The provocation of whether or not Dolly Parton is a feminist is less interesting to me than the idea that she embodies a certain type of female influence not owned by those more affluent or academic. What’s interesting to me is not whether or not she calls herself a feminist, but how she is an example of the ways in which many working-class people I know are empowered women whose lives are examples of the merits of feminism, even if they do not express it in the ways currently popular in contemporary discourse.