First, please read this heartfelt, intelligent essay from Amanda Marcotte in Salon.com regarding the passing of Loretta Lynn at the ripe old age of 90.
I must admit I had no idea the often odious neoliberal (and staunch anti-Bernie Sanders booster; just do a word search for her name with Sanders--SMH) Amanda Marcotte grew up in rural Texas. Marcotte's defense of Loretta Lynn is, however, astute for what it says, but is still profoundly troubling in a way which shows why Marcotte was so against the Bernie Sanders movement. And it has to do with race, and racial justice for our nation. For Marcotte, she merely sees the gender issues, and doesn't want to face the intersection of race and gender in American society. It is why the minimum wage raise or trade treaties were, for Marcotte, never as important as political issues as abortion, even though fighting for higher minimum wages and fighting back against the corporate oligarchy would have disproportionately positive effects for women of color, and women of all skin colors in lower paying jobs.
Anyway, what Marcotte misses in her analysis of Lynn's political-cultural views is what Irami Osei-Frimpong fully understands, which is the bargain too many white married women make with patriarchy because, in various ways, the patriarchy benefits them. This is how or why married white women too often side with their race over their gender, as that privilege they get as white women is a main part of that bargain with patriarchy. This point completely eludes Marcotte as she otherwise attempts to explain why Loretta Lynn was against sexism, but was not a feminist. To miss this, though, is to miss the essence of why that is not a contradiction.*
The key line in Marcotte's essay is when she describes the ultimate point of Lynn's anti-sexism songs, which was women should, first, be "just resigned to it," meaning sexism. Then, in the same sentence (!), Marcotte explains Lynn, as with other Red State married white women, was also "profoundly skeptical of feminist claims that change is possible." However, that is not really skepticism, nor hardened cynicism. If one understands what Irami is saying, when a married white "conservative" woman says she is "profoundly skeptical of feminist claims that change is possible," it is, instead, a fearful recognition of losing the privilege white married women receive in a racially stratified society--which they don't want to lose.
So, sorry, Loretta Lynn fans. Lynn was not walking a tightrope between fighting sexism, while merely avoiding the label of feminism. Loretta Lynn was a walking, talking, singing racist and fascist who was telling white women, in particular, she understood their pain from Bubba, but that is still better than racial justice.
I make no comment on Lynn's music, as I am not a fan of most C&W. I am good with Hank Williams and Patsy Cline, but it falls pretty fast for me from there.
* Michelle Wolf, the great comic, understands this, too. See here. Though this book shows it is much worse than Wolf says, but Wolf gets really, really close.
