Riot grrrl is an
underground
Underground most commonly refers to:
* Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth
Underground may also refer to:
Places
* The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston
* The Underground ...
feminist punk
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in
Olympia,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
and the greater
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...
and has expanded to at least 26 other countries.
Riot grrrl is a
subcultural
A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...
movement that combines feminism, punk music, and politics. It is often associated with
third-wave feminism
Third-wave feminism is an iteration of the feminist movement that began in the early 1990s, prominent in the decades prior to the fourth wave. Grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, Gen X and early Gen Y generations third-w ...
, which is sometimes seen as having grown out of the riot grrrl movement and has recently been seen in
fourth-wave feminist punk music that rose in the 2010s. The genre has also been described as coming out of
indie rock
Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...
, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a movement in which women could express anger, rage, and frustration, emotions considered socially acceptable for male songwriters but less common for women.
Riot grrrl songs often addressed issues such as
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...
,
domestic abuse
Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for '' intimate partne ...
,
sexuality,
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
,
patriarchy,
classism
Class discrimination, also known as classism, is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes, behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper class at the expense ...
,
anarchism, and
female empowerment
Women's empowerment (or female empowerment) may be defined in several ways, including accepting women's viewpoints, making an effort to seek them and raising the status of women through education, awareness, literacy, and training.Kabeer, Naila ...
. Primary bands most associated with the movement by media include
Bikini Kill
Bikini Kill is an American punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington, in October 1990. The group consisted of singer and songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and drummer Tobi Vail. The band pioneered th ...
,
Bratmobile
Bratmobile was an American punk band from Olympia, Washington, active from 1991 to 2003, and known for being one of the first-generation "riot grrrl" bands. The band was influenced by several eclectic musical styles, including elements of pop, ...
,
Heavens to Betsy
Heavens to Betsy was an American punk band formed in Olympia, Washington in 1991 with vocalist and guitarist Corin Tucker and drummer Tracy Sawyer. The duo were part of the DIY riot grrrl, punk rock underground, and were Tucker's first band be ...
,
Excuse 17
Excuse 17 was a punk rock band from Olympia, Washington, US, that performed and recorded from 1993 to 1995. The band consisted of Becca Albee (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Curtis James (drums). The band recorded ...
,
Slant 6
Slant 6 was an American punk rock trio based in Washington, D.C. affiliated with early riot grrrl.
Slant 6 consisted of Christina Billotte (electric guitar and vocals), Myra Power (electric bass guitar and vocals), and Marge Marshall (drum s ...
,
Emily's Sassy Lime,
Huggy Bear Huggy may refer to:
* Huggy (Pillow Pal)
*Huggy Boy
* Huggy Face
*Huggy Leaver
*Huggy Ragnarsson
*Huggy Wuggy, an antagonist in the horror video game ''Poppy Playtime
''Poppy Playtime'' is an episodic horror video game developed and publishe ...
, and
Skinned Teen.
Also included were
queercore
Queercore (or homocore) is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifical ...
groups such as
Team Dresch
Team Dresch is an American punk rock band originally formed in 1993 in Olympia, Washington. The band made a significant impression on the DIY punk movement queercore, which gave voice through zines and music to the passions and concerns of LGBT p ...
and
the Third Sex The Third Sex may refer to:
* The Third Sex (band), American queercore band
* ''The Third Sex'' (film), working title for a 1957 German film ''Different from You and Me''
* "The Third Sex", episode of 2002 TV series ''Taboo''
* '' Das 3. Geschlec ...
.
In addition to a unique
music scene and
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
, riot grrrl became a subculture involving a
DIY ethic
"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...
,
zine
A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very s ...
s, art, political action, and activism. The movement quickly spread well beyond its musical roots to influence the vibrant zine and Internet-based nature of fourth-wave feminism, complete with local meetings and grassroots organizing to end
intersectional
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adv ...
forms of prejudice and oppression, especially physical and emotional violence against all genders. Riot grrrls are known to hold meetings, start chapters,
and support and organize
women in music
Women in music include women as composers, songwriters, instrumental performers, singers, conductors, music scholars, music educators, music critics/music journalists, and in other musical professions. Also, it describes music movements (e. ...
as well as art created by transgender people, gay individuals, lesbians, and other communities.
Origins
The riot grrrl movement originated in the early 1990s, when a group of women from Olympia, Washington, held a meeting about sexism in their local punk scenes.
The word “girl” was intentionally used in order to focus on childhood, a time when children have the strongest self-esteem and belief in themselves.
Riot grrrls then took a growling "R", replacing the "I" in the word as a way to take back the derogatory use of the term.
Both double and triple "R" spellings are acceptable.
Riot grrrl musicians and musician-to-be were inspired by the musical drama movie ''Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains'', which tells the story of a (fictional) seemingly proto-riot grrrl band.
The Seattle and Olympia, Washington music scenes had sophisticated
do it yourself (DIY) infrastructure.
Women involved in local
underground music scenes took advantage of this platform to articulate their feminist beliefs and desires by creating
zine
A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very s ...
s (short for "magazine").
While the model of politically-themed zines had already been used in
punk culture
The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film. Largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotion of individual freedom ...
as an alternative (to mainstream) culture, zines also followed a longer legacy of self-published feminist writing that allowed women to circulate ideas that would not otherwise be published.
At the time there was discomfort among many women in the music scene who felt that they had no space for organizing due to the exclusionary, male-dominated nature of punk culture at the time. Many women found that while they identified with the larger, music-oriented subculture of punk rock, they often had little to no voice in their local scenes. Women in the Washington punk scenes took it upon themselves to represent their own interests artistically through the new riot grrrl subculture.
To quote Liz Naylor, who would become the manager of riot grrrl band
Huggy Bear Huggy may refer to:
* Huggy (Pillow Pal)
*Huggy Boy
* Huggy Face
*Huggy Leaver
*Huggy Ragnarsson
*Huggy Wuggy, an antagonist in the horror video game ''Poppy Playtime
''Poppy Playtime'' is an episodic horror video game developed and publishe ...
:
[Sabin, R. ''Punk Rock: So What?: The Cultural Legacy of Punk'', (Routledge, 1999), ]There was a lot of anger and self-mutilation. In a symbolic sense, women were cutting and destroying the established image of femininity, aggressively tearing it down.
Riot grrrl bands were influenced by groundbreaking female
punk
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
and
mainstream rock
Mainstream rock (also known as heritage rock) is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations in the United States and Canada.
Format background
Mainstream rock stations represent the middle ground between classic rock and active rock ...
performers of the 1970s to the mid-1980s. While many of these musicians were not originally associated with each other during their time and came from a variety of backgrounds and styles, as a group they anticipated many of riot grrrl's musical and thematic attributes. These performers include
the Slits
The Slits were a punk and post-punk band based in London, formed there in 1976 by members of the groups the Flowers of Romance and the Castrators. The group's early line-up consisted of Ari Up (Ariane Forster) and Palmolive (a.k.a. Paloma R ...
,
Kim Deal
Kimberley Ann Deal (born June 10, 1961) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She was the bassist and the co-vocalist in the alternative rock band Pixies, before forming the Breeders in 1989.
Deal joined Pixies in January ...
,
Kim Gordon
Kim Althea Gordon (born April 28, 1953) is an American musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the bassist, guitarist, and vocalist of alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Born in Rochester, New York, she was raised in Los Angeles, Califor ...
,
Joan Jett
Joan Jett (born Joan Marie Larkin, September 22, 1958) is an American singer, guitarist, record producer, and actress. Jett is best known for her work as the frontwoman of her band Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and for earlier founding and per ...
,
Poly Styrene
Marianne Joan Elliott-Said (3 July 1957 – 25 April 2011), known by the stage name Poly Styrene, was an English musician, singer-songwriter, and frontwoman for the punk rock band X-Ray Spex.
Early life
Poly Styrene was born Marianne Joan Ell ...
,
Janis Joplin, and
Siouxsie Sioux
Susan Janet Ballion (born 27 May 1957), known professionally as Siouxsie Sioux, is an English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. She was the lead singer of the rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees (1976–1996). They released 11 ...
, among others.
Of Kim Gordon, in particular, Kathleen Hanna noted, "She was a forerunner, musically
..Just knowing a woman was in a band trading lead vocals, playing bass, and being a visual artist at the same time made me feel less alone."
Pacific Northwest and Washington, DC
Olympia, Washington had a strong
feminist artistic and cultural legacy that influenced early riot grrrl. In the early 1980s, Stella Marrs, Dana Squires and Julie Fay co-founded the store Girl City, where they created art and performances.
The first
K Records
K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent music ...
release in 1982 was a cassette of
Heather Lewis' first band Supreme Cool Beings, while she was a student at
The Evergreen State College
The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a p ...
, a year before she co-founded
Beat Happening.
In 1985,
The Go Team
The Go Team was a 1980s band from Olympia, Washington, consisting of Tobi Vail and Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening.
Career
The Go Team was founded in 1985. As Vail described:
The Go Team released several cassettes and 9 singles on the ...
formed with then fifteen year old
Tobi Vail
Tobi Celeste Vail (born July 20, 1969) is an American independent musician, music critic and feminist activist from Olympia, Washington. She was a central figure in the riot grrl scene—she coined the spelling of "grrl"—and she started the zi ...
. The band would go on to collaborate with Olympia scene musicians who are inherently linked to the riot grrrl movement:
Donna Dresch
Donna Dresch is an American punk rock musician, perhaps best known as founder, guitarist and bass guitarist of Team Dresch.
Dresch has been actively involved in the queercore scene since the 1980s, as the creator of the fanzine ''Chainsaw'' an ...
,
Lois Maffeo
Lois Maffeo (professionally known for much of her career as Lois) is an American musician and writer who lives in Olympia, Washington. She has been closely involved with and influenced many independent musicians, especially in the 1990s-era Oly ...
, and
Billy "Boredom" Karren.
Karren was a rotating musician who played in the band, and it was there that he and Vail played together for the first time, later collaborating in several other bands which included
Bikini Kill
Bikini Kill is an American punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington, in October 1990. The group consisted of singer and songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and drummer Tobi Vail. The band pioneered th ...
and
The Frumpies
The Frumpies were an American lo-fi punk rock band formed in 1992 in Olympia, Washington, United States. The original line-up consisted of singers/guitarists Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Billy Karren (all of whom were also a part of the legend ...
. Maffeo hosted a women-centered radio show on Olympia's community radio station
KAOS.
Candice Pedersen
Candice Pedersen co-owned of the Olympia, Washington-based independent record label K Records from 1986 to 1999, along with Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening. In 1999, she sold her half of the label to Johnson.
Career
Pedersen was initially hire ...
interned at K Records in 1986 while at The Evergreen State College, and became co-owner in 1989.
In the 1980s, two articles on the topic of women in rock would be published by ''Puncture'', a
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...
zine edited by Katherine Spielmann and Patty Stirling. Authored by
Rough Trade employee Terri Sutton, these articles became what is considered by some to be titular writing on riot grrrl ethos.
One article, "Women, Sex, & Rock ’n’ Roll" (1989) is considered particularly important as the
manifesto of the riot grrrl movement.
[McDonnell, Evelyn; Powers, Ann. ''Rock She Wrote'' (Cooper Square Press, 1999), ] Sutton would also say, in “Women In Rock: An Open Letter,” written in 1988, "To me rock and roll is about lust, lust for feeling; the worst I can say about a band is they’re boring. That’s why it’s so crucial that women get up onstage and impart--inspire some emotion."
Meanwhile in the
Washington, DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
area,
Beat Happening fan
Erin Smith started her zine ''Teenage Gang Debs'' in 1987.
In 1988, two DC women that had been in all-women punk bands there previously –
Chalk Circle's
Sharon Cheslow and
Fire Party's Amy Pickering – joined forces with
Cynthia Connolly and Lydia Ely to organize group discussions focusing on gender differences and sexism in the DC punk community.
The results were published in the June 1988 issue of
Maximum Rock 'n' Roll
''Maximumrocknroll'', often written as ''Maximum Rocknroll'' and usually abbreviated as ''MRR'', is a not-for-profit monthly zine of punk subculture. Based in San Francisco, ''MRR'' focuses on punk rock and hardcore music, and primarily featu ...
.
In November 1988, Connolly published the book ''Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes From the DC Punk Underground (79–85)'' through her
small press Sun Dog Propaganda, and it was co-edited with Cheslow and Ely along with Leslie Clague.
These conversations and the book laid the groundwork for riot grrrl when members of Bikini Kill and Bratmobile later came to DC in 1991.
In fall 1989, Erin Smith visited Olympia and met Maffeo through Beat Happening's
Calvin Johnson
Calvin Johnson Jr., (born September 29, 1985) is an American former football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons with the Detroit Lions. He played college football at Georgia Tech, where he twice ...
.
Johnson had been in Go Team with Vail, and co-owned K Records with Candice Pedersen. At the end of 1989, Cheslow began publishing her zine ''Interrobang?!'' focusing on punk and sexism, and the first issue included an interview with
Nation of Ulysses
The Nation of Ulysses was an American punk rock band from Washington, D.C., formed in spring 1988 with four members. Originally known as simply "Ulysses," the first mark of the group consisted of Ian Svenonius on vocals and trumpet, Steve Kron ...
(NOU).
Vail saw a copy of this issue and was instantly captivated by NOU's aesthetic.
Vail began publishing her zine ''Jigsaw'' in 1988, around the same time that Dresch started her zine ''Chainsaw''.
Zines became a means of urgent expression; Laura Sister Nobody wrote in her zine ''Sister Nobody'', "Us, we are women who know that something is happening – something that seems like a secret right now, but won't stay like a secret for much longer."
At the time, Vail was working at a sandwich shop with
Kathi Wilcox
Kathi Lynn Wilcox (born November 19, 1969) is an American musician. She is the bass player in the Julie Ruin and has been in bands such as Bikini Kill, the Casual Dots, and the Frumpies.
Music
Wilcox attended The Evergreen State College where s ...
who was impressed by Vail's interest in "girls in bands, specifically," including an aggressive emphasis on feminist issues. Meanwhile, in 1989
Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna (born November 12, 1968) is an American singer, musician, artist, feminist activist, pioneer of the feminist punk riot grrrl movement, and punk zine writer. In the early-to-mid-1990s she was the lead singer of feminist punk band B ...
had co-founded the Olympia art collective/band Amy Carter and feminist gallery/music venue Reko Muse, both with
Tammy Rae Carland
Tammy Rae Carland (born January 27, 1965), is a photographer, video artist, zine editor, current provost at California College of the Arts (CCA), and former co-owner of the independent lesbian music label Mr. Lady Records and Videos. Her work has ...
and Heidi Arbogast.
By summer 1989, the space had hosted The Go Team,
Babes in Toyland, and
Nirvana
( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...
.
Hanna also interned at SafePlace, an Olympia domestic violence shelter and provider of sexual assault/abuse services, for which she did counseling, gave presentations at local high schools, and started a discussion group for teenage girls.
Hanna came upon a copy of ''Jigsaw'' in 1989 and found resonance with Vail's writing.
Hanna began to contribute to the zine, submitting interviews to ''Jigsaw'' while on tour with
Viva Knieval in 1990.
In ''Jigsaw'', Vail wrote about "angry grrls", combining the word ''girls'' with a powerful growl.
Some issues of ''Jigsaw'' have been archived at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
as a research resource along with other
counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
zines. After touring for two months in summer 1990, Hanna's band Viva Knievel called it quits.
Hanna then began collaborating with Vail after attending a performance of The Go Team and recognizing Vail as the mastermind behind ''Jigsaw'' zine.
Dresch later started a record label under the name Chainsaw and formed the queercore band
Team Dresch
Team Dresch is an American punk rock band originally formed in 1993 in Olympia, Washington. The band made a significant impression on the DIY punk movement queercore, which gave voice through zines and music to the passions and concerns of LGBT p ...
. In ''Chainsaw #2'' she wrote, "Right now, maybe, Chainsaw is about Frustration. Frustration in music. Frustration in living, in being a girl, in being a homo, in being a misfit of any sort...Which is where this whole punk rock thing came from in the first place."
Molly Neuman
Molly Neuman (born June 18, 1972) is an American drummer, writer and publisher, originally from the Washington, D.C. area who has performed in such influential bands as Bratmobile, the Frumpies, and the PeeChees. She was a pioneer of the ear ...
(from DC) and
Allison Wolfe (from Olympia) met in fall 1989 while living next door to each other in dorms at the
University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...
in
Eugene, Oregon, and they traveled to Olympia on weekends.
They first read Vail's zine ''Jigsaw'' in January 1990, and around the same time met Hanna.
While on winter break 1990–91, Neuman returned to Washington, DC where her family lived and created the first issue of the zine ''
Girl Germs
''Girl Germs'' was a zine created by University of Oregon students Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman, both members of the band Bratmobile.
Feminism was influential in the Pacific Northwest in the early nineties: ''Girl Germs'' identified feminist ro ...
''.
Corin Tucker
Corin Lisa Tucker (born November 9, 1972) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist best known for her work with rock band Sleater-Kinney. Tucker is also a member of the alternative rock supergroup Filthy Friends, and previously recorded ...
came up with the band name
Heavens to Betsy
Heavens to Betsy was an American punk band formed in Olympia, Washington in 1991 with vocalist and guitarist Corin Tucker and drummer Tracy Sawyer. The duo were part of the DIY riot grrrl, punk rock underground, and were Tucker's first band be ...
in Eugene during the summer 1990, and moved to Olympia that fall to attend The Evergreen State College.
Kathleen Hanna and her friends Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox, who were also studying at Evergreen, recruited Billy Karren to form Bikini Kill in fall 1990.
Neuman and Wolfe played their first show on Valentine's Day 1991 at the Surf Club in Olympia, after Johnson invited them to perform on a bill with Bikini Kill and
Some Velvet Sidewalk
Some Velvet Sidewalk was an experimental lo-fi rock band from Olympia, WA on the independent label K Records.
History
Some Velvet Sidewalk was formed in Eugene, Oregon in 1987 by Al Larsen (vocals/guitar) and Robert Christie (drums). Their fir ...
.
While working on a documentary film about the Olympia music scene, Tucker went to this show and interviewed Neuman and Wolfe.
Hanna, Vail and Wilcox collaborated on a feminist zine titled ''Bikini Kill'' for their first tours in 1991.
The third issue of Vail's zine ''Jigsaw'', published in 1991 after she spent time in Washington D.C., was subtitled "angry grrrl zine".
In spring 1991 Cheslow was living in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, and she received letters from
Ian MacKaye
Ian Thomas Garner MacKaye (; born April 16, 1962) is an American musician. Active since 1979, he is best known as the co-founder and owner of Dischord Records, a Washington, D.C.-based independent record label and the frontman of hardcore punk ...
and Nation of Ulysses' Tim Green informing her about Bikini Kill and "angry grrrl" zines.
That spring 1991, Neuman and Wolfe spent spring break in DC and formed
Bratmobile
Bratmobile was an American punk band from Olympia, Washington, active from 1991 to 2003, and known for being one of the first-generation "riot grrrl" bands. The band was influenced by several eclectic musical styles, including elements of pop, ...
there with Erin Smith,
Christina Billotte (of
Autoclave
An autoclave is a machine used to carry out industrial and scientific processes requiring elevated temperature and pressure in relation to ambient pressure and/or temperature. Autoclaves are used before surgical procedures to perform sterilizati ...
), and
Jen Smith.
Bikini Kill toured with Nation of Ulysses in May/June 1991, converging in DC with Bratmobile that summer.
It was here that Neuman and Wolfe created the first issue of ''riot grrrl'' zine.
In August 1991 many of these individuals gathered at the
International Pop Underground Convention
The International Pop Underground Convention (or IPU) was a 1991 punk and alternative rock music festival in Olympia, Washington. The six-day convention centered on a series of performances at the Capitol Theater. Throughout August 20–25, ...
in Olympia. The first night of the event became known as "Girl Night".
[Koch, Kerri. ''Don’t Need You: The Herstory of Riot Grrrl''. Urban Cowgirl Productions, 2005.] Tucker played her first show that night, on guitar and vocals with Heavens to Betsy and Tracy Sawyer on drums.
Writing later about that summer, Melissa Klein (Wolfe's housemate at the time) said, "Young women's anger and questioning fomented and smoldered until it became an all-out gathering of momentum toward action...Bikini Kill promoted 'Revolution Girl Style Now' and 'Stop the J-Word Jealousy From Killing Girl Love'."
As this ideal spread via band tours, zines, and word of mouth, riot grrrl chapters sprang up around the country.
While Bikini Kill, amongst other bands, frequently avoided attention from mainstream media outlets due to the fear that riot grrrl would be co-opted by corporate enterprises, in the few interviews they did take, they often made the movement out to be bigger than it was, claiming the music scene existed in cities far beyond its actual scope. This encouraged feminists to seek out said scenes, and when they couldn't find them, they created them on their own, further broadening riot grrrl's scope.
In July 1992, the first Riot Grrrl Convention brought people together in D.C. for a weekend of performances and workshops on topics such as rape, sexuality, racism, domestic violence, and self-defense.
By 1994, riot grrrl had been discovered by the mainstream, and Bikini Kill were increasingly referred to as pioneers of the movement.
Bikini Kill
Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna (born November 12, 1968) is an American singer, musician, artist, feminist activist, pioneer of the feminist punk riot grrrl movement, and punk zine writer. In the early-to-mid-1990s she was the lead singer of feminist punk band B ...
,
Tobi Vail
Tobi Celeste Vail (born July 20, 1969) is an American independent musician, music critic and feminist activist from Olympia, Washington. She was a central figure in the riot grrl scene—she coined the spelling of "grrl"—and she started the zi ...
, and
Kathi Wilcox
Kathi Lynn Wilcox (born November 19, 1969) is an American musician. She is the bass player in the Julie Ruin and has been in bands such as Bikini Kill, the Casual Dots, and the Frumpies.
Music
Wilcox attended The Evergreen State College where s ...
were all studying at
The Evergreen State College
The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a p ...
in Olympia, Washington during the late 1980s. Hanna worked at Reko Muse, a small collective
art gallery that would frequently host local bands to play shows between art exhibitions. There she met Vail after booking her band, the Go Team.
At the same time, Vail was writing ''Jigsaw'' zine and working with friend Wilcox. Vail wrote at the time in ''Jigsaw'':
I feel completely left out of the realm of everything that is so important to me. And I know that this is partly because punk rock is for and by boys mostly and partly because punk rock of this generation is coming of age in a time of mindless career-goal bands.
With
Billy Karren
William Francis Karren is an American musician, best known as the lead guitarist of the punk/ riot grrrl band Bikini Kill, formed by Kathleen Hanna, with Karren, Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox. He was also active in many other music projects, inclu ...
, Bikini Kill self-released a cassette of demos during summer 1991 titled ''
Revolution Girl Style Now
''Revolution Girl Style Now'' is a demo album by the punk rock band Bikini Kill. It was self-released in cassette form in 1991 and recorded at Yoyo Studios.
The 1991 cassette was released for the first time on vinyl, CD and digital formats i ...
''. Hanna, Vail and Wilcox also began collaboration on ''Bikini Kill'' zine during their first tours in 1991.
The band wrote songs collaboratively and encouraged a female-centric environment at their shows, urging women to come to the front of the stage and handing out lyric sheets. Bikini Kill made it their goal to inspire more women to join the male-dominated punk scene.
Hanna would also
stage dive into the crowds to personally remove male hecklers who would often verbally and physically assault her during shows.
However, the band's reach did include a large male audience in addition to the female
target audience
A target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to said intended audience. In marketing and advertising, it is a particular group of consumer within the predetermined ...
.
![Kathleen Hanna](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Kathleen_Hanna.jpg)
After releasing the ''
Bikini Kill
Bikini Kill is an American punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington, in October 1990. The group consisted of singer and songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and drummer Tobi Vail. The band pioneered th ...
''
EP on the
indie label
An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...
Kill Rock Stars
Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally know ...
in 1992, Bikini Kill began to establish their audience. Members of Bikini Kill also began to collaborate with other high-profile musicians, including
Joan Jett
Joan Jett (born Joan Marie Larkin, September 22, 1958) is an American singer, guitarist, record producer, and actress. Jett is best known for her work as the frontwoman of her band Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and for earlier founding and per ...
, whose music Hanna has described as an early example of the riot grrrl aesthetic.
Jett produced the single "New Radio"/
"Rebel Girl" for the band after members of Bikini Kill heard “Activity Grrrl,” a song Jett wrote about the band.
Bikini Kill's debut album ''
Pussy Whipped
''Pussy Whipped'' is the debut studio album by American punk rock band Bikini Kill. It was released on Kill Rock Stars on October 26, 1993.
Critical reception
David Browne of ''Entertainment Weekly'' called ''Pussy Whipped'' "the first great r ...
'', released in 1993, included the song "Rebel Girl". "Rebel Girl" has become one of Bikini Kill's signature songs as well as a widely-recognized anthem for the riot grrrl movement
While "the unforgettable anthem", as
Robert Christgau calls it,
never
charted due to its
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
release, it has received widespread critical acclaim. It has been called a "classic",
and praised as part "of the most vital rock-n-roll of the era".
Bikini Kill's second album ''
Reject All American'' was released in 1996, and the band broke up the next year.
Despite retrospective acclaim, at the time the band was criticized for excluding men, and even Rolling Stone described Bikini Kill’s first album as “yowling and moronic nag-unto-vomit tantrums."
"My joke is always like, I didn’t just hit the glass ceiling, I pressed my naked
reastsup against it," Hanna said of that time.
Bikini Kill eventually called for a "
media blackout
Media blackout is the censorship of news related to a certain topic, particularly in mass media, for any reason. A media blackout may be voluntary, or may in some countries be enforced by the government or state. The latter case is controversial in ...
" due to their perceived misrepresentation of the movement by the media. Their pioneer reputation endures but, as Hanna recalls:
ikini Kill wasvery vilified during the '90s by so many people, and hated by so many people, and I think that that's been kind of written out of the history. People were throwing chains at our heads – people hated us – and it was really, really hard to be in that band.
Bratmobile
![Bratmobile](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Bratmobile.jpg)
Hailing from
Eugene,
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...
, Bratmobile was a first-generation riot grrrl band that became the second-most prominent founding voice of the riot grrrl movement. In 1990,
University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...
students
Allison Wolfe and
Molly Neuman
Molly Neuman (born June 18, 1972) is an American drummer, writer and publisher, originally from the Washington, D.C. area who has performed in such influential bands as Bratmobile, the Frumpies, and the PeeChees. She was a pioneer of the ear ...
collaborated on feminist zine ''
Girl Germs
''Girl Germs'' was a zine created by University of Oregon students Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman, both members of the band Bratmobile.
Feminism was influential in the Pacific Northwest in the early nineties: ''Girl Germs'' identified feminist ro ...
'' with Washington, DC's
Jen Smith, touching on sexism in their local music scenes.
We were very encouraged by people like Tobi and Kathleen in Olympia, and we were like, "Oh let's do a band, let's do radio—we wanna '' ic' have an all-girl radio show!"
During spring 1991,
Erin Smith,
Christina Billotte (of
Autoclave
An autoclave is a machine used to carry out industrial and scientific processes requiring elevated temperature and pressure in relation to ambient pressure and/or temperature. Autoclaves are used before surgical procedures to perform sterilizati ...
), and Jen Smith (no relation to Erin) joined Wolfe and Neuman in Bratmobile when the latter two temporarily relocated to Washington, DC. Neuman and Erin Smith were previously introduced at a
Nation of Ulysses
The Nation of Ulysses was an American punk rock band from Washington, D.C., formed in spring 1988 with four members. Originally known as simply "Ulysses," the first mark of the group consisted of Ian Svenonius on vocals and trumpet, Steve Kron ...
show in Washington, DC in December 1990 by mutual friend
Calvin Johnson
Calvin Johnson Jr., (born September 29, 1985) is an American former football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons with the Detroit Lions. He played college football at Georgia Tech, where he twice ...
.
Jen Smith had written in a letter to Wolfe, "We need to start a girl RIOT!"
Jen Smith proposed they collaborate with members of Bikini Kill on a zine called ''Girl Riot''. When Neuman began the zine, she changed its title to ''riot grrrl'', providing a networking forum for young women in the wider music scene and giving the movement its name.
Erin Smith, Jen Smith, Billotte, Wolfe, and Neuman released only one
tape together, titled ''Bratmobile DC''. Thereafter, Bratmobile became a trio with Wolfe, Neuman, and Erin Smith. They played their first show together as Bratmobile in July 1991, with Neuman on drums, Erin Smith on guitar, and Wolfe on vocals.
Between 1991 and 1994 Bratmobile released the album ''
Pottymouth
''Pottymouth'' is the debut studio album by the American punk rock band Bratmobile, released on June 8, 1993 by Kill Rock Stars.
Recording and release
Most of the album was recorded by Tim Green of Nation of Ulysses in July, 1992, at the Embass ...
'' and EP ''
The Real Janelle
''The Real Janelle'' is an EP by Bratmobile, released in 1994. It would become Bratmobile's last studio recording in six years. Though released before '' The Peel Session'', that was recorded a year prior.
The title "The Real Janelle" was insp ...
'' on
Kill Rock Stars
Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally know ...
, as well as ''
The Peel Session''.
Bratmobile toured with
Heavens to Betsy
Heavens to Betsy was an American punk band formed in Olympia, Washington in 1991 with vocalist and guitarist Corin Tucker and drummer Tracy Sawyer. The duo were part of the DIY riot grrrl, punk rock underground, and were Tucker's first band be ...
in 1992 and broke up in 1994.
Exposure to Bikini Kill and then Bratmobile inspired other riot grrrl factions to spring up around the country. Women in other regional punk music scenes across North America were encouraged to form their own bands and start their own zines.
International Pop Underground Convention
From August 20 – 25, 1991,
K Records
K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent music ...
held an indie music festival called the
International Pop Underground Convention
The International Pop Underground Convention (or IPU) was a 1991 punk and alternative rock music festival in Olympia, Washington. The six-day convention centered on a series of performances at the Capitol Theater. Throughout August 20–25, ...
.
A promotional poster reads:
As the corporate ogre expands its creeping influence on the minds of industrialized youth, the time has come for the International Rockers of the World to convene in celebration of our grand independence. Hangman hipsters, new mod rockers, sidestreet walkers, scooter-mounted dream girls, punks, teds, the instigators of the Love Rock Explosion, the editors of every angry grrrl zine, the plotters of youth rebellion in every form, the midwestern librarians and Scottish ski
A ski is a narrow strip of semi-rigid material worn underfoot to glide over snow. Substantially longer than wide and characteristically employed in pairs, skis are attached to ski boots with ski bindings, with either a free, lockable, or partia ...
instructors who live by night, all are setting aside August 20–25, 1991 as the time.
A mostly all-female bill on the first night, called "Love Rock Revolution Girl Style Now!" and later simply "Girl Night", signaled a major step in the movement.
The night was organized by
Lois Maffeo
Lois Maffeo (professionally known for much of her career as Lois) is an American musician and writer who lives in Olympia, Washington. She has been closely involved with and influenced many independent musicians, especially in the 1990s-era Oly ...
, KAOS DJ Michelle Noel (who later organized the first
Yoyo A Go Go
Yoyo A Go Go, usually abbreviated to Yoyo and often typeset in various ways, was an independent music festival in Olympia, Washington, first held in 1994 and followed by successor festivals in 1997, 1999, and 2001. Five- and six-day concert marat ...
in 1994), and Margaret Doherty.
The lineup featured Maffeo,
Tobi Vail
Tobi Celeste Vail (born July 20, 1969) is an American independent musician, music critic and feminist activist from Olympia, Washington. She was a central figure in the riot grrl scene—she coined the spelling of "grrl"—and she started the zi ...
solo,
Christina Billotte solo, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy,
Nikki McClure
Nikki McClure is a papercut artist based in Olympia, Washington. She is the author and illustrator of a number of children's books and produces an annual calendar.
Biography
McClure grew up in Kirkland, Washington. She moved to Olympia in 198 ...
,
Jean Smith of
Mecca Normal
Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valle ...
,
7 Year Bitch
7 Year Bitch was an American punk rock band from Seattle, Washington. The band was active between 1990 and 1997 and released three albums over that time. The band formed at the same time as the emergence of the riot grrrl sub-genre, which is ...
,
Kicking Giant
Rachel Carns (born August 13, 1969) is an American musician, composer, artist and performer living in Olympia, Washington, U.S. Raised in small-town Wisconsin, she went on to study painting and drawing at Cooper Union for the Advancement of S ...
,
Rose Melberg
Rose Melberg is a musician and songwriter from Sacramento, California, currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She has performed both as a solo artist and as a member of Tiger Trap, The Softies, Go Sailor, Gaze, Gigi, Imaginar ...
, Kreviss, I Scream Truck,
the Spinanes
The Spinanes were an American indie rock band, primarily active during the 1990s. The band was founded by and consisted only of singer-songwriter/guitarist Rebecca Gates and drummer Scott Plouf. They released three albums on the Sub Pop label be ...
, and two
side project
In popular music, a side project is a project undertaken by one or more people already known for their involvement in another band. It can also be an artist or a band temporarily switching to a different style.
Usually these projects emphasize ...
s of Kathleen Hanna:
Suture, with
Sharon Cheslow of
Chalk Circle (DC's first
all-women punk band) and Dug E. Bird of
Beefeater, and the Wondertwins with Tim Green of
Nation of Ulysses
The Nation of Ulysses was an American punk rock band from Washington, D.C., formed in spring 1988 with four members. Originally known as simply "Ulysses," the first mark of the group consisted of Ian Svenonius on vocals and trumpet, Steve Kron ...
.
It was here that so many
zinester
A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very s ...
people who'd only known each other from networking, mail, or talking on the phone, finally met and were brought together by an entire night of music dedicated to, for, and by women.
The convention also featured bands such as
Bikini Kill
Bikini Kill is an American punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington, in October 1990. The group consisted of singer and songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and drummer Tobi Vail. The band pioneered th ...
,
Nation of Ulysses
The Nation of Ulysses was an American punk rock band from Washington, D.C., formed in spring 1988 with four members. Originally known as simply "Ulysses," the first mark of the group consisted of Ian Svenonius on vocals and trumpet, Steve Kron ...
,
Unwound
Unwound is an American post-hardcore band. The band was formed in 1988 in Tumwater and Olympia, Washington by vocalist/guitartist Justin Trosper, bassist Vern Rumsey and drummer Brandt Sandeno, and was largely based in Olympia throughout the 1 ...
,
L7,
the Fastbacks,
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet are a Juno Award-winning Canadian instrumental rock band, formed in 1984. They remain best known for the track "Having an Average Weekend", of which an alternate version was used as the theme to the Canadian sket ...
,
Girl Trouble,
The Pastels
The Pastels are an indie rock group from Glasgow formed in 1981. They were a key act of the Scottish and British independent music scenes of the 1980s, and are specifically credited for the development of an independent and confident music scen ...
,
Seaweed,
Scrawl,
Jad Fair
Jad Fair (born June 9, 1954) is an American singer, guitarist, graphic artist, and founding member of lo-fi alternative rock group Half Japanese.
Biography
Fair was born in Coldwater, Michigan. In 1974, he and his brother David formed the lo-f ...
,
Thee Headcoats
Thee Headcoats was a band formed in Chatham, Kent, England in 1989, that was well known for its garage rock sound, explicitly sticking to this style on almost all of their albums. The band's signature sound as well as their prolific writing has ...
,
Steve Fisk
Steve Fisk is an American, Washington-based audio engineer, record producer and musician. As a musician, he has been in bands such as the instrumental alternative/indie rock band Pell Mell and the electronic band Pigeonhed. He has long been as ...
,
Tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...
,
Fugazi,
Sleepyhead,
The Mummies
The Mummies are an American garage punk band formed in San Bruno, California, in 1988. Exhibiting a defiantly raw and lo-fi sound, dubbed "budget rock", the Mummies' rebellious attitude and distinctive performance costumes exerted a major influe ...
, and spoken-word artist
Juliana Luecking
Juliana Luecking is an American musician, spoken-word artist and video maker. ' is her YouTube channel where ''People Are a Trip'', a series filmed in public places in New York City, is featured. Luecking's videos were instrumental in Picture Ne ...
.
This convention demonstrated a new relationship between audience and performers, dismantling the power dynamic of the past, for instance voicing anger at people harassing the female performers.
English riot grrrl
As Bikini Kill's music and zines spread throughout
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
in 1991–92, bands formed and were quick to embrace riot grrrl.
England had previously spawned such influential all-female or female-fronted punk bands as
X-Ray Spex
X-Ray Spex were an English punk rock band formed in 1976 in London.
During their first incarnation (1976–1979), X-Ray Spex released five singles and one album. Their 1977 single " Oh Bondage Up Yours!" and 1978 debut album '' Germfree Adol ...
,
The Slits
The Slits were a punk and post-punk band based in London, formed there in 1976 by members of the groups the Flowers of Romance and the Castrators. The group's early line-up consisted of Ari Up (Ariane Forster) and Palmolive (a.k.a. Paloma R ...
, and
The Raincoats
The Raincoats are a British experimental post-punk band. Ana da Silva (vocals, guitar) and Gina Birch (vocals, bass) formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art in London.
Signed to the label Rough Trade, the ...
that provided inspiration.
Huggy Bear Huggy may refer to:
* Huggy (Pillow Pal)
*Huggy Boy
* Huggy Face
*Huggy Leaver
*Huggy Ragnarsson
*Huggy Wuggy, an antagonist in the horror video game ''Poppy Playtime
''Poppy Playtime'' is an episodic horror video game developed and publishe ...
formed in 1991, calling themselves "girl-boy revolutionaries" in reference to both their political philosophy and the gender makeup of their band, and were based in
Brighton and
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
.
Their debut EP was released in 1992, and in the same year they began working closely with Bikini Kill as riot grrrl's popularity peaked on both sides of the
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
.
This culminated in a 1993 split album on Catcall Records (Huggy Bear) and
Kill Rock Stars
Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally know ...
(Bikini Kill) called ''
Our Troubled Youth/
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah'', the names of the Huggy Bear and Bikini Kill sides respectively.
Huggy Bear received widespread national attention after performing their third single "Her Jazz", a split release between Catcall and
Wiiija Records
Wiiija was a British independent record label founded in 1988 by staff from the Rough Trade Shop in Notting Hill, London. The name Wiiija is a corruption of W11 1JA, the postcode of the Rough Trade Shop in Talbot Street.
The label was notable fo ...
, on ''
The Word'' in 1993.
Kill Rock Stars had been co-founded in Olympia by
Slim Moon
Matthew "Slim" Moon (born October 15, 1967) is an American musician and the founder of the American independent music label Kill Rock Stars (KRS). He also started its sister label, 5 Rue Christine. Slim ran KRS from 1991 to 2006, during which t ...
and Tinuviel Sampson, while Catcall was founded by former
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
punk zine ''
City Fun
''City Fun'' was a magazine/ fanzine documenting the music scene in Manchester, England between 1977 and 1984 and sold up to 2000 copies per issue via gigs, music stores, and selected news agents across Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds. ...
'' writer Liz Naylor.
Naylor had met Bikini Kill's Kathy Wilcox by chance while they were each traveling in Europe in 1991, and Wilcox sent Naylor music and the first issues of ''Riot Grrrl'' and ''Jigsaw'' zines during their subsequent correspondence.
Skinned Teen formed in London in 1992, when they were around 14 years old. They were included in British filmmaker
Lucy Thane
Lucy Thane (born 1967) is a British documentary filmmaker, event producer and performer, living in Folkestone. Her films include ''It Changed My Life: Bikini Kill in the UK'' (1993) and ''She's Real (Worse than Queer)'' (1997).
Life and work
Thane ...
's documentary of the 1993 Bikini Kill/Huggy Bear UK tour titled ''It Changed My Life: Bikini Kill In The U.K.''; the film also included The Raincoats and queercore band
Sister George
Sister George was an English queercore band from London that was formed in 1994. The group's name was inspired by the 1968 film ''The Killing of Sister George'', which was an adaptation of the play of the same name.
Although queercore bands h ...
.
Thane, from
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...
, had previously met the Raincoats'
Ana da Silva
Ana da Silva is a musician, best known as a founding member of post-punk rock band the Raincoats.
Career
Born in Madeira island of Portugal, she grew up without television and little access to popular culture. She had exposure to music throu ...
at a
Hole
A hole is an opening in or through a particular medium, usually a solid body. Holes occur through natural and artificial processes, and may be useful for various purposes, or may represent a problem needing to be addressed in many fields of en ...
show after Hole covered a Raincoats song.
Thane filmed Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear for the entirety of their 1993 tour using borrowed film and video equipment.
Naylor was tour manager.
''It Changed My Life'' premiered in 1993 at
The Kitchen
The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was foun ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, during a film program curated by filmmaker Jill Reiter.
UK zines that wrote about riot grrrl at the time included ''Girlfrenzy'' and ''
Ablaze!''.
Decline and later developments
By the mid-nineties, riot grrrl had severely splintered. Many within the movement felt that the mainstream media had completely misrepresented their message, and that the politically radical aspects of riot grrrl had been subverted by the likes of the
Spice Girls and their "
girl power
Girl power is a slogan that encourages and celebrates women's empowerment, independence, confidence and strength. The slogan's invention is credited to the US punk band Bikini Kill, who published a zine called ''Bikini Kill #2: Girl Power'' i ...
" message, or co-opted by ostensibly women-centered bands (though sometimes with only one female performer per band) and festivals like
Lilith Fair
Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during the summers of 1997 ...
. Later waves of riot grrrl chapters opened in Latin America, North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia through to the 2010s.
![Bikini Kill -Palladium](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Bikini_Kill_-Palladium.jpg)
Of the original riot grrrl bands, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy and Huggy Bear had split in 1994,
Excuse 17
Excuse 17 was a punk rock band from Olympia, Washington, US, that performed and recorded from 1993 to 1995. The band consisted of Becca Albee (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Curtis James (drums). The band recorded ...
and most of the UK bands had split by 1995, and Bikini Kill and
Emily's Sassy Lime (formed in Southern California in 1993) released their last records in 1996. However, Team Dresch were active as late as 1998,
the Gossip
Gossip (or The Gossip) was an American indie rock band formed in Searcy, Arkansas, originally active from 1999 until 2016. For most of their career, the band consisted of singer Beth Ditto, multi-instrumentalist Brace Paine, and drummer Hanna ...
were active from 1999, and Bratmobile reformed in 2000. Perhaps most prolific of all,
Sleater-Kinney
Sleater-Kinney ( ) is an American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington, in 1994. The band's current lineup features Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar) and Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), following the departure of longtime member ...
were active from 1994 to 2006, releasing seven albums.
Corin Tucker
Corin Lisa Tucker (born November 9, 1972) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist best known for her work with rock band Sleater-Kinney. Tucker is also a member of the alternative rock supergroup Filthy Friends, and previously recorded ...
(Heavens to Betsy) and
Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Rachel Brownstein (born September 27, 1974) is an American musician, actress, writer, director, and comedian. She first came to prominence as a member of the band Excuse 17 before forming the rock trio Sleater-Kinney. During a long hiatus ...
(Excuse 17) had formed Sleater-Kinney in Olympia.
Many of the women involved in riot grrrl are still active in creating politically charged music. Kathleen Hanna went on to found the electro-feminist
post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad music genre, genre of Punk Music, punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde s ...
"protest
pop" group
Le Tigre
Le Tigre (, ; French for "The Tiger") is an American electronic rock band formed by Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill), Johanna Fateman and Sadie Benning in 1998 in New York City. Benning left in 2000 and was replaced by JD Samson for the rest ...
and later
the Julie Ruin
The Julie Ruin is an American band formed in 2010 in New York City. The band rehearses in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and records at Oscilloscope and Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn. Band members include Carmine Covelli, Sara Landeau, Kathleen Hanna, K ...
, Kathi Wilcox joined the Casual Dots with
Christina Billotte of Slant 6, and Tobi Vail formed Spider and the Webs. Sleater-Kinney reformed the band in 2014 after an 8-year hiatus and have released three albums since, while Bratmobile reunited to release two albums, before Allison Wolfe began singing with other all-women bands, Cold Cold Hearts, and
Partyline. Molly Neuman went on to play with New York punk band Love Or Perish and run her own indie label called Simple Social Graces Discos, as well as co-owning
Lookout! Records
Lookout Records (stylized as Lookout! Records) was an independent record label, initially based in Laytonville, California and later in Berkeley, California, Berkeley, focusing on punk rock. Established in 1987, the label is best known for having ...
and managing
the Donnas
The Donnas were an American rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1993. The band consisted of Brett Anderson (lead vocals), Allison Robertson (guitar, backing vocals), Maya Ford (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Torry Castellano (drum ...
,
Ted Leo
Theodore Francis Leo is an American singer and musician. He is the frontman and lead guitarist of the rock group Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and in 2013, he and Aimee Mann formed the indie rock duo The Both.
Early life
Born in South Bend, I ...
,
Some Girls
''Some Girls'' is the 14th UK and 16th US album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released on 9 June 1978 by Rolling Stones Records. It was recorded in sessions held between October 1977 and February 1978 at Pathé Marconi Studios in ...
, and
the Locust
The Locust was an American hardcore punk band from San Diego, California, known for their mix of grindcore aggression and new wave experimentation.
The band has been noted for their use of insect costumes when performing live.
History
Prio ...
.
Kaia Wilson
Kaia Lynn Wilson (born 1974) is an American musician from Portland, Oregon, best known as a founding member of both Team Dresch, a revered 1990s queercore punk band, and The Butchies, a pop-rock spin-off from her solo work. In addition to sing ...
of Team Dresch and
multimedia artist
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to traditio ...
Tammy Rae Carland
Tammy Rae Carland (born January 27, 1965), is a photographer, video artist, zine editor, current provost at California College of the Arts (CCA), and former co-owner of the independent lesbian music label Mr. Lady Records and Videos. Her work has ...
went on to form the now-defunct
Mr. Lady Records
Mr. Lady Records (or Mr. Lady Records and Video) was a San Francisco-based lesbian- feminist independent record label and video art distributor. (Press release of a 2001 art show at the Weisman Art Museum) Artists on the label included Le Tigre ...
which released albums by
the Butchies
The Butchies were an all-female punk rock band from Durham, North Carolina, that existed from 1998 to 2005. They reunited from their hiatus to tour with Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls promoting Ray's new album in 2010. The frequent focus of their ...
,
the Need
The Need is an American queercore band formed by singer/drummer Rachel Carns and guitarist Radio Sloan in Portland, Oregon in the mid-1990s.
After issuing a series of seven-inches on labels including Kill Rock Stars and Outpunk, The Need re ...
,
Kiki and Herb, and
Tracy + the Plastics. Bikini Kill played a string of shows in 2019.
Feminism and riot grrrl culture
Riot grrrl culture is often associated with
third wave feminism
Third-wave feminism is an iteration of the feminist movement that began in the early 1990s, prominent in the decades prior to the fourth wave. Grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, Gen X and early Gen Y generations third-wav ...
, which also grew rapidly during the same early nineties timeframe. The movement of third-wave feminism focused less on laws and the political process and more on individual identity. The movement of third-wave feminism is said to have arisen out of the realization that women are of many colors, ethnicities, nationalities, religions and cultural backgrounds. While multiracial feminist movements have existed prior to the third wave, the proliferation of technology during the early nineties allowed for easier networking amongst feminist groups. Riot grrrls used media spectacle to their advantage, crafting works from oppositional technologies such as
zine
A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very s ...
s,
videography
Videography is the process of capturing moving images on electronic media (e.g., videotape, direct to disk recording, or solid state storage) and even streaming media. The term includes methods of video production and post-production. It used ...
, and music. The riot grrrl movement allowed women their own space to create music and make political statements about the issues they were facing in the punk rock community and in society. They used their music and publications to express their views on issues such as patriarchy, double standards against women, rape,
domestic abuse
Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for '' intimate partne ...
,
sexuality, and female
empowerment
Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming strong ...
.
An undated, typewritten Bikini Kill tour flier answers the question "What is Riot grrrl?" with:
" iot Grrrl is ...Because we girls want to create mediums that speak to US. We are tired of boy band after boy band, boy zine after boy zine, boy punk after boy punk after boy... Because we need to talk to each other. Communication and inclusion are key. We will never know if we don't break the code of silence... Because in every form of media we see ourselves slapped, decapitated, laughed at, objectified, raped, trivialized, pushed, ignored, stereotyped, kicked, scorned, molested, silenced, invalidated, knifed, shot, choked and killed. Because a safe space needs to be created for girls where we can open our eyes and reach out to each other without being threatened by this sexist society and our day to day bullshit."
Like other third wave feminists, riot grrrls attempted to foster an acceptance of diversity within feminist expression. That relationship to feminism is evident through their use of lyrics, zines and publications, and taking back the meaning of derogatory terms. All three of these forms were claimed to be a source of empowerment for women in the movement.
The riot grrrl movement encouraged women to develop their own place in a male-dominated punk scene. Punk shows had come to be understood as places where "women could make their way to the front of the crowd into the
mosh pit
Moshing (also known as slam dancing or simply slamming) is an extreme style of dancing in which participants push or slam into each other, typically performed to "aggressive" live music such as heavy metal and punk rock. Moshing usually happen ...
, but had to 'fight ten times harder' because they were female, and sexually charged violence such as groping and rape had been reported."
In contrast, riot grrrl bands would often actively invite members of the audience to talk about their personal experiences with sensitive issues such as sexual abuse, pass out lyric sheets to everyone in the audience, and often demand that the mosh boys move to the back or side to allow space in front for the girls in the audience.
The bands weren't always enthusiastically received at shows by male audience members. ''
Punk Planet
''Punk Planet'' was a 16,000 print run punk zine, based in Chicago, Illinois, that focused most of its energy on looking at punk subculture rather than punk as simply another genre of music to which teenagers listen. In addition to covering music ...
'' editor Daniel Sinker wrote in ''We Owe You Nothing'':
The vehemence fanzines large and small reserved for riot grrrl – and Bikini Kill in particular – was shocking. The punk zine
A punk zine (or punkzine) is a zine related to the punk subculture and hardcore punk music genre. Often primitively or casually produced, they feature punk literature, such as social commentary, punk poetry, news, gossip, music reviews and arti ...
editors' use of 'bitch
Bitch may refer to:
* A female dog or other canine
* Bitch (slang), a vulgar slur for a human female
Bitch or bitches may also refer to:
Arts and media Film and television
* ''The Bitch'' (film), a 1979 film starring Joan Collins
* ''Bitc ...
es', ' cunts', ' man-haters', and ' dykes' was proof-positive that sexism was still strong in the punk scene.
Kathi Wilcox said in a fanzine interview:
Kathleen Hanna would later write: "It was also super schizo to play shows where guys threw stuff at us, called us cunts and yelled "take it off" during our set, and then the next night perform for throngs of amazing girls singing along to every lyric and cheering after every song."
Many men were supporters of riot grrrl culture and acts. Calvin Johnson and
Slim Moon
Matthew "Slim" Moon (born October 15, 1967) is an American musician and the founder of the American independent music label Kill Rock Stars (KRS). He also started its sister label, 5 Rue Christine. Slim ran KRS from 1991 to 2006, during which t ...
have been instrumental in publishing riot grrrl bands on the labels they founded, K Records and
Kill Rock Stars
Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally know ...
respectively.
Alec Empire of
Atari Teenage Riot said, "I was totally into the riot grrrl music, I see it as a very important form of expression. I learned a lot from that, way more maybe than from 'male' punk rock."
Dave Grohl and
Kurt Cobain dated Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail (also respectively), and often played with Bikini Kill even after splitting with them; Kurt was a big fan of
the Slits
The Slits were a punk and post-punk band based in London, formed there in 1976 by members of the groups the Flowers of Romance and the Castrators. The group's early line-up consisted of Ari Up (Ariane Forster) and Palmolive (a.k.a. Paloma R ...
and even convinced
the Raincoats
The Raincoats are a British experimental post-punk band. Ana da Silva (vocals, guitar) and Gina Birch (vocals, bass) formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art in London.
Signed to the label Rough Trade, the ...
to reform. He once said, "The future of rock belongs to women." Many riot grrrl bands included male band members, such as Billy Karren of Bikini Kill or Jon Slade and Chris Rawley of Huggy Bear.
Molly Neuman once summarized: "We're not anti-boy, we're pro-girl."
[The Punk Years – Typical Girls](_blank)
YouTube. Riot grrrl concerts provided a safe haven for women, and often addressed issues such as rape,
domestic abuse
Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for '' intimate partne ...
,
sexuality and female
empowerment
Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming strong ...
. For example, in Bikini Kill's "Don't Need You", they sing: "don’t need you to say we’re cute/don’t need you to say we’re alright/don’t need your protection/don’t need your kiss goodnight", rejecting stereotypical heterosexual relationship dynamics.
Influenced heavily by
DIY culture, most bands' presentation subverted traditional or classically trained 'musicianship' in favor of raw, primitive,
avant AVANT, also known as AVANT street art guerrilla collective, was the artist group active in New York City from 1980 to 1984. By 1984 AVANT had produced thousands of acrylic on paper paintings and plastered them on walls, doors, bus-stops and gallerie ...
-
lo-fi
Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate choice. The ...
passion and fiercely deliberate amateurism: an idea growing rapidly in popularity, especially in the
Olympia music scene
The name Olympia may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Olympia'' (1938 film), by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the Berlin-hosted Olympic Games
* ''Olympia'' (1998 film), about a Mexican soap opera star who pursues a career as an athlet ...
, with bands like
Beat Happening coining the slogans: "Learn how to NOT play your instrument" and "hey, you don't have to sound like the flavor of the month, all you have to do is sound like yourselves", arguing that traditional musical skill doesn't ultimately matter and should always be subservient to the passion, the fun and ideas in their music. This argument is similar to the ideological origins of punk rock itself, which started partially as an attempt to dissolve the growing division between audience and performer. These indie-punk bands (and riot grrrl bands in particular) were often ridiculed for "not being able to play their instruments", but fans are quick to counter that identical criticisms were often faced by the first-wave of punk rock bands in the 1970s, and that this DIY garage amateurism "play just 'cause you wanna, no matter what" attitude was one of the most appealing and liberating aspects of both movements.
Zines and publications
Even as the Seattle-area rock scene came to international
mainstream media attention, riot grrrl remained a willfully underground phenomenon.
Most musicians shunned the
major record labels
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produc ...
, devotedly working instead with
indie labels such as Kill Rock Stars, K Records,
Slampt
Slampt (also Slampt Underground Organisation) was a record label set up in Newcastle, England in 1992.
The label is perhaps best known for releasing Kenickie's debut EP. Slampt also released the debut single by The Yummy Fur, a band who later ...
, Piao! Records,
Simple Machines, Catcall,
WIIIJA and
Chainsaw Records
Chainsaw Records is an independent record label run by Donna Dresch that is devoted to Queercore bands. The label is in Portland, Oregon.
History
''Chainsaw'' began life as a zine published by Donna Dresch in the late 1980s. Musicians and write ...
. The movement also figured fairly prominently in
cassette culture, with artists often starting their own
DIY cassette labels by as basic and spartan means as recording their music onto cheap off-the-shelf
boom-box
A boombox is a transistorized portable music player featuring one or two cassette tape recorder/players and AM/FM radio, generally with a carrying handle. Beginning in the mid 1980s, a CD player was often included. Sound is delivered through ...
es and passing the cassettes out to friends, seldom charging anything beyond the cost of the actual tapes themselves.
Riot grrrl's momentum was also hugely supported by an explosion of creativity in homemade cut and paste,
xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
ed,
collage zine
A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very s ...
s that covered a variety of feminist topics, frequently attempting to draw out the political implications of intensely personal experiences in a "privately public" space.
Zines often described experiences with
sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers pri ...
,
mental illness,
body image and
eating disorders,
sexual abuse
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...
, racism, rape, discrimination,
stalking
Stalking is unwanted and/or repeated surveillance by an individual or group toward another person. Stalking behaviors are interrelated to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person or monitoring them. The term ...
,
domestic violence,
incest
Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adopti ...
,
homophobia, and sometimes vegetarianism. Grrrl zine editors are collectively engaged in forms of writing and writing instruction that challenge both dominant notions of the author as an individualized, bodiless space and notions of feminism as primarily an adult political project.
These zines were archived by zinewiki.com, and Riot Grrrl Press, started in Washington DC in 1992 by Erika Reinstein & May Summer.
Others can be found anthologized in ''A Girl's Guide to Taking over the World: Writings from the Girl Zine Revolution'', for which actress/singer/musician/writer/performance artist
Ann Magnuson of
Bongwater fame wrote as a foreword:
When I think of how much benefit my teenage self could have gained from the multitude of zines that have proliferated over the past decade, I weep for all the lost potential. Except for Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronat ...
and Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...
, the thoughts of teenage girls have rarely been taken seriously.
Bands would often attempt to
reappropriate derogatory phrases like "cunt", "bitch", "dyke", and "
slut
''Slut (archaic: slattern)'' is an English-language term for a person, usually a woman or girl, who is considered to have loose sexual morals or who is sexually promiscuous. It is usually used as an insult, sexual slur or offensive term of d ...
", writing them proudly on their skin with lipstick or fat
markers. Kathleen Hanna was writing "slut" on her stomach at shows as early as 1992, intentionally fusing feminist art and activist practices.
Riot grrrls making political statements to reclaim phrases is a common theme among third-wave feminists. Not only did their music address the same issues as third-wave feminism, but they took a political stance against the oppression they were feeling.
Many of the women involved with queercore were also interested in riot grrrl, and zines such as ''Chainsaw'' by
Donna Dresch
Donna Dresch is an American punk rock musician, perhaps best known as founder, guitarist and bass guitarist of Team Dresch.
Dresch has been actively involved in the queercore scene since the 1980s, as the creator of the fanzine ''Chainsaw'' an ...
, ''Sister Nobody'', ''Jane Gets A Divorce'' and ''I (heart) Amy Carter'' by
Tammy Rae Carland
Tammy Rae Carland (born January 27, 1965), is a photographer, video artist, zine editor, current provost at California College of the Arts (CCA), and former co-owner of the independent lesbian music label Mr. Lady Records and Videos. Her work has ...
embody both movements. There were also national conventions like in Washington, D.C.,
or the Pussystock festival in New York City, as well as various subsequent indie-documentaries like ''Don't Need You: the
Herstory
Herstory is a term for history written from a feminist perspective and emphasizing the role of women, or told from a woman's point of view. It originated as an alteration of the word "history", as part of a feminist critique of conventional his ...
of Riot Grrrl''.
Other riot grrrl zines such as
Ramdasha Bikceem's ''GUNK'', started in 1990 when she was 15, focused on the intersections of punk, gender, and racism. Bikceem, from
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, had found out about riot grrrl zines after a friend became Tobi Vail's roommate in Olympia. In ''GUNK #4'' Bikceem wrote about the politics of being a Black grrrl, "I'll go out somewhere with my friends who all look equally as weird as me, but say we get hassled by the cops for skating or something. That cop is going to remember my face a lot clearer than say one of my white girlfriends."
Mimi Thi Nguyen's ''Slant'' and
Sabrina Margarita Alcantara-Tan's ''Bamboo Girl'' critiqued riot grrrl from the perspective of Asian American girls.
In 1997, Nguyen published the compilation zine ''Evolution of a Race Riot''.
In the mid-1990s, zines were also published on the Internet as
e-zines.
Websites such as
Gurl.com and
ChickClick were created out of dissatisfaction of media available to women and parodied content found in mainstream
teen
Adolescence () is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated with the te ...
and women's magazines.
Both Gurl.com and ChickClick had a message board and free web hosting services, where users could also create and contribute their own content, which in turn created a reciprocal relationship where women could also be seen as creators rather than consumers.
Starting during the fall of 2010, the "Riot Grrrl Collection" has been housed at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
's
Fales Library New York University's Fales Library and Special Collections is located on the third floor of the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library at 70 Washington Square South between LaGuardia Place and the Schwartz Plaza, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhat ...
and Special Collections, as "The Fales Riot Grrrl Collection". The collection's primary mandate is "to collect unique materials that provide documentation of the creative process of individuals and the chronology of the
iot Grrrlmovement overall".
Kathleen Hanna, Molly Neuman, Allison Wolfe, Ramdasha Bikceem,
Johanna Fateman
Johanna Rachel Fateman (born May 16, 1974) is an American writer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. She is a member of the post-punk rock band Le Tigre and founded the band MEN with Le Tigre bandmate JD Samson.
Early life and educati ...
,
Becca Albee
Becca Albee is an American musician and visual artist who was a founding member of the band Excuse 17, which was an early pioneer in the riot grrrl and third-wave feminism movements. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Early life and education
Al ...
(co-founder of Excuse 17),
Lucy Thane
Lucy Thane (born 1967) is a British documentary filmmaker, event producer and performer, living in Folkestone. Her films include ''It Changed My Life: Bikini Kill in the UK'' (1993) and ''She's Real (Worse than Queer)'' (1997).
Life and work
Thane ...
,
Tammy Rae Carland
Tammy Rae Carland (born January 27, 1965), is a photographer, video artist, zine editor, current provost at California College of the Arts (CCA), and former co-owner of the independent lesbian music label Mr. Lady Records and Videos. Her work has ...
, and
Mimi Thi Nguyen have donated
primary source
In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...
material.
The collection is the brainchild of Lisa Darms, Senior Archivist at the Fales Library. According to Jenna Freedman, a librarian who maintains a zine collection at
Barnard College
Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
, "It's just essential to preserve the activist voices in their own unmediated work, especially because of the media blackout that they called for". Kathleen Hanna, while understanding no collection can replicate the concert experience, feels the collection is a safe place that will be "free from feminist erasure".
Media misconceptions
At first most Riot Grrrls were open to using the media as a way to spread the word to other girls. Shortly thereafter, however, feeling that they had been misrepresented, trivialized, commercialized, and made into a new fad and trend, the Riot Grrrls changed their minds.
As media attention increasingly focused on the emerging grunge and alternative rock scene in the mid-nineties, the term "Riot Grrrl" was often used as a catchall for female-fronted bands and applied to less political
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...
acts. While many female-centric or all-women rock bands, such as
Frightwig,
Hole
A hole is an opening in or through a particular medium, usually a solid body. Holes occur through natural and artificial processes, and may be useful for various purposes, or may represent a problem needing to be addressed in many fields of en ...
,
7 Year Bitch
7 Year Bitch was an American punk rock band from Seattle, Washington. The band was active between 1990 and 1997 and released three albums over that time. The band formed at the same time as the emergence of the riot grrrl sub-genre, which is ...
,
Babes in Toyland,
the Breeders
The Breeders are an American alternative rock band based in Dayton, Ohio, consisting of members Kim Deal (rhythm guitar, lead vocals), her twin sister Kelley Deal (lead guitar, vocals), Josephine Wiggs (bass guitar, vocals) and Jim Macpherso ...
,
the Gits
The Gits were an American punk rock band formed in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1986. As part of the burgeoning Seattle music scene of the early 1990s, they were known for their fiery live performances. Members included singer Mia Zapata, guitari ...
,
Lunachicks,
Liz Phair
Elizabeth Clark Phair (born April 17, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Phair was raised primarily in the Chicago area. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1990, she attempted to start a musical career ...
,
Veruca Salt
Veruca Salt is an American alternative rock band founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1992 by vocalist-guitarists Nina Gordon and Louise Post, drummer Jim Shapiro and bassist Steve Lack. They are best known for their first single, " Seether", th ...
, and
L7, shared similar DIY tactics and feminist ideologies with the riot grrrl movement, not all of these acts self-identified with the riot grrrl label.
"It used to frustrate me when posters would say 'all-girl band' or 'riot grrrl'," recalled L7's
Donita Sparks
Donita Sparks (born April 8, 1963) is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter most notable for being the co-founder of the band L7. Sparks also initiated, performed, and released original material with her solo project, the band Donita S ...
. "We cheered loudly when we went to Italy: it said, 'Rock from the USA.'"
Courtney Love
Courtney Michelle Love (née Harrison; born July 9, 1964) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actress. A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. She rose to prominence as ...
, in particular, felt the need to disassociate with Riot Grrrl as a whole:
As supportive as I am of them, there's a faction that says, "We don't know how to play, but we're not going to follow your male-measured idea of what good is." Look, good is ''Led Zeppelin II
''Led Zeppelin II'' is the second studio album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released on 22 October 1969 in the United States and on 31 October 1969 in the United Kingdom by Atlantic Records. Recording sessions for the album took place ...
''. That's fucking good. And I'm not going to sit here and say you're a good band when you suck. They're like, "But we're entitled to suck." Really? We work so hard to get good at what we do without covering up who we are as women.
To their chagrin, in 1992 riot grrrls found themselves in the media spotlight of magazines from ''
Seventeen'' to ''
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...
''. ''Newsweeks headline was "Riot Girl is feminism with a loud happy face dotting the 'i'," and ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
'' ran a headline saying "From hundreds of once pink, frilly bedrooms comes the young feminist revolution."
Fallout from the media coverage led to resignations from the movement, including
Jessica Hopper
Jessica Hopper (born September 5, 1976) is an American writer. She published ''The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic,'' a compilation of her essays, reported pieces, zines, and reviews, in May 2015. In 2018, she publish ...
, a teenage music critic who was at the center of the ''Newsweek'' article.
Hopper, later the author of ''
'', said, "Some people were really upset because I talked to mainstream media about what I felt riot grrrl was...At the time there was much more of a chasm between the underground and the mainstream and people didn't want mainstream girls showing up to this, and I just thought, I didn't want to be part of something that wasn't for all women."
To ease tension, Kathleen Hanna called a "media blackout" for that year.
In an essay from January 1994 that had been included in the double compact disc release of Bikini Kill's first two albums, Tobi Vail responded to media misrepresentation of Bikini Kill and riot grrrl in general:
One huge misconception for instance that has been repeated over and over again in magazines we have never spoken to and also by those who believe these sources without checking things out themselves is that Bikini Kill is the definitive 'riot girl band' ... We are not in anyway 'leaders of' or authorities on the 'Riot Girl' movement. In fact, as individuals we have each had different experiences with, feelings on, opinions of and varying degrees of involvement with 'Riot Girl' and though we totally respect those who still feel that label is important and meaningful to them, we have never used that term to describe ourselves AS A BAND. As individuals we respect and utilize and subscribe to a variety of different aesthetics, strategies, and beliefs, both political and punk-wise, some of which are probably considered 'riot girl.'
Sharon Cheslow stated in
EMP's ''Riot Grrrl Retrospective'' documentary:
There were a lot of very important ideas that I think the mainstream media couldn't handle, so it was easier to focus on the fact that these were girls who were wearing barrette
A barrette (American English), also known as a hair slide (British English), or a hair clip, is a clasp for holding hair in place. They are often made from metal or plastic and sometimes feature decorative fabric. In one type of barrette, a cla ...
s in their hair or writing 'slut' on their stomach.
Corin Tucker
Corin Lisa Tucker (born November 9, 1972) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist best known for her work with rock band Sleater-Kinney. Tucker is also a member of the alternative rock supergroup Filthy Friends, and previously recorded ...
stated:
I think it was deliberate that we were made to look like we were just ridiculous girls parading around in our underwear. They refused to do serious interviews with us, they misprinted what we had to say, they would take our articles, and our fanzines, and our essays and take them out of context. We wrote a lot about sexual abuse
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...
and sexual assault for teenagers and young women. I think those are really important concepts that the media ''never'' addressed.
Other female-fronted punk bands, such as
Spitboy
Spitboy was an American anarcho-punk band founded in the San Francisco bay area, in California in 1990. The all-female band aggressively criticized patriarchy and gender roles but did not associate with the contemporaneous riot grrrl movement. Th ...
, were less comfortable with the childhood-centered issues of much of the riot grrrl aesthetic, but nonetheless dealt explicitly with feminist and related issues as well. Lesbian-centric
Queercore
Queercore (or homocore) is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifical ...
bands, such as
Fifth Column,
Tribe 8
Tribe 8 was a LGBTQ punk rock band from San Francisco, considered one of the first queercore groups. The band took their name from the practice of tribadism, with "tribe eight" being a play on the word ''tribade'', a sexual practice sometimes ...
,
Adickdid
Adickdid was an American all-female punk rock band, started in the early 1990s in Eugene, Oregon, United States, by Kaia Wilson, Nalini Cheriel, and Sara Shelton Bellum. They toured alongside other riot grrrl bands. Their first single "All A ...
,
the Third Sex The Third Sex may refer to:
* The Third Sex (band), American queercore band
* ''The Third Sex'' (film), working title for a 1957 German film ''Different from You and Me''
* "The Third Sex", episode of 2002 TV series ''Taboo''
* '' Das 3. Geschlec ...
,
Excuse 17
Excuse 17 was a punk rock band from Olympia, Washington, US, that performed and recorded from 1993 to 1995. The band consisted of Becca Albee (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Curtis James (drums). The band recorded ...
, and
Team Dresch
Team Dresch is an American punk rock band originally formed in 1993 in Olympia, Washington. The band made a significant impression on the DIY punk movement queercore, which gave voice through zines and music to the passions and concerns of LGBT p ...
, wrote songs dealing with matters specific to women and their position in society, exploring issues such as both
sexual
Sex is the biological distinction of an organism between male and female.
Sex or SEX may also refer to:
Biology and behaviour
*Animal sexual behaviour
**Copulation (zoology)
**Human sexual activity
**Non-penetrative sex, or sexual outercourse
** ...
and
gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the ...
. A documentary film put together by a San Diego psychiatrist, Dr.
Lisa Rose Apramian
Lisa Rose Apramian ( hy, Լիզա րոզ Աբրամիյան), also known as Dr. Lisa, is an Armenian-American psychologist and filmmaker most notable as the director, writer, and producer of the documentary film ''Not Bad for a Girl''.
Career
A ...
, ''
Not Bad for a Girl
''Not Bad for a Girl'' is a documentary on women musicians of the 90s from the indie rock music genre grunge and riot grrrl and celebrates madness, creativity, and gender play. It was written, directed, produced and shot by rock phenomenologist fe ...
'', explored some of these issues in interviews with many of the musicians in the riot grrrl scene at the time.
Other bands and artists associated with the United States riot grrrl movement include
Slant 6
Slant 6 was an American punk rock trio based in Washington, D.C. affiliated with early riot grrrl.
Slant 6 consisted of Christina Billotte (electric guitar and vocals), Myra Power (electric bass guitar and vocals), and Marge Marshall (drum s ...
,
Sta-Prest,
Jenny Toomey
Jennifer "Jenny" Gillen Toomey (born 1968) is an American indie rock musician and arts activist.
Career
Toomey was a member of the bands Geek, Tsunami, Liquorice, Grenadine, So Low and Choke, among others, and has also recorded under her own ...
,
Tattle Tale,
Jack Off Jill
Jack Off Jill was an American gothic rock band from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, founded in 1992 by vocalist Jessicka, drummer Tenni Ah-Cha-Cha, bassist/keyboardist Robin Moulder, Agent Moulder, and guitarist Michelle Inhell. Though these four women w ...
,
the Need
The Need is an American queercore band formed by singer/drummer Rachel Carns and guitarist Radio Sloan in Portland, Oregon in the mid-1990s.
After issuing a series of seven-inches on labels including Kill Rock Stars and Outpunk, The Need re ...
,
Nomy Lamm
Naomi Elizabeth "Nomy" Lamm (born September 1, 1975) is an American singer-songwriter and political activist. Lamm has described herself as a "bad ass, fat ass, Jew, dyke amputee." Her left foot was amputated at age three, to be fitted with a l ...
,
Lucid Nation
Lucid Nation is an American Los Angeles-based experimental rock band formed in 1995 made up of Tamra Spivey (stage name Tamra Lucid) and R.C. Hogart (stage name Ronnie Pontiac).
Biography
Lucid Nation was formed in Los Angeles in 1994, when fo ...
,
the Frumpies
The Frumpies were an American lo-fi punk rock band formed in 1992 in Olympia, Washington, United States. The original line-up consisted of singers/guitarists Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Billy Karren (all of whom were also a part of the legend ...
,
Bangs
Bang or bangs may refer to:
Products
* M1922 Bang rifle, a US semi-automatic rifle designed by Søren Hansen Bang
* Bang, a List of model car brands, model car brand
* Bang (beverage), an energy drink
Geography
* Bang, Lorestan, a village in I ...
, and
the Quails; and in the United Kingdom,
Blood Sausage,
Mambo Taxi,
Voodoo Queens
The Voodoo Queens were a North London-based indie punk/riot grrrl band, who reached number one in the Indie Charts in 1993.
History
The band was composed of Anjali Bhatia (guitar, vocals), Ella Guru (guitar, backing vocals), Stefania 'Steffi ...
,
Pussycat Trash,
Frantic Spiders,
Linus
Linus, a male given name, is the Latin form of the Greek name ''Linos''. It's a common given name in Sweden. The origin of the name is unknown although the name appears in antiquity both as a musician who taught Apollo and as a son of Apollo who di ...
,
Sister George
Sister George was an English queercore band from London that was formed in 1994. The group's name was inspired by the 1968 film ''The Killing of Sister George'', which was an adaptation of the play of the same name.
Although queercore bands h ...
and
Lungleg
Lung Leg were a Scottish indie band, formed in 1994 and disbanded in 1999. They were influenced by Post Punk, C86, riot grrrl and the Fire Engines.
History
Lung Leg formed in 1994 in Glasgow, Scotland, with a lineup of McKeown ("Jane Egypt" ...
.
Criticism
The "Riot Grrrl" movement has received criticism for not being inclusive enough. Riot Girls are often accused of being
separatists
Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...
: they want to form a life away from men and invent "girl culture".
One major argument is that the movement focuses on middle-class white women, alienating other kinds of women.
This criticism emerged early in the movement. In 1993, Ramdasha Bikceem wrote in her zine, ''Gunk'',
Riot grrrl calls for change, but I question who it's including ... I see Riot Grrrl growing very closed to a very few i.e. white middle class punk girls.
Musician
Courtney Love
Courtney Michelle Love (née Harrison; born July 9, 1964) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actress. A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. She rose to prominence as ...
has criticized the movement for being too doctrinaire and censorious:
Look, you've got these highly intelligent imperious girls, but who told them it was their undeniable American right not to be offended? Being offended is part of being in the real world. I'm offended every time I see George Bush on TV!
Some have suggested that, while riot grrrl bands worked to ensure their shows were safe spaces in which women could find solidarity and create their own subculture, some higher-profile riot grrrl bands participated in the
Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, often referred to as MWMF or Michfest, was a feminist women's music festival held annually from 1976 to 2015 in Oceana County, Michigan, on privately owned woodland near Hart Township referred to as "The L ...
, a trans-exclusionary events that had a "
womyn-born womyn" policy. Former members of
Le Tigre
Le Tigre (, ; French for "The Tiger") is an American electronic rock band formed by Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill), Johanna Fateman and Sadie Benning in 1998 in New York City. Benning left in 2000 and was replaced by JD Samson for the rest ...
did see protests at their shows for having participated in the festival in 2001.
However, Kathleen Hanna has stated directly that she supports trans rights on her own Twitter account and her regret of her decision to perform at that festival. Additionally,
JD Samson
JD Samson (born August 4, 1978), stage name of Jocelyn Samson is an American musician, producer, songwriter and DJ best known as a member of the bands Le Tigre and MEN.
Background
Samson grew up in Pepper Pike, Ohio, and attended Orange High ...
, another former member of Le Tigre, is genderfluid. The
Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, often referred to as MWMF or Michfest, was a feminist women's music festival held annually from 1976 to 2015 in Oceana County, Michigan, on privately owned woodland near Hart Township referred to as "The L ...
, celebrated its last annual festival in 2015. ''
The Advocate'' speculated that the decision was related to ongoing controversy over the festival's decision to not admit
transgender women
A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and ...
.
Legacy and resurgence
![Carrie Brownstein](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Carrie_Brownstein.jpg)
In the foreword to the 2007 book, ''Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now!'',
Beth Ditto
Mary Beth Patterson (born February 19, 1981), known by her stage name Beth Ditto, is an American singer and songwriter most notable for her work with the indie rock band Gossip. Her voice has been compared to Etta James, Janis Joplin and T ...
writes of riot grrrl,
A movement formed by a handful of girls who felt empowered, who were angry, hilarious, and extreme through and for each other. Built on the floors of strangers' living rooms, tops of Xerox machines, snail mail, word of mouth and mixtapes, riot grrrl reinvented punk.
Additionally, Ditto writes about riot grrrl's influence on her personally and on her music. She muses on the meaning of the movement for her generation,
Until I found riot grrrl, or riot grrrl found me I was just another Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Steinem was a c ...
NOW feminist trying to take a stand in shop class. Now I am a musician, a writer, a whole person.
Many women write to Hanna in hopes of reviving the Riot Grrrl Movement. Hanna says, "Don’t revive it, make something better". In 2010 ''
Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution'' became the first published history of the riot grrrl movement. The author had also attended Riot Grrrl meetings herself. As of 2019 there were approximately ten weekly riot grrrl meetings held nationwide and bands multiplying faster than can be counted.
![The Regrettes (43741140144)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/The_Regrettes_%2843741140144%29.jpg)
In 2013
Astria Suparak and
Ceci Moss curated ''Alien She'', an exhibition examining the impact of Riot Grrrl on artists and cultural producers. Alien She focuses on seven people whose visual art practices were informed by their contact with Riot Grrrl. Many of them work in multiple disciplines, such as sculpture, installation, video, documentary film, photography, drawing, printmaking, new media, social practice, curation, music, writing and performance—a reflection of the movement's artistic diversity and mutability. It opened September 2013 at the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and ran through February the following year. It visited four subsequent art spaces (Vox Populi in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March – April 2014; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, October 2014 – January 2015; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California, February – May 2015; and Pacific Northwest College of Art: 511 Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon, September 3, 2015 – January 9, 2016).
The term "grrrl" (or "grrl") itself has since been co-opted or used by agencies as diverse as advocacy on behalf of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (GRRL POWER 1.0 5-PACK / Memetics for the Ladies) and a
roller derby league in Singapore.
The resurgence of riot grrrl is clearly visible in
fourth-wave feminists worldwide who cite the original movement as an interest or influence on their lives and/or their work. Some of them are self-proclaimed riot grrrls while others consider themselves simply admirers or fans. In an age where Internet is the most accessible platform for individuals to express themselves, the fourth-wave riot grrrl community has risen in popularity in recent years. Not only do these online platforms capture discussion regarding larger topics of intersectional oppression, but they also provide space for budding feminists to express smaller issues, such as the successes and challenges of their everyday lives. Young feminists have harnessed the internet as a forum for self-determinism and genuine, open expression: a core part of the riot grrrl message that allows young adults room to decide for themselves who they are.
As both a purported musical genre and as a subculture, riot grrrl has been acclaimed as an influence on contemporary groups as varied as
Kitten Forever,
Skating Polly,
the Shondes and
the Ethical Debating Society
The Ethical Debating Society (aka T.E.D.S.) are a three-piece DIY punk, post- riot grrrl group from London. They have been described as "one of the most exciting DIY bands" in the UK.
History
Initially a solo project for vocalist/guitarist Teg ...
. Additionally, the riot grrrl movement has influenced an eclectic array of music genres and art in modern times.
![Skating Polly](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Skating_Polly.jpg)
In January 2019, Bikini Kill announced their reunion tour for the first time since their last show in Tokyo 22 years ago. ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' stated in an article about reunion that the once-underground riot grrrl movement has gone mainstream due to word of mouth from celebrities and the increased attention to other modern feminist developments such as the
Me Too movement
#MeToo is a social movement against sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape culture, in which people publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in ...
. In the same article, drummer Tobi Vail stated her frustration with lack of social progress related to feminism.
[
]These same issues still exist, being a woman in public is very intense, whether it’s in the public eye or just walking down the street at night by yourself.
Vail also explained the aims of their reunion, that women discover the band and understand their history, especially those who did not have the opportunity to hear them during the original riot grrrl movement.
We’re doing it because we want to be a part of this conversation about what feminism is in this moment.
Global proliferation
Since its beginnings, the riot grrrl movement was attractive to many women in varied cultures. Its spread across the world established bands in Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
, Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, Australia, Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
, and Europe, and its globalization was also aided by the distribution of zines across Asia, Europe, and South America. The discovery of riot grrrl provided women across the globe with access to an outlet that challenged the dominant culture's attitudes toward the female body through a form of self-expression that previously was often inaccessible to women in non-western nations. In addition to becoming a vehicle of expression for equality, bands in the genre affected the status quo of the music industry by challenging the gender norms that favoured male musicians.
One of the most well-known bands to come out of the globalization of the riot grrrl movement is Pussy Riot
Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest and performance art group based in Moscow that became popular for its provocative punk rock music which later turned into a more accessible style. Founded in August 2011, it has had a membership of appr ...
, a Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
n group formed in 2011 who self-identify as twenty-first century Russian riot grrrls. Pussy Riot first came to popular media attention in 2012 when they staged a protest performance of "Punk Prayer" at the altar of Moscow’s largest cathedral. The song includes an appeal to the Virgin Mary
Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...
to banish Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
. All three members of Pussy Riot were convicted of hooliganism
Hooliganism is disruptive or unlawful behavior such as rioting, bullying and vandalism, usually in connection with crowds at sporting events.
Etymology
There are several theories regarding the origin of the word ''hooliganism,'' which is a d ...
and sentenced two years' imprisonment.
Pussy Riot performs music with themes of feminism, LGBT rights
Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.
Notably, ...
, and opposition to the policies of Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom the group considers to be a dictator
A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in tim ...
. Pussy Riot embraces the ideals of riot grrrls by challenging the political climate they personally experience as well as the homophobic and patriarchal elements of everyday Russian life.
See also
* All-female band
*Bikini Kill
Bikini Kill is an American punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington, in October 1990. The group consisted of singer and songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and drummer Tobi Vail. The band pioneered th ...
*'' But I'm a Cheerleader''
*''C86
''C86'' is a cassette compilation released by the British music magazine '' NME'' in 1986, featuring new bands licensed from British independent record labels of the time. As a term, C86 quickly evolved into shorthand for a guitar-based music g ...
''
* Foxcore
*Girl Germs
''Girl Germs'' was a zine created by University of Oregon students Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman, both members of the band Bratmobile.
Feminism was influential in the Pacific Northwest in the early nineties: ''Girl Germs'' identified feminist ro ...
* Guerrilla Girls
*Girl power
Girl power is a slogan that encourages and celebrates women's empowerment, independence, confidence and strength. The slogan's invention is credited to the US punk band Bikini Kill, who published a zine called ''Bikini Kill #2: Girl Power'' i ...
*'' It Changed My Life: Bikini Kill In The UK''
*Kinderwhore
Kinderwhore was a clothing style used by a handful of mostly female grunge bands in the US during the early to mid-1990s. The kinderwhore look consisted of torn, ripped tight or low-cut babydoll and Peter-Pan-collared dresses, slips, knee-socks ...
*''Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains
''Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains'' is a 1982 teen musical drama film about three teenage girls, played by Diane Lane, Laura Dern and Marin Kanter, who start a punk band. The film also features acting roles by real-life punk musicians ...
''
*List of all-women bands
This is an alphabetized list of notable all-female bands, of all genres, and is a spin-off list from the all-female band article. It is an overview of notable all-female bands that have their own articles.
A band is a group of musicians who ar ...
*List of riot grrrl bands
The following is a list of Notability in the English Wikipedia, notable bands associated with riot grrrl from the early 1990s to the present, mainly in the United States and United Kingdom.
NB: some of these bands significantly pre-dated the ori ...
*''The Punk Singer
''The Punk Singer'' is a 2013 documentary film about feminist singer Kathleen Hanna who fronted the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, and who was a central figure in the riot grrrl movement. Directed by filmmaker Sini Anderson and produced by An ...
''
* Punk ideology
*Queercore
Queercore (or homocore) is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifical ...
*'' Radical Act''
*Rock Against Sexism
Rock Against Sexism (RAS) was a political and cultural movement dedicated to promoting women in music, and challenging sexism in the rock music community, pop culture and in the world at large. It was primarily a part of the punk rock music and ...
*''Tank Girl
''Tank Girl'' is a British comic book character created by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett, and first appeared in print in 1988 in the British comics magazine ''Deadline''. After a period of intense popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, ...
''
*Women in music
Women in music include women as composers, songwriters, instrumental performers, singers, conductors, music scholars, music educators, music critics/music journalists, and in other musical professions. Also, it describes music movements (e. ...
References
Further reading
*Gottlieb, Joanne and Gayle Wald. "Smells Like Teen Spirit: Riot Grrrls, Revolution, and Women in Independent Rock." ''Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture''. Eds. Andrew Ross and Tricia Rose. New York: Routledge, 1994.
*
*Kearney, Mary Celeste. "Brought to You by Girl Power: Riot Grrrl's Networked Media Economy," ''Girls Make Media''. New York: Routledge, 2006. .
*Kearney, Mary Celeste. "‘Don’t Need You’: Rethinking Identity Politics and Separatism from a Grrrl Perspective," ''Youth Culture: Identity in a Postmodern World ''. Ed. Jonathan Epstein. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1998. .
*Kearney, Mary Celeste. "The Missing Links: Riot Grrrl—Feminism—Lesbian Culture." ''Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender''. Ed. Sheila Whiteley. New York: Routledge, 1997. .
*Leonard, Marion. "Feminism,‘Subculture’, and Grrrl Power." ''Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender''. Ed. Sheila Whiteley. New York: Routledge, 1997. .
*Nguyen, Mimi Thi. "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival." ''Women & Performance'' 22. 2-3 (2012): 173-196.
External links
Articles
The 10 myths of Riot Grrrl
Grrrl power
by Laura Barton
Riot Girl: still relevant 20 years on
by Jessica Hopper
Dedicated Websites
* ttps://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=18LUKCYu_lMY4LW3nCsKfTmau7-w Riot Grrrl International Chaptersbr>The Riot Grrrl Manifesto
She Came to Riot
Sophia Smith Collection zines collection
at the Sophia Smith Collection
The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College is an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history.
General
One of the largest recognized repositories of manuscripts, a ...
, Smith College Special Collections
{{Authority control
Cassette culture 1970s–1990s
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Hardcore punk genres
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Queercore
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