International Women’s Day 2026: Woman is the Nigger of the World (1972) by John Lennon and Yoko One

To begin, maybe I should censor myself and the language I use in featuring this song. I won’t. If readers and listeners can’t distinguish intention and motivation, that is something possibly worth working on. If you can’t identify hate or not hate when you see or hear it, or don’t trust others to identify hate or not hate when they see it or hear it, there is work to be done. Besides which, artists and craftsmen of the highest talent and soul should be allowed all the tools they need for their art or craft. If John Lennon was not an artist, no one was or is.

As for the song on this International Women’s Day, it was released in 1972, at which point it seemed certain that finally, in America at least, we were on the cusp of legal equal rights for women, equal pay for equal work for all women, and overall, equal respect for women in all elements of society, from the family to the nation and, eventually, the world. It has turned out, more than fifty years later, that while International Women’s Day features so many women who have done so many great things and reached such great positions, and so many women are in many ways better off than they were back then, so many ordinary women are still held, and held down into, a second-class role and regard. A lot women, and a lot of us men who know extraordinary and ordinary women, had hoped for better by this time. Maybe by next International Women’s Day.

Woman is the nigger of the world
Yes, she is, think about it
Think about it, do something about it

We make her paint her face and dance
If she won’t be a slave, we say that she don’t love us
If she’s real, we say she’s trying to be a man
While putting her down, we pretend that she’s above us

We make her bear and raise our children
And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother hen
We tell her home is the only place she should be

If you don’t believe me, take a look at the one you’re with
Oh, woman is the slave to the slave

We insult her every day on TV
And wonder why she has no guts or confidence
When she’s young, we kill her will to be free
While telling her not to be so smart, we put her down for being so dumb