Black and Blue: WAVAW Against the Rolling Stones

In 1976, Atlantic records created a controversial billboard campaign throughout Southern California for the Rolling Stones’ most recent album, ‘Black and Blue.’ It contained a graphic, sexually exploitative image that ignited the group Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW). Writing to Atlantic Records, the Rolling Stones’ record label, they demanded the removal of the billboard and the cancellation of the advertising campaign. Creating petitions against the cover art, they wrote: “We, the undersigned, feel that Atlantic Records, a division of Warner Brothers Communications Inc., ad campaign for the Rolling Stones album ‘Black and Blue’ is not only sexist but degrading to women and men. Until this advertising is pulled from all media, we boycott Atlantic Records and specifically the new Rolling Stones’ album.” In response to pressure from WAVAW, Atlantic Records scaled back the Black and Blue advertising campaign but the image was still prevalent in national magazines and newspapers.

Sheila Rowbotham, one of history’s most influential feminists, believed that women deserved another way of being and were worthy of freedom and validity. The Rolling Stones’ music disturbed Rowbotham because it “offered a relentless series of images of women subordinated and objectified”(August 80). The ‘Black and Blue’ cover was the last straw and prompted her to lead the charge against the Stones and their record companies.

Around the mid 1970s, the music’s context changed which infuriated activist women. They began releasing songs against women’s freedom and equality. In the Rolling Stones song “Stupid Girl,” the listener is driven to see women as “the worst and sickest thing in this world.” In “Under My Thumb,” a woman who was once pushing the narrator around is now told what to do. It depicts a sexual double standard when the narrator said he could look at other women while she had to keep to herself (August 87).

Clearly, women were treated as sexual objects in the Stones’ songs: “The Rolling Stones exemplify the most disturbing trends in this culture, the worst picture of women appears in the music of the Rolling Stones, where sexual exploitation reaches unique heights”(August 85). The violence in the Rolling Stones music around the 1970s caused the feminists who were fighting against rape and violence against women to spiral out and critique the rock band in every aspect.

In the fall of 1976, WAVAW began planning a campaign to force the music industry to stop its use of images of violence, especially those believed to be inviting rape against women (Bronstein 422). Warner, the parent company of multiple record labels, became the target of their campaign (Bronstein 423). WAVAW sent letters to the chairmen of Warner, Elektra, and Atlantic (WEA) demanding a policy statement against the use of violence against women in album advertising. They insisted that the companies cancel any upcoming ads or promotional materials that featured such violence and recall all albums in retail stores whose covers depicted violence against women (“WEA Boycott,” 1977).These requests were ignored (Bronstein 424).

On December 10, 1976, leaders of WAVAW held a news conference at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles with signs, leaflets, and poster-sized photographs displaying WEA’s most sexist record covers. WAVAW called for a consumer boycott of the three Warner record companies until WCI formally issued a corporate policy forbidding the use of images of violence against women on album covers and in all related advertising material (Bronstein 424). By 1977, media coverage of the campaign had increased immensely, reaching all the way to New York and London. At this point, WAVAW sent letters to sixteen major record companies stating that they would boycott records if the sale of this album was not stopped. In February, Electra/Asylum issued a public statement promising that they would no longer use images of physical and sexual violence against women to promote its albums (Bronstein 426). In May, WAVAW initiated a major letter-writing campaign directed at the two companies. Letters came from across the nation, from men and women alike, showing support for the boycott (Bronstein 426). During the course of the next several months, WAVAW members dedicated themselves to publicizing the boycott by bombarding WCI with telephone complaints and letters (Bronstein 428).

As the two and a half-year long dispute dragged on, WCI began to grow increasingly uneasy about the public relations impact of the WAVAW boycott. After three years of national protesting, presenting community slideshows, writing letters, attending shareholders’ meetings, and boycotting, WAVAW achieved victory. On November 8, 1979, Warner announced its new policy which opposed the use of violent images: “The WCI group opposes the exploitation of violence, sexual or otherwise, in any form” (Bronstein 429). Horowitz read from a stiffly worded statement, “The WCI group opposes the depiction of violence against women or men on album covers and in related promotional material.”

As the women fought to end violence, the Rolling Stones and Atlantic Records fought for their freedom of expression. They argued that the boycott against the “Black and Blue” album cover imposed on their right to free speech and restricted their creativity (McLeod 2). The Rolling Stones were believed to have their own “intellectual property” and could use that to express their musicianship. Atlantic Records feared that future musicians would “engage in self-censorship because we think we might get sued, even if there’s no imminent threat” (McLeod 3). Their argument was that those involved in the music industry would begin to censor their own creativity, anticipating similar disapproval from other organizations. Atlantic Records’ surrender to major publicity allowed the WAVAW movement to grow in hopes of seeing sexual equality between men and women.

Women Against Violence Against Women, 1964-1994. Image courtesy of UCLA Library Special Collections

Official Typed Letter Sent to Atlantis Records Executive. Women Against Violence Against Women, 1964-1994. Image courtesy of UCLA Library Special Collections

Handwritten Draft of Letter to Atlantis Records Executive. Women Against Violence Against Women, 1964-1994. Image courtesy of UCLA Library Special Collections

Handwritten Draft of Letter to Atlantis Records Executive. Women Against Violence Against Women, 1964-1994. Image courtesy of UCLA Library Special Collections

Works cited

1. August, Andrew. "Gender and the 1960s Youth Culture: The Rolling Stones and the New Woman." Contemporary British History 23.1 (2009): 79-100.
2. Barrett, Terry. "Interpreting Visual Culture." Art Education 56.2 (2003): 6-12. Web.
3. Bronstein, Carolyn. "I’m Black and Blue from the Rolling Stones and I Love It!" Women Against Violence Against Women and the Campaign Against Media Violence." Battling Pornography the American Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, 1976-1986 (2011): 83-103. Cambridge University Press. Web.
4. Bronstein, Carolyn. "No More Black and Blue: Women Against Violence Against Women and the Warner Communications Boycott (1976-1979)." Violence Against Women 14.4 (2008): 418-36. Sage Publications. Web.
5. McLeod, Kembrew. "Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity." (2005): 1-10. Iowa Research Online. Web.
6. Moravec, Michelle. "Feminist Art Activism in Public Spaces: A Case Study of Los Angeles in 1970s." Art and Artist Society (2013): 147-152. Web.
7. Wald, Gayle. "Just a girl? Rock Music, Feminism, and the Cultural Construction of Female Youth." Signs 23.3 (1998): 585-610. Web.
8. Women Against Violence Against Women. Department of Justice Canada, 2008. Web.

Cite this article

Anonymous, Hari S., Jahanvi S.. "Black and Blue: WAVAW Against the Rolling Stones." Los Angeles: The City and the Library. Colleen Jauretche, Editor. Fall 2015. /article/2015-09-01-wavaw