The Power Flip in 'Under My Thumb' and the Rolling Stones' Silence on Its Misogyny

“Under My Thumb” is often called one of the most misogynistic songs of the 1960s, but the interesting thing is it’s actually a reversal of the usual male-female dynamic of the time. The narrator starts off as the one who’s weak and gets put down, and now he’s the one in control. The song came out on Aftermath in 1966, right when second-wave feminism was starting to bubble up, and it captures that uneasy cultural shift—men feeling like they’re losing the upper hand and reacting with contempt.

Mick Jagger said in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone that he didn’t see it as misogynistic; he called it an observation of a relationship where the power has changed. He’s flipped the table, so to speak. But the lyrics lean hard into domination—lines like “the way she talks when she’s spoken to” and “under her thumb” originally but now it’s me—it’s hard not to read it as a sneer at a woman who’s been “tamed.” Keith Richards, in his autobiography Life, basically waved it off as a jokey song about a girl they knew, not intending serious commentary.

The band’s silence on deeper critique is telling. In the 2000s, when asked about the song’s controversial legacy, Jagger’s tone was dismissive—he said it was just a bluesy story, no bigger statement. But fans and critics have pointed out that the song’s popularity (it became a live staple for decades) shows how normalized that power flex was in the mid-60s. It’s a fascinating artifact: rebellious music that was simultaneously reflecting a backlash against women gaining independence.