“I don’t feel much like a ‘rebel girl’ —most of the time I feel more like a dirty napkin. But Dirty Napkin is a terrible title for a book. It’s also not who I am.” —Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill is an undeniable force, both in feminism and the Riot Grrrl scene, whether she asked for it or not. In her recent memoir, Rebel Girl, Hanna sweeps readers along her journey. From her upbringing in Olympia, Washington to her romance with Beastie Boy member Adam Horovitz, she recounts her life and decades-long activism with keen wisdom and the insight of looking back.
It’s clear from the memoir that Hanna’s feminism comes from deep, personal circumstances, not just piss and vinegar. She chronicles her roommate’s assault, her family’s abuse, as well as her own various assaults with a sense of honor for the victims without making the three-hundred-plus page book a bashing session on the perpetrators. But even through all the vulnerability and pain she expresses, Hanna still manages to do what she has been doing since the 90s, inspiring rebel girls and women to exist as they are. She gives people permission to not only stand on their own, but to flip off anyone who makes them ask.
The Riot Grrrl movement came out of Seattle, Washington around the time the punk/grunge scene, most notably Nirvana, was gaining popularity in the 90s. The phrase “girls to the front” became a battle cry for Hanna’s band Bikini Kill —made up of Hanna, Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Billy Karren —after she noticed girls being harassed and blocked from seeing the stage. “Girls to the front” signaled the change women in music were looking for in the industry. Women were no longer something to be seen and not heard, and Bikini Kill embraced this by speaking about heavy, raw topics with authority oftentimes dressed to impress only themselves.
Hanna does touch on the imperfectness of the movement in Rebel Girl, inciting a vignette about a wildly unsuccessful Unlearning Racism workshop that morphed into a “white supremacist bitchfest.” But when speaking on the imperfectness of the Fugazi song “Suggestion,” she says, “had the band overthought it and worried about doing “anti-sexism” perfectly […], that song may have never been written. Hearing it for the first time gave me a massive amount of courage.” That same courage is what the original Riot Grrrl movement tried to instill in its members.
At its core, the movement involves female solidarity, community building, a do-it-yourself attitude and activism through art and music. When the Riot Grrrl movement first emerged DIY zines —handcrafted works that feature strong art pieces in bite-sized form —were an integral faction. They allowed the message to be mass produced and scattered farther than the music. Many zines are archived in the Library of Congress.
While no longer in its heyday, the Riot Grrrl movement is still whispering in the corners of the country. Original girl-punk bands of the 90s like Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney are returning to tour while new generations are discovering the genre. Underground zines are now digitized flipbooks, and present-day activism within the movement is trending toward more inclusivity. Modern Riot Grrrl-esque bands include The Regrettes, Dream Wife, Skating Polly, and Mommy Long Legs.
-Kaitlynn Hall
Photo: Bikini Kill, 2019 (Raph_PH via Wikimedia Commons)
Great article!
N(ice)