According to Merriam-Webster, feminism is “the belief that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities” (Merriam-Webster). The definition was the same for feminist. The modern-day population see both words completely different; feminism being soft and with grace versus feminist wanting to be just like or better than men. In Claire Miye Stanford’s “You’ve Got The Wrong Song: Nashville and Country Music Feminism” tells readers just how distinct these words can be through famous country artists’ music like Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton, and fictional country artist starred in Nashville like Rayna James and Juliette Barned.
In Stanford’s article, she asks the question “But can a show that is so ostensibly interested in the ‘feminine’... also be feminist?” and not many stop to think that it can be done unless you’re aggressive. Rayna and Juliette are very much about women standing up on their own, standing up for themselves, and being respected (Stanford 278). These characters from Nashville are correlated toward Dolly Parton. Her classic hit “9 to 5” and “Just Because I’m a Woman” that came out years before her hit song, voices an ambitious woman in a discriminatory workplace and slut-shaming (Stanford 278). The shows characters’ hits songs are just the same when putting across a message. They are not going to wait around and continue to be mistreated like in Tammy Wynette’s song “Stand By Your Man”. Rayna and Juliette are country artists in the show and just like these real-life country artists, they have to balance out their careers and their real life. Rayna must work harder to stay relevant as a female artist and being a forty-year-old performer and as for Juliette, she is young and female so her goal is to be taken more seriously (Stanford 280-281). Female country artists are known to sing songs about love and forgiveness versus male country artists whose majority of their music are about guns and beer and on occasion, about how much they love their woman after she has left him. Stanford adds on with “turning the song into a …show more content…
If she lashes out and enacts bad behavior, she will be seen as a woman who simply does not care about her career and therefore demolishes her image versus if it were a male to do so, he is being a guy so boys will be boys (Stanford 281). During Rayna and Juliette’s fictional interviews the exclusion of the word “feminist” has a powerful implication. Today, strong and powerful women are asked to exemplify themselves through feminism. Nashville’s characters are simply woman who are balancing both careers and real life situations and they are not seen as feminist because they are taking the lead.
Feminism is an action, it’s the way someone acts no matter if male or female. Feminist has become a popular term to women that want to be equal to men. Equal as in credibility. As for hit songs from Nashville and Dolly Parton we are no longer letting it fly-by, these women are the voices that let men know that, as women, we are standing up. In 2013, the word “feminist” has been more commonly used and are aimed towards powerful women who want to suppress the term entirely and see them as powerful, strong-headed, and strong-willed