R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Don’t You Know What That Means?

The memory of these women—pioneers of female creativity—remains eclipsed by a male-centered history of rock and Black music.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB
[…]
Come home
Or you might walk in
And find out I’m gone
I got to have
A little respect

With these few words, engraved on a single released in April 1967, Aretha Franklin reached the top of the American charts and shook the old male-dominated order in popular music. A few changes to the original Otis Redding track, and all the ordinary misogyny is called out. This song isn’t the first to demand respect for women, nor does its success settle the feminist question once and for all, but it crystallizes generations of committed artists. Through this old tune that she made her own, Aretha reclaims speech, asserts herself in society as a woman, and demands her rightful place.

Indeed, by twisting the original meaning, she opens the door to other demands, among her fans, the media, men of course, and the institutions of popular music—from folk variants (country, blues, R&B) to stadiums, from society to religion to history (the fight for equality). Revolutionary or conservative, all musical genres—through the messages and attitudes they convey—bear witness to this kind of incursion, pitting old sexist battles against the diverse desires of rock and R&B, including rap and electronic music.

The long tradition of feminist song collides with the collective imagination. On the surface, venturing into the creation of popular music is often a man’s game. The “greats” are the first to do so: able to afford mirrored guitars, travel worldwide with their instruments, and dominate people’s musical consciousness. More than respect, it’s also a matter of pride and power. Think of Elvis Presley’s stage act with his gyrating hips, Jimi Hendrix photographed with a guitar slung over his back, Pink Floyd’s appearance in France, or the Rolling Stones performing in American stadiums, James Brown shouting “I’m black and I’m proud,” or Janis Joplin screaming “Take another little piece of my heart.”

Two songs arranged for producers who make decisions for the singer—because the tradition of pop-rock’s “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” also carries a “live and die for the stage” ethos that isn’t always so heroic. We can’t say that the history of women musicians—whether Black women or Latina women—in pop, rock, funk, disco, rap, or electronic music is crowded with stars. And when they do exist, it’s often to be “someone’s wife” or “someone’s groupie,” or else to be the “exception”: selling fewer records, enduring mockery, rarely embodying the liberated icon.

And when they do break through, it’s often fleeting or downplayed, never recognized as a major act, often forced to compromise or emphasize some angle that will end up stifling them. There’s an entire phenomenon of packaging and marketing that turns them into icons or pin-ups, or simply muzzles them. Some resist, paying a high price. Others conform to the rules of the industry but ultimately remain under the sway of male producers. Because human memory is selective, and it’s men who write history. Hence the marginalization of these women, especially in Black communities, where men for a long time refused to see their sisters as equals. That’s why rap or reggae can become spaces of reassertion, even of affirmation.

It’s the era of Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Dinah Washington, Mahalia Jackson, and Billie Holiday, to whom the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the pantheon long turned their backs—or recognized only belatedly. Yet these women are the voices of freedom; they are the women of jazz, soul, gospel. They represent the marginalized who aspire to a new breath of life, yet are pushed aside in the official memory, the official history of popular music, which remains built by men. Nina Simone’s name—she who sang “Mississippi Goddam”—or Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s—who invented rock guitar—are barely acknowledged. The first women of the Black diaspora faced both racism and sexism, finding refuge only in the few spaces open to them: the stage, sometimes the church, or certain welcoming venues.

They were a Black American minority struggling to exist, and they saw music as a form of emancipation. That’s why Nina Simone’s or Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s stance was doubly revolutionary: they had to face a twofold barrier, that of racial segregation and that of misogyny. Thus, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, and later Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan established themselves as divas, capable of raising their voices. They asserted themselves in closed, sometimes disreputable spaces where segregation still held sway.

They sang the blues, gospel, jazz in clubs of dubious reputation or in speakeasies, through the Harlem Renaissance, but they also faced mockery and humiliation, all while paving the way for those who would follow. Other names—like Mama Cass or the indomitable Janis Joplin, or blueswomen of Ma Rainey’s or Bessie Smith’s caliber—remain overshadowed by the male rock star image that always seeks to overshadow them. Thus, the memory of these women—pioneers of female creativity—remains eclipsed by a male-centered history of rock and Black music.