If Parton’s struggles and successes as an implicit rather than explicit feminist teach us anything, it’s that the most authentic female power does not always align with the politics of a movement. If you take Parton’s decisions thirty years ago and hold them up against some of the things said and written by activists, academics, and other movement-approved experts from the same time, I would wager that Parton’s feminism has aged just as well and in some cases far better.
