Lesley Gore to Todd Akin, Joe Walsh and Richard Mourdock: “You Don’t Own Me” (Video)

Given the rise of neo-patriarchy, especially in the Republican Party, which keeps trying to control women’s bodies and put women in their (subordinate place), Lesley Gore has issued a public service announcement to the tune of her 1964 hit single, “You don’t Own Me.” The song went to no. 2 at the Billboard charts, just behind the Beatles’ “I want to hold your Hand.”

Lesley Gore laments that women are still fighting the same battles they were when she recorded the song in 1963 at age 17, a time when John F. Kennedy was president, there were no women in the cabinet, there were no women undergraduates at Princeton, there were no female news anchors, contraception was still illegal in states such as Connecticut, and there were no women CEOs of major corporations.

The video notes Republican plans to overturn Roe v. Wade, to defund Planned Parenthood, and in general to hurt institutions that support women’s well-being and choice.

Middle East Trivia: The mid-1960s French version of “You Don’t Own Me,” “Je ne sais plus,” was sung both by Gore and the Egyptian-born artist Dalida, a major figure in Egyptian and French popular music.