But it was even more than that. In 1963, the year Gore recorded the song, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act , but it would take nearly a decade for it to be expanded to cover a significant array of positions. Until 1974, single, widowed, or divorced women couldn’t apply for a credit card without a man to co-sign. It was entirely legal to fire a woman because she got pregnant until 1978. Sexual harassment wasn’t even a known term until the 1980s, much less something to be taken seriously. In effect, men really did own their wives, who had little to no agency outside of the home. For women of color, those restrictions were even more sharply defined. “You Don’t Own Me” wasn’t just a figurative declaration. It was an aspiration.