Smiling on the January 1987 cover of Ms., the magazine co-founded by feminism pioneer Gloria Steinem, are its 12 Women of the Year. They include a U.S. senator, a renowned novelist, a former nun who helped Central American refugees. And, smiling brightest of all, Dolly Parton.
The beloved country superstar, who died this week at 80, never embraced the feminist label. In fact, she eschewed it when asked, just as she carefully avoided political labels.
But a label is just that — a label, and one that was still new when Parton was building her groundbreaking career in music. More telling to her legions of admirers were Parton’s life choices, accomplishments, social alliances and especially, her lyrics — words that made clear how fiercely independent the woman beneath the wig and rhinestones truly was, and what she believed in.
In short, Parton may not have claimed to be a feminist, but her feminist fans claimed her just the same — with pride and affection.
Fans like Lynn Melnick, who, in writing a book about how Parton's songs impacted her own life and her recovery from trauma, found herself searching incessantly for moments where the singer might have called herself a feminist.
“She didn’t tell us she was a feminist,” says Melnick, author of “I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton.” “She showed us — in her actions and her words and in her songs. And I think that’s why people loved her so much.”
Witness the whoops of joy — from women — at the Newport Folk Festival in 2019. A cheeky Parton, then in her early 70s, drew delighted cheers when she sang the famous lyric to “Just Because I’m a Woman”:
“My mistakes are no worse than yours, just because I’m a woman.”
Parton had just explained to the crowd that the song was about a double standard — a reference to a frank conversation she’d had with her husband soon after marriage, when he asked if she’d been with other men.
“When you boys get married you want us to be just as pure as snow — well, sometimes we’re not!” she told the crowd. “This is for you, gals, and your boys just gotta take it, OK?”
The remarks were vintage Parton, making a point without alienating anyone. She was, after all, about relatability.
“One thing about Dolly is that no matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on, you think she’s with you,” Melnick says. “Everyone claims her. And so as a feminist I always thought, well, obviously she’s a feminist, and the more I read about her and wrote about her, it was just undeniable — first of all because of how she lived her life completely on her own terms.”
And those terms involved flipping the script, says music writer Caryn Rose.
“She knew she was blonde and pretty, and that it was always going to work against her,” says Rose. “So she figured out how to make it work FOR her. There's not anything more feminist than that!”
Or take it from perhaps the most visible icon of the feminist movement: Steinem herself.
“People who haven’t listened to Dolly Parton or to feminism may be surprised to learn that they go together,” Steinem wrote in that 1987 issue. “She has used her business sense to bring other women and poor people along with her. And her flamboyant style has turned all the devalued symbols of women to her own ends.”
“If feminism means each of us finding our unique power, and helping other women to do the same,” Steinem wrote, “Dolly Parton certainly has done both.”
To Evelyn McDonnell, Parton’s looks — the eyelashes, the big hair, the curves — served as an invisible cloak, helping her to freely express progressive views.
“She took the objectification of being a pop star and embraced it,” says McDonnell, editor of the music anthology “Women Who Rock” and professor at Loyola Marymount University. “It was like her magic cloak — she could be saying feminist things and doing feminist things and modeling a life and a voice that was outspoken, progressive, political. But you saw the package and you’re like, ‘Oh, okay.’ It made it safe.”
Parton’s priorities, McDonnell notes, are clear from songs like “9 to 5,” from the movie in which she starred with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. “It’s all about feminism, right? About women in the workplace, economic empowerment, pushing back against the male supervisor, uniting women’s voices.”
Equal pay was just one of the key women's issues Parton wrote about. She also, notes author Melnick, addressed reproductive justice, teen pregnancy, double standards regarding sex and "all of these very feminist issues ... she was just doing the work quietly, in her songs.”
One such song was “The Bargain Store," from 1975. “I may have just what you’re looking for, if you don’t mind the fact that all the merchandise is used," Parton wrote. “But with a little mending, it could be as good as new.”
Country radio, Parton said later, shunned the song because they took it to be about prostitution, when it was really about healing after a relationship. Melnick also sees a “gutsy” message about how a woman has value even without a man.
Then there was “Down from Dover,” about a single teen mother. “I wrote that back during a time when people didn’t talk about unwed mothers,” Parton told Vulture in 2023. “They wouldn’t play that on the radio.”
Melnick posits that Parton, well ahead of her time, exemplified so-called third-wave feminism, which gained currency in the ’90s with a focus on individual choice. A feminism where one could wear big heels, big hair and sparkly rhinestones, for example — as a choice.
And that’s exactly how Parton framed her looks in a 1977 interview with Barbara Walters: “It's certainly a choice.”
Parton said later that people had warned her against talking to Walters, who'd chew her up and spit her out. But a 31-year old Parton, with quiet confidence and a generous smile, emerged looking far better than her interlocutor.
Walters asked Parton if she thought she was “a joke.” She asked if she was faithful to her husband and why she was even married, if she was constantly traveling. She even asked Parton if her famous breasts were real — blaming the question on an assistant.
Walters also asked Parton to stand up and display her body.
Parton did, politely. But she was as tough as her famous nails when she explained why she was comfortable with the jokes — and, in fact, in on them. Her self-analysis echoed the words of Steinem, who has said feminism “is fundamentally about self-respect and respect for others.”
“I know exactly what I am doing and I can change it at any time,” Parton told Walters. “I make more jokes about myself than anybody ... I am sure of myself as a person and I am sure of my talent. I am very content. So I can afford to diddle around with makeup and clothes and stuff because I am secure with myself.”
As some of her fans might ask, is there anything more feminist than that?
