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Lip-Syncing Ladies Against Romney

Sarah Sophie Flicker asked some of her fabulous female friends to do an impassioned lip-sync to Lesley Gore’s proto-feminist anthem, “You Don't Own Me,” creating what has to be the hippest election PSA ever.

Peter Rothberg

October 23, 2012

In the 2008 election, 60 percent of voters were women. Despite this, female legislators comprise only 16 percent of Congress while women in all fields earn only seventy cents to each dollar men make. This year, pollsters are estimating that 10 million more women than men will vote in the upcoming election.

Given the respective domestic agendas of the two candidates, the gender demographics of this election should make it an easy race for the incumbent. Mitt Romney and the Republican Party are hostile to reproductive rights. Romney did not support equal pay for women (the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act). Romney has vowed to defund Planned Parenthood. Romney has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Romney doesn't want healthcare to cover birth control.

To make this gender gap even clearer, the über-talented filmmaker/producer/musician Sarah Sophie Flicker asked some of her fabulous female friends, including Alexa Chung, Lena Dunham, Carrie Brownstein, Tavi Gevinson, Zoe Kravitz and Natasha Lyonne, to do an impassioned lip-sync to Lesley Gore's proto-feminist anthem, “You Don't Own Me,” creating what has to be the hippest election PSA ever.

At the end of the video, Gore, the former 1960s teen idol, now 66, says, “It’s hard for me to believe but we’re still fighting for the same things we were then. Yes, ladies, we’ve got to come together and get out there and vote and protect our bodies. They’re ours. Please vote.”

 

Peter RothbergTwitterPeter Rothberg is the The Nation’s associate publisher.


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