In honor of International Women’s Day, we hereby bestow you with a playlist to inspire and motivate you in the continued fight for gender parity.
Welcome to March! This month ushers in International Women’s Day on Wednesday, March 8, and while there’s much to celebrate, we’re also reminded that we women are fighting an uphill battle. With perpetual restrictions placed upon our reproductive rights in many states, women earning 30 percent less than men, and according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, a lack of affordable, subsidized childcare as well as out-of-control health-care costs, it can be easy to feel discouraged.
The good news is there are plenty of women out there fighting the good fight — and some are even singing about it. In the spirit of pushing through the pervasive exhaustion, we curated a soundtrack of feminist anthems — some obvious and some lesser known, and listed in no particular date or preference order — to keep us motivated on our journey and fire us back up when the energy of our fury starts to sag.
Lizzo — “Like a Girl” (2019)
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With absolutely everything she says and does, Lizzo makes it plain that she’s a woman’s woman and is here to support and inspire women. From Cuz I Love You, “Like a Girl” is a female power anthem with each and every line she spits: “Woke up feelin’ like I just might run for president/Even if there ain’t no precedent, switchin’ up the messaging,” she sings before exclaiming, “Only exes that I care about are in my f--king chromosomes.” She also shouts out Serena “Willy” and Lauryn Hill as her own inspirations. A committed feminist, Lizzo doesn’t just sing about empowerment — she leads by example and puts her money where her mouth is. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, she donated more than $500k to Planned Parenthood and the National Network of Abortion Funds and encouraged her tour promoter, Live Nation, to match her donation with another half mil, according to Vanity Fair.
Solange featuring Sampha — “Don’t Touch My Hair” (2016)
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Solange’s A Seat at the Table is a gorgeous piece of music best enjoyed when consumed as a whole. Every composition is a standout, but “Don’t Touch My Hair” sets boundaries and serves as a declaration of Black female empowerment and a peaceful protest against microaggressions as woven through its enchanting mellow groove. Within beautiful, lilting melodies, she sings: “Don’t touch my hair when it’s the feelings I wear/Don’t touch my soul when it’s the rhythm I know/Don’t touch my crown/They say the vision I’ve found/Don’t touch what’s there.” In the chorus, Solange asks, “What you say to me?” over and over out of palpable frustration — a question asked by Black women far too often.
Bikini Kill — “Rebel Girl” (1992)
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Bikini Kill were pioneers of the ’90s riot grrl movement, and this simple, raucous, guitar-fueled punk anthem is a feminist song from a feminist band. Lead singer Kathleen Hanna told NPR that the song was inspired by some of her friends. “It was a bunch of girls talking about starting bands and zines and how we could be feminist in the scene, including doing benefits for other groups that weren’t directly, you know, feminist with a capital ‘F.’” Praising women who DGAF, the song’s protagonist rejects the male gaze in favor of their own attention and attraction, as evidenced in this verse: “When she walks, the revolution’s comin’/In her hips, there’s revolution/When she talks, I hear the revolution/In her kiss, I taste the revolution.” With this bop, the revolution sounds pretty good too.
Joan Jett — “Bad Reputation” (1980)
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Since the very beginning of her career as a boundary-ripping member of the teenage glam band the Runaways, Joan has not had a single qualm about kicking down doors. As a solo artist in the early ’80s, she was often underestimated and patronized by record executives and industry heavy hitters, so, according to a Sirius XM interview, “Bad Reputation” was written as an autobiographical satire of how she was treated. “I’m kind of being sarcastic,” Jett said. “My reputation, if it’s ‘bad,’ it’s for being strong, and my parents told me when I was 5 that I could be whatever I wanted as a girl; I could be anything. I believed them. I guess that is kind of the ‘bad,’ being able to say, ‘I’m gonna do what I want, and you can’t tell me no’ — especially if I’m not hurting people.” The song is as fast and furious as many of the best punk-era protest songs, and her aggressively simple guitar and vocals give voice to women everywhere: “I don’t give a damn ’bout my reputation/Living in the past, it’s a new generation/A girl can do what she wants to do, and that’s what I’m gonna do/And I don’t give a damn ’bout my bad reputation/Oh no, not me.”
Madonna — “Human Nature” (1994)
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This unsung Madonna trip-hop anthem off her Bedtime Stories album is driven by a sampled drum-and-bass loop (from East Coast hip-hop group Main Source) and is an undoubtedly fiery response to the lukewarm and judgment-laden reception to her Erotica album and Sex book, a graphic, storied pictorial she wrote dedicated to all aspects of the act. The lyrics apply to a zillion scenarios women endure as they object to female oppression: “Wouldn’t let me say the words I longed to say/You didn’t want to see life through my eyes (express yourself, don’t repress yourself)/You tried to shove me back inside your narrow room/and silence me with bitterness and lies (express yourself, don’t repress yourself)/Did I say something wrong?/Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about sex.” It’s ironic this track came out almost 30 years ago, and we’re still dealing with this nonsense in so many ways.
Helen Reddy — “I Am Woman” (1972)
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“I am woman, hear me roar/in numbers too big to ignore” kind of says it all, right? We’d be remiss to exclude the late, great Helen Reddy’s feminist anthem of the ages. It was released the very same year the Equal Rights Amendment passed the Senate and Shirley Chisholm ran for president. Further, the Supreme Court made its decision in Roe v. Wade just a month after “I Am Woman” topped the charts in December 1972. The single went on to sell more than a million copies. When Helen recorded the song, she hadn’t a clue people would be so into it, but when it earned her a Grammy for best female performance, she referred to God as a “she” in her acceptance speech, which was another statement in and of itself. About the song, she once told Rosie O’Donnell: “I still get women who come up to me and say, ‘I went to law school because of your song,’ or ‘I had the courage to get out of an abusive relationship because of your song,’ things like that. Makes my day.” Helen performed the song at Women’s Marches in 1989 and 2017, and although we lost her in 2020, this anthem rings eternal.
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Sonic Youth — “Kool Thing” (1990)
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In the first single after this seminal art-noise band was signed to a major label, singer-bassist Kim Gordon comes for misogyny head-on in “Kool Thing,” mocking the trappings and tropes of the male ego that oppresses women with panache. Due to the many references to the rapper in the song, it has been widely reported that the song is about LL Cool J, who made some sexist comments during an interview he did with Gordon in Spin about hip-hop and hardcore. (LL has an album called Walking With a Panther, whose title is echoed in a line about the antagonist in “Kool Thing.”) Musically, the track serves a heaping dose of Sonic Youth’s dissonance while adhering to a basic pop song structure. Toward the end, Gordon coos, “I just wanna know, what are you gonna do for me?/I mean, are you gonna liberate us girls/From male, white, corporate oppression?” while Public Enemy’s Chuck D affirms behind her by peppering in, “Tell it like it is! Let everybody know.” Tongue firmly in cheek, she ends the bit with “I just want you to know that we can still be friends.” To borrow another line from the song, her answer is already clear: “I don’t think so.”
Queen Latifah — “U.N.I.T.Y.” (1993)
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A sultry sax solo leads into Queen Latifah’s demand for male accountability, but the seduction ends there. “Who you calling a bitch?!” kicks off her career-defining battle cry against Black female objectification and disrespect at a time when misogyny largely drove hip-hop culture. By writing a song that took on myriad aggressions toward women — like catcalling and domestic violence — Latifah took on the status quo for the benefit of women everywhere and encouraged women to demand respect, stating the consequences of crossing her quite plainly: “I bring wrath to those who disrespect me.” There’s no revenge like success: “U.N.I.T.Y.” topped the charts and earned Queen Latifah a Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance.
Chaka Khan — “I’m Every Woman” (1978)
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This dynamic vocalist broke glass and glass ceilings with this female empowerment anthem, the first single off her debut album, Chaka, and its well-established iconic status makes this choice a no-brainer. The song has endured in many incarnations: The late, great, Whitney Houston famously covered the song in 1992, and Chaka rerecorded it as a duet with Broadway powerhouse Idina Menzel as part of Care’s #IMEVERYWOMAN International Women’s Day campaign. Even so, on a recent episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show, Khan admitted it took her a while to own the true meaning of the song. She said, “It took me a long, long time to feel some kind of comfort singing something like ‘I’m every woman.’ See, I was taking it literally, which was wrong. I was reading it from an insecure place. The song is saying together, collectively, I’m every woman, and it’s all in me. It’s a song that is really talking about in a plural way, in a collective way, we are all every woman, and it’s all in us.” Damn right.
X-Ray Spex — “Oh Bondage Up Yours!” (1977)
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In the late ’70s, a biracial British punk wunderkind named Poly Styrene started a band called X-Ray Spex, grabbed a proverbial bullhorn, and wrote and sang a feminist anthem that railed against male oppression — and she did it at the age of 19. “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard/But I think, oh bondage, up yours!” Styrene says before the drum roll kicks in, the sax starts to blast, and she lets loose with her rage-laden vocals. Play it loud for maximum impact.
Lesley Gore — “You Don’t Own Me” (1963)
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This feminist anthem made waves when it hit the airwaves back in the early 1960s — especially because a 17-year-old Lesley Gore was singing it. She was best known for bubblegum pop songs like “It’s My Party” and according to NPR, chose the song because she “liked the strength in the lyric.” At the time, she didn’t feel as if it was about a woman per se (it was said by one of the writers to be inspired by the civil rights movement) but was proud the song got “picked up as an anthem for women.” Before Gore passed away in 2015 from lung cancer, she came out as a lesbian and gave the song a second coming in a powerful, celeb-studded 2012 public service announcement urging women to vote.
Beyoncé — “Run the World (Girls)” (2011)
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This is not a drill, though the marching-band rhythms of this song and an infectious sample from Major Lazer will have you falling in line with Beyoncé’s feminist salute to women everywhere. The chorus is self-explanatory, but the verses explain the ins and outs of what it means to be female. In an interview with Billboard, she discussed how the song pushes the envelope: “I just heard the track and loved that it was so different: It felt a bit African, a bit electronic and futuristic. It reminded me of what I love, which is mixing different cultures and eras — things that typically don’t go together — to create a new sound. I can never be safe; I always try and go against the grain. As soon as I accomplish one thing, I just set a higher goal. That’s how I’ve gotten to where I am.” Our ears and minds are so grateful.
Aretha Franklin — “Respect” (1967)
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There’s no way to construct a list of powerful female anthems and leave this one off. The song itself demands “propers” and respect within the scope of a relationship, but it quickly became, as Franklin herself said, “a battle cry” for both the women’s rights and civil rights movements in the ’60s. Once released, it was a No. 1 hit for 12 weeks. According to Biography.com, “Respect” was first recorded by Otis Redding, and the lyrics originally addressed a woman, which made it sexist. Then Aretha got hold of it, pumped it up with that voice, and made the lyrics her own — she and her sister Carolyn came up with the “Sock it to me” line. Today, the song remains a leading feminist rally cry, has been used in tons of films and TV shows, and as of 2021, is officially Rolling Stone’s Greatest Song of All Time.
St. Vincent — “The Melting of the Sun” (2021)
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As we women scramble to scrounge up the strength for the fight to be seen as human beings worthy of equal rights, it’s good to know artists are feeling the same way. In this ’70s-tinged song from St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark), the singer pays tribute to the artists who dared to push the envelope before her, like Joni Mitchell and Nina Simone. About those who inspired the song, Clark told Rolling Stone: “People tried to quiet them when they were saying something that was righteous or true or hard to hear. [That song] in particular is a love letter to strong, brilliant female artists. Each of them survived in an environment that was in a lot of ways hostile to them.” At the end, Clark and some soulful backup singers remind us that the fight is as cyclical as the world is round, so we have no choice but to push on: “Girl, the world’s spinning ’round/Spinning down and out of time/Girl, you can’t give in now/When you’re down, down and out.”