"Every movement has a sound, a kind of voice for the movement,"
MSU professor of English Alanna Brown said while playing music of
the 1970s and '80s feminist movement.
Brown and MSU English professor Melody Zajdel used music to
highlight some of the changes feminism has made in American
society in their recent lecture "What Do You Mean Waves of
Feminism? It's a Tsunami." About 25 people attended the "brown
bag" luncheon talk.
"I don t like to think in terms of a wave," Zajdel said,
referring to the lecture title. "Waves are peaceful, nice and
smooth, and fall away. But feminism is not smooth because it
raises questions."
As an undergraduate student at the University of
California--Santa Barbara in the early '60s, Brown, 57, went from
living a prototypic middle-class American lifestyle to witnessing
civil rights and anti-war protests firsthand. She became actively
involved herself.
Feminism grew out of the anti-war and civil rights movements,
Brown explained before playing Bob Dylan's "Blowin in the Wind"
and Joan Baez's "Birmingham Sunday" about the 1963 bombing of the
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Alabama.
If there was an anthem for the movement, it would be Chris
Williamson's "Sister," recorded in 1975, Brown said. In a strong
clear voice, Williamson urges women to lean on each other and to
be there for each other.
"Everyone in the women's movement knew this," said Brown. "I had
never heard anything this powerful before."
Feminist songs were folk music meant to be sung and to move
people to be a part of the singing, Zajdel explained. The songs,
like Margie Adam's "I am not a Service Station," were sung in
dormitory rooms, on trips and amid gatherings of women at
academic meetings.
"The movement had and continues to have a wonderful sound," Brown
said. "Those of us who lived through it know these lyrics by
heart."
The 1970s and '80s brought significant changes for women such as
the no-fault divorce, battered women's shelters, legalized
abortion, greater access to contraception, and affirmative
action.
In the early 1980s, feminism took on an international focus, as
heard in Holly Near's song "Hay Una Mujer" (There is a Woman).
The song drew attention to the violence toward Chilean women that
occurred during the Pinochet regime.
Brown and Zajdel also played songs such as "If I Live I'll be
Great" and "The Rock Will Wear Away" that were performed at a
1982 Carnegie Hall celebration put on by Olivia Records.
"The concert was totally sold out," Brown remembered. "It was a
big thrill that women's music could generate such audiences."
Tyson Phillips, a senior in English at MSU, said after the
lecture that he sees a need for a men's movement to similarly
redefine men's roles. Today's stereotypes of men don't fit him
and others he knows.
Freshman Emily Torstveit said she liked the presentation because
the music helped her understand the time period.
"I've always been interested in the women's movement," said the
20-year-old marketing major, "...but I don't know that much about
it because I was born in 1981.
"We're really reaping the benefits of what these women did," she
added.
Despite the positive changes for women, the movement failed to
address class issues that today have become even more stratified,
Brown said. Feminism was good for white, middle-class, educated
women but has done less for poorer women and for those of color,
Brown said.
The lecture, sponsored by the MSU Women s Center, was one of
several events honoring March as Women's History Month.
--Annette Trinity-Stevens
