I Am Woman, Stand By Your Man – Helen Reddy vs. Tammy Wynette
Helen Reddy gained notoriety on her first hit “I Am Woman” (1972). Her hit stood in stark contrast to Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” (1968).
Released just four years apart – these two songs reflected the division in a changing culture from the 1960’s to the 1970’s. In 2015 we stand at another reflection on culture – conservative versus liberal, Republican versus Democrat – however we label the contrasting views the point is that there are stark differences of opinion in our country today.
From my perspective it seems the modern conservative woman must be out of sync with the broad conservative message of the male dominated movement. Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee trounce Planned Parenthood as some sort of wicked program propped up by Satan himself (in this context Satan is a male). I see Planned Parenthood as a program protecting our female population from old worn out chauvinistic attitudes of the past. Does anyone really believe that Donald Trump cares about women’s issues?
I actually know a couple of women. That is right – I have even talked to them. The experience, while generally beneath me, was rewarding in that I began to understand their confusion. Sorry for the sarcasm folks but I am compelled to rattle cages.
Femininity is one of the greatest of all naturally occurring phenomenon. What are some words that may be synonymous? Nurturing? Kind? Caring? Giving? All of these I think. These qualities seem in direct conflict with neo-conservative (not-really conservative) platform of denying food to children, denying equal education to children, war, bombing cities, hatred toward different religions, hatred in general, punishing the mentally ill, denying help to the disabled, accusing anyone who cannot work with being lazy, accusing those on government support of having a sense of entitlement, denying equal rights to Gays – the list goes on and on. These are not feminine values.
This post requires noting that the modern ‘liberal” has also lost touch with what it means to be liberal (Latin: liberal, “worthy of a free person”); There are liberals running around today that believe the difference between men and women is socially engineered! And modern conservatives have distorted the meaning of conservative. Conservative, as once understood, meant to preserve that which is good. The modern version suggests a return to earlier values – here are some of our notes on return to the past. Do conservative women really want to return to the days of “Stand By Your Man”? Not likely. Do modern liberals want to take another run at Communism? Not likely.
So which is it? Can we have our cake and eat it too? Do we have to buy into the goofball conservative platform of a few wackos? Must we be stuck in the liberal mantra of the 1970’s?
“I Am Woman” from Wikipedia:
I Am Woman is an album by Australian-American pop singer Helen Reddy that was released in the fall of 1972 by Capitol Records and included her second recording of the song that gave the album its name, which was also the version that spent a week at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.[3] The album debuted on Billboard‘s Top LP’s & Tapes chart in the issue dated December 9, 1972, and reached number 14 during its 62 weeks there,[4] and in Canada‘s RPM magazine it peaked at number seven.[5] On March 7, 1973, the Recording Industry Association of America awarded the album with Gold certification for sales of 500,000 copies in the United States, and Platinum certification for sales of one million copies came on December 5, 1991.[6] On July 22, 2003, it was released for the first time on compact disc as one of two albums on one CD, the other album being her 1973 release Long Hard Climb.[7]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptW7zOPX2E
“Stand By Your Man” from wikipedia:
Released as a single in late 1968, the song reached number one on the U.S. country charts in late 1968 for three weeks.[1] “Stand by Your Man” also crossed over to the U.S. pop charts, peaking at number nineteen.[2] It elevated Wynette—then one of many somewhat successful female country recording artists—to superstar status. It reached number one in the UK Singles Chart when the record was finally released in Britain in 1975,[3] subsequently also reaching number one in the Netherlands. An album of the same name—which was also quite successful—was released in 1968.
Comment by Nancy Belle on 1 September 2015:
To find any one person who really knows what values are held by either Democrats aka Liberal or is it Progressive Liberal, I admit my failing to know, or the Republicans aka Conservative or otherwise known as Those Evil Backward No Accounts. I only know my values do not lay 100% with either. Feminist have worked hard for women’s rights, I applaud and celebrate those who brought about our right to vote. Yet, they didn’t go beyond that and bring forward the end to husbands using their wives as slave labor and using their God given right to beat your wife to keep her in line. Along with many other atrocities of the era, which led right on up to my first years as a wife and mother. I was really pissing God off because I insisted on driving and oh wasn’t I the crazy one who thought that if you are going to make me go outside the home and work, maybe you could take up some of the slack in the home. Being the equal of man was truly something God didn’t want me to achieve or fight for. So, these Feminists have gotten us out of our bras and many other things that are good, except, they don’t really want men and women to be equal. Not only because I am a mother of three sons, but because it is just not right to bring men to their knees and put the crunch to them in many different ways. Child Custody, Child Support, to name a couple of areas where women are treated as golden and the men as dirty rotten scoundrels. Abortion, women get to say yea or nay, but not the men. If the women decides to keep the child and the man does not, the courts will still go after him to support the child, when it was the woman’s choice keep it. I don’t believe that Planned Parenthood needs to be providing abortions on my tax dollar. I don’t believe this is of benefit to women. We have more counseling and education about choosing to end our fertility than is given for an act that affects a living being and the other parent. I believe that I am a conservative, wishing to keep safe what has been good and passing it on. I want children to have a good education. I don’t believe they are getting any where near the kind of education I received as a child or my parents and their parents. It’s a sad sight to see a young person freshly graduated from High School who can not spell and can not calculate without a calculator. I do all I can spare to help those in need and promote that within my Church as do all who I call my sisters and brothers in Christ. So, personally, many may disagree I’m sure, I am not a dumb blonde, crazy woman, disrespectful wife, man hating woman or sorry excuse for God’s daughter. I blame most of our country’s problems on greed and that can be said for the world as well. Greed for power, notoriety, money and so on and so forth. People who are independent and able to judge and do for themselves are dangerous to today’s controllers, no matter they be called Democrat/Liberal or Republican/Conservative.