A new viral-video on YouTube expresses a new era of Jewish women activism with Leslie Gore’s golden oldie. Helen Chernikoff reccomends you watch ‘You Don’t Own Me.’
Bella Abzug. Gloria Steinem. Shulamith Firestone. Lesley Gore? There are lots of ways to be a feminist.
Lesley Gore, who grew up in a Jewish family in Tenafly, New Jersey, won the right to be classed with the above grandes dames in 1964 with the release of “You Don’t Own Me,” which became a feminist anthem.
Now the golden oldie has taken on a new shine in the weeks leading up to Election Day. Gore and many friends and allies, all female and several Jewish, have banded together to release the “You Don’t Own Me PSA:”
Created by Sarah Sophie Flicker, a filmmaker and leader of a cabaret collective who has a Danish mother and a Jewish father, the video features titles painting a dire picture of women’s lives under a hypothetical President Mitt Romney interspersed with women and girls lip-syncing with gusto. Many of them hold up snarky signs such as one that reads, “Get your rosaries off my ovaries.”
