Allison Hussey at Pitchfork:
Loretta Lynn never called herself a feminist but, as women tend to do, she got it done anyway. Through her sharp, insightful songs, Lynn transformed country music into a place where people like her could speak plainly and for themselves. Across a music career that spanned more than six decades, she cut a new lane for women making their own way without apologizing for it.
Lynn’s most enduring songs are frank and ferocious, where she excoriates double standards and sexist assumptions with a smile. Many years before the Chicks were making conservatives clutch their pearls, Lynn was locking horns with country radio stations that refused to play “The Pill,” her 1975 ode to birth control that offered a woman’s view on reproductive freedom. When Lynn sang about scrapping in her rowdy 1968 hit “Fist City,” she sounded like she could absolutely beat your ass and wouldn’t even think twice about it. She wore a broad grin as she sang about cheaters, sluts, and the banalities of domesticity, demonstrating how women were in fact tough as nails.
more here.