How Dolly Parton used country music to challenge patriarchy From 'Just Because I'm a Woman' to '9 to 5', the late country music icon turned chart-topping hits into powerful commentaries on sexism, workplace inequality and women's rights. Gender 2 hours ago

The song progresses to depict the exploitation in the workplace, wondering “what a way to make a living, barely getting by” because “it’s all taking and no giving”.

In coming up with such a song at a time when the women’s liberation movement was still in its infancy, Dolly Parton treaded the road not taken by fellow female country musicians like Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn who also sang about social issues but purveyed conservative norms about the responsibility of wives to their husbands and not the other way round.

The punchline then comes when she tells the interlocutor that she was no angel, but a victim of a man who let her down.