She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs

by Sarah Smarsh

Joking about poverty is a hallmark of women in poor spaces, while more privileged people tend to regard it with precious sadness—a demonstration of their own sense of guilt, perhaps, or lack of understanding about what brings happiness.

Firsthand experience allows for a tale that’s more complex than a somber lament.

The transmutation of pain into power is a feature of all musical genres and indeed all forms of art. For women in poverty, though, it is not just a song but a way of life, not just a performance but a necessity.

Take, for example, the concept of intersectionality. A working-class woman of color might not know that word, but she knows better than anyone how her race, gender, and economic struggles intertwine.

You won’t get very far as a poor woman without believing you are equal to men. The result of that belief is unlikely to be a “leaning in,” Sandberg’s possibly sound advice to middle- and upper-class women seeking to claim the spoils enjoyed by the men in their offices and homes. A poor woman’s better solution is often to turn around and walk away from a hopelessly patriarchal situation that she cannot possibly mend with her limited cultural capital.

“A wild patience has taken me this far.”

the middle-aged speaker realizes her deepest strength is that she contains seemingly opposing attributes at once: anger and tenderness, a sad past and hope for the future, both pride and pain from having done a lifetime worth of work alone.

The woman who speaks about feminism is not always the one truly insisting on equality behind closed doors.

She was, perhaps, a third-wave feminist born a generation early, simultaneously defying gender norms and reveling in gender performance before that was a political act.

Parton fashioned herself as a “floozy” not because she sought men’s approval but because sexualizing herself took control from men who otherwise would have done it for her.

As a woman who has held many jobs in the workforce over the course of more than twenty years and never—not once—worked somewhere without some sort of harassment or other poor treatment for my gender, I must say that I agree. The relentless emotional drain of being dismissed, underpaid, ogled, and perceived as a threat is no small part of why I now sacrifice the many benefits and securities of organizational structure in order to work as a freelance writer.

many of the men who have antagonized us in workplaces did so in ways much quieter than 9 to 5’s bombastic chauvinism—often while purporting to be “feminists.” That can be an even more dangerous professional climate for women; insidious misogyny or sexism can cut you before you see it and is the hardest to prove.

He refuses to leave when she tells him to, slaps her in the face for arguing with him—and then is welcomed into her arms for his relentlessness. My twentieth-century child eyes had seen a strong woman putting up a fight and then being turned on by a man persistent enough to win. But my twenty-first-century adult eyes saw a dangerously entitled man stalking a woman and not respecting or even believing her when she said “no.”

But it is necessary to recognise that both could be playing out the gender roles of the time. The man is also expected and possibly censured for not being overtly "manly". I think this dynamic is sometimes more complex than it is now made out to be. There is more awareness today and less excuse for such behaviour but it is more muddy when examining the past, especially for an on screen depiction.

Don’t assume the men in suits know what they’re doing, she warned, and don’t concern yourself with their appraisal of your worth.

“There are basically two kinds of men you have to deal with in business: the ones who want to screw you out of money, and the ones who want to screw you, period,” she wrote. “I should point out that I am not interested in screwing anybody [professionally]. I never want anything more than what’s fair. The problem is, I never want anything less either. In the old-boy school of business, if a woman walks away from the table with what’s rightfully hers, the man feels screwed anyway. I have to admit that adds to the satisfaction of making a fair deal. ‘How was it for you, old boy?’ ”

In addition to her music, books, movies, TV shows, and even restaurant forays over the years, in 1986 she co-founded Sandollar Productions with her manager Sandy Gallin. The company’s successes range from blockbuster hits like the 1991 comedy Father of the Bride and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Need a Buffy/Dolly tee!

Directly oppose degradation or seize its means—two valid approaches, the latter being Parton’s preferred method.

much of what ails our country now, politically, is that we do not share a common set of definitions.

She is thus a woman of paradoxes: Someone who acts “trashy” and has more class than most. Someone who dresses “like a hooker” and is a family-oriented, self-proclaimed homebody. A giggly blonde who is smarter than her male employees. A little girl who “got out” by singing about the place she left.