I was born in a time when women were little more than their husbands’ property.
I don’t need to go into the history of the women’s movement, but it ought to be fairly shocking that American women couldn’t get credit in their own names until 1974. They have consistently been paid less than men for the same jobs, and there are still people who believe a woman cannot be complete without a man and/or children.
In 1972, Hollywood took on the women’s movement, calling it by the colloquial “women’s lib,” in a goofy comedy called “Stand Up and Be Counted.” It was mostly B and C list stars with the exception of Jacqueline Bisset. who was in 14 movies in the first half of the 1970s.
There was nothing memorable about the plot. The movie isn’t available on videocassette, DVD or streaming video.
The movie had its one moment, though. It was the very first time I heard “I Am Woman,” Helen Reddy’s feminist anthem. While it might seem silly 48 years later, especially to people under 40, it really was special for its time.
Reddy actually had a pretty good career for a decade or so after that. “I Am Woman” was the first of three Reddy songs that went to No. 1 in America, with “Delta Dawn” and “Angie Baby” following in the next two years. She had six other top 15 hits on the U.S. charts and toured throughout the ’70s.
I saw her perform in Reno in July 1978, the first Vegas-style show I ever saw and probably the most bizarre concert I ever attended. I don’t think I ever saw a performer who was more hyper. She was practically running around the stage, going from side to side singing her songs.
She did some nice songs that didn’t chart at all. The one I really liked was “We Will Never Say Goodbye,” the song that played under the credits in the John Belushi-Blair Brown rom-com “Continental Divide.”
After that, she was sort of gone. She lived till she was 78, dying just last month.
It’s sad to me that someone who was almost a feminist icon ended up in obscurity. Her song and her work were tied in with the Equal Rights Amendment, which came up three states short of passing largely because of the battle right-wing women like Phyllis Schlafly, who died four years ago at age 92.
In recent months, “Mrs. America” came on television with the wonderful Cate Blanchett playing Schlafly. And just tonight, I saw the Australian-made movie “I Am Woman,” the Helen Reddy story.
I think it was the late William F. Buckley, who said a conservative was someone who stood against the march of history saying “Stop!” That’s where Schlafly fit in.
Then there’s Reddy.
“You can bend but never break me ’cause it only serves to make me more determined to achieve my final goal And I come back even stronger, not a novice any longer ’cause you’ve deepened the conviction in my soul.”
I don’t have any doubt which one was a greater force for positivity.