 1960's

    1213 Words  | 3 Pages

    But when the “Women’s Movement,” is referred to, one would most likely think about the strides taken during the 1960’s for equal treatment of women. The sixties started off with a bang for women, as the Food and Drug Administration approved birth control pills, President John F. Kennedy established the President's Commission on the Status of Women and appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman, and Betty Friedan published her famous and groundbreaking book, “The Feminine Mystique” (Imbornoni). The Women’s Movement of the 1960’s was a ground-breaking part of American history because along with African-Americans another minority group stood up for equality, women were finished with being complacent, and it changed women’s lives today.

    Read More

  • African American Women In The 19th Century Essay

    980 Words  | 2 Pages

    All throughout American history people have been experiencing prejudice, whether it is because of their race, their class, their ethnicity, etc. Another deciding characteristic of inequality is gender. American women during the turn of the 19th century were constantly treated like they were inferior to men. Men got better everything from food, to clothes, to opportunities and jobs. Women didn’t have control over their belongings, their ideas, or even their bodies. They faced a constant struggle of conflict between standing up for themselves, and remaining obedient to the men in their lives.

    Read More

  • Female Liberation and Male Oppression

    1492 Words  | 3 Pages

    started out as a movement for total equality for all humans, yet it has become a philosophy (largely promoted by Stanton and others) based on animosity and condemnation against men. The rise in feminism has led to (not necessarily caused) an exponential increase in discrimination against men, as many feminists blame men for the injustice against and oppression of women through out the ages, and not without cause. Women throughout the ages have been considered sub-human at best, and property as worst, little more than chattel, and while it is still true that women are still oppressed in some places of the world, in America (home of feminism, equality, and freedom) women are reversing the balance of power. Rather than moving fprward with ideals of freedom and equality, feminism has become distorted and history is repeating itself; but with a twist. Now the women are on top and men are being oppressed.

    Read More

  • Miss Representation Summary

    531 Words  | 2 Pages

    Women were only second-class citizens. They were supposed to stay home cook, clean, achieve motherhood and please their husbands. The constitution did not allow women to vote until the 19th amendment in 1971 due to gender discrimination. Deeper in the chapter it discusses the glass ceiling. Women by law have equal opportunities, but most business owners, which are men, will not even take them serious. Women also encounter sexual harassment and some men expect them to do certain things in order for them to succeed in that particular workplace. The society did not allow women to pursue a real education or get a real job. Women have always been the submissive person by default, and men have always been the stronger one, and the protector. Since the dawn of time, the world has seen a woman as a trophy for a man’s arm and a sexual desire for a man’s

    Read More

  • Women and College: Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves by Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin

    1288 Words  | 3 Pages

    The lyrics of the song- Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves by Eurythmics & Aretha Franklin, talks about women being liberated and are no longer inferior. They said in their song that “Now there was a time when they used to say That behind every great man there had to be a great woman Now in these times of change, ...

    Read More

  • The Oppressed Role Of Women

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    Initially, women fought for equality to end the oppressed rule of a man and wanted to be equal to a man in every way possible, women soon called themselves Feminists. Women in general, were forced to marry a man that the father saw fit to the daughter but this sometimes brought years of abuse and cruelty to the women. Women were forced to not just to bear children and teach the boys education but were to just plain out do nothing because men thought women

    Read More

  • Feminist Movement Essay

    2366 Words  | 5 Pages

    In 1920, the “Nineteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution” was passed. The women had fought a long battle for women suffrage and eventually won the right to vote. The first feminist movement also introduced the “Equal Rights Movement” which focused on bringing "Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." (Equal Rights Amendment) Which meant, men and women were equal under the law. They had the right to leave and be entitled to half of the family belongings. Women could also not get married and still be able to make money, since they could now work. Although jobs for females were limited. “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” (The universal declaration of human rights) yet during this time, discrimination was still commonly out there. They couldn’t just end female inequality, men were too stubborn to end the battle. It would be a long journey, no matter how many laws they

    Read More

  • A Women's Right to Vote in Britian

    1227 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women had a tough time in the mid 1800’s; in Britain in Particular. They had hardly any rights, could only work certain jobs, and could not vote. Women should have had more right, or just as equal rights as men had. Men were sexist against women; they did not think women could achieve the standards men were held to. It mostly occurred in the lower class, but the lower class and upper class were victims al well. These women were not the wealthiest, but they also were not the poorest, they fell somewhere in between, or average.

    Read More

More about Helen Reddy's Song I Am Woman

Open Document