Being a child of the 80s, my first exposure to Lesley Gore's hit, "You Don't Own Me," came courtesy of The Blow Monkeys from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. (Which, if you were a teenage girl in 1987 you had to own, along with the corresponding poster of Patrick Swayze.) I was heavily into trashy hair metal that year, so needless to say it didn't make a lasting impression on me. I have a soft spot for the original, though.
Written by John Madara and Dave White Tucker, Lesley Gore took the song all the way to number two on the Billboard Singles chart in 1964, when she was mere seventeen-years-old. It's long been treated as a proto-feminist anthem, which begs the question, "Can a song written by two men really been called a feminist anthem?" Logically, I'd say no. Or at least, no it shouldn't, but at this point, it's Gore's interpretation of the song that people identify with.
I dug up a few other covers of "You Don't Own Me," from Joan Jett's tough/sweet punk rock version, to Klaus Nomi belting it out in his operatic countertenor (my all-time favorite):
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