Riot grrrl

Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia[1], Washington[2] and the greater Pacific Northwest. It also expanded to at least 26 other countries.[3] Riot grrrl is a subcultural movement that combines feminism, punk music and politics.[4] It is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as having grown out of the riot grrrl movement, and has recently been seen in current fourth-wave feminist punk music.[5] It has also been described as a genre that came out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a movement in which women could express themselves in the same way men have been doing all along.[6]

For the album by Aya Hirano, see Riot Girl.

Riot grrrl
Stylistic origins
Musical
Ideological
Cultural originsEarly 1990s, Pacific Northwest and Olympia, Washington, US
Typical instruments
  • Electric Guitar
  • Vocal
  • Bass Guitar
  • Drums
  • Electric Keyboards
Regional scenes
Washington
Local scenes
Olympia, Washington, US
Other topics
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Feminism
 Feminism portal

Riot grrrl bands often address issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, racism, patriarchy, classism, anarchism and female empowerment. Primary bands associated with the movement include Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, Excuse 17, Huggy Bear, Skinned Teen, Emily's Sassy Lime and Sleater-Kinney, as well as queercore groups such as Team Dresch and the Third Sex.[7][8] In addition to a unique music scene and genre, riot grrrl became a subculture involving a DIY ethic, zines, art, political action and activism.[9] 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 forms of prejudice and oppression, especially physical and emotional violence against all genders.[10] Riot grrrls are known to hold meetings, start chapters,[3] and support and organize women in music[11] as well as art created by transgender people, gays and lesbians, and other oppressed communities.

Origins

During the late 1970s throughout the mid-1980s there were a number of groundbreaking female punk and mainstream rock musicians who later influenced the riot grrrl ethos. These included Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene, the Slits, Au Pairs, the Raincoats, Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde, the Runaways/Joan Jett, the B-52's, LiLiPUT, Lydia Lunch, Exene Cervenka, Kim Gordon, Ut, Neo Boys, Bush Tetras, Y Pants, ESG, Chalk Circle, Fifth Column, Frightwig, X-Ray Spex, Scrawl, and Anti-Scrunti Faction.[12] The 1980s also featured a number of female folk singers from New York whose lyrics were realistic and socio-political, but also personally intimate.[12]

During the mid-1980s in Vancouver, the influential Mecca Normal fronted by poet Jean Smith formed. They were followed by Sugar Baby Doll in San Francisco whose members would all wind up in hardcore female bands.[13] Sassy magazine then premiered in 1987 and dealt with tough subjects that many conventional magazines aimed at teenage girls did not.[13] In 1989, an article titled, "Women, sex and rock and roll," was published by Puncture, a punk zine edited by Katherine Spielmann, and became the first manifesto of the movement.[13] Two years later in 1991, Your Dream Girl, a radio show hosted by Lois Maffeo, debuted on Olympia, Washington radio station KAOS.[13]

During the early 1990s the Seattle/Olympia Washington area had a sophisticated do it yourself infrastructure.[12] Women involved in independent and underground music scenes took advantage of their platform to articulate their feminist thoughts and desires by creating punk-rock fanzines and punk bands. The political model of collage-based, photocopied handbills and booklets had already been used by the punk movement as a way to spread the names of underground bands, leftist politics and alternative (to mainstream) sub-cultures. There was a discomfort among many women in the punk movement who felt that they had no space for organizing, because of the exclusion of women in punk culture. Many women found that while they identified with a larger, music-oriented subculture, they often had little to no voice in their local scenes. Women at the punk-rock shows often saw themselves as the musician's girlfriend or groupies, so they took it upon themselves to represent their own interests by making their fanzines, music and art.[14]

In 1991, young women coalesced in an unorganized collective response to several women's issues, such as the Christian Coalition's Right to Life attack on legal abortion and the Senate Judiciary Hearings into Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.[15] Young feminist voices were heard through multiple protests, actions, and events such as the formative opening night of the International Pop Underground Convention[16] and later L7's Rock for Choice.

Uses and meanings of the term "riot grrrl" developed slowly over time, but its etymological origins can be traced to the actual Mount Pleasant race riots in spring 1991. Bratmobile member Jen Smith (later of Rastro! and the Quails), used the phrase "girl riot" in a letter to Allison Wolfe.[15][17][18] Soon afterwards, Wolfe and Molly Neuman collaborated with Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail to create a new zine and called it Riot Grrrl, combining the "riot" with an oft-used phrase that first appeared in Vail's fanzine Jigsaw "Revolution Grrrl Style Now".[19] Riot grrrls took a growling double or triple r, placing it in the word girl, as a way to take back the derogatory use of the term.[20]

Bikini Kill
Main article: Bikini Kill

Kathleen Hanna had been studying at The Evergreen State College in Olympia. She participated in a small collective art gallery called Reko Muse, which would frequently host bands like the Go Team and Some Velvet Sidewalk to play in between art exhibitions (partially just to keep the gallery running). Hanna started a band, Amy Carter (named after the daughter of the US President Jimmy Carter), with fellow gallery-founders Heidi Arbogast and Tammy Rae Carland. After touring with some other projects like Viva Knievel, she hooked up with Go Team drummer and zinester Tobi Vail, who had been writing of her own experiences:

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.

They started working together on another fanzine called Bikini Kill, which, after recruiting friends Kathi Wilcox and Billy "Boredom" Karren, would eventually become a band.[19][21]

Bratmobile
Main article: Bratmobile
Bratmobile in 1994.

Allison Wolfe met Molly Neuman at the University of Oregon. Wolfe introduced Neuman to bands such as Beat Happening and the Melvins, Neuman introduced Wolfe to sociology classes and Public Enemy.

They began working on zines called Girl Germs, and later riot grrrl with Tobi Vail, Kathleen Hanna and Jen Smith.

It was a really hippie town, and we were getting really politicized, but also really into this DIY thing, so we kinda started creating. 'Let's make our own fanzine!'[22]

Wolfe and Neuman started frequenting shows by bands like Fugazi and Nirvana. In 1990, Calvin Johnson called them up and asked them to play a show on Valentine's Day with Some Velvet Sidewalk and the newly formed Bikini Kill. They accepted it as a dare and played the show at Olympia's North Shore Surf club. Guitarist Erin Smith joined in March 1991.

International Pop Underground Convention
Main article: International Pop Underground Convention

From August 20 – 25, 1991, K Records held an indie music festival called the International Pop Underground Convention. 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 instructors who live by night, all are setting aside August 20–25, 1991 as the time.[23]

An all-female bill on the first night, called "Love Rock Revolution Girl Style Now!" signalled a major step in the movement.[24][25] The lineup featured Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, Nikki McClure, Lois Maffeo, Jean Smith of Mecca Normal, 7 Year Bitch, and two side projects of Kathleen Hanna: the first was Suture with Sharon Cheslow of Chalk Circle (DC's first all-women punk band) and Dug E. Bird of Beefeater, the second was the Wondertwins with Tim Green of Nation of Ulysses. It was here that so many zinester 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 featured other bands such as Unwound, L7, the Fastbacks, the Spinanes, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Girl Trouble, the Pastels, Kicking Giant, Rose Melberg, Seaweed, Kreviss, I Scream Truck, Scrawl, Nation of Ulysses, Jad Fair, Thee Headcoats, and Steve Fisk, and spoken-word artist Juliana Luecking. 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.[26]

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" message, or co-opted by ostensibly women-centered bands (though sometimes with only one female performer per band) and festivals like Lilith Fair. Later waves of riot grrrl chapters opened in Latin America, North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia through to the 2010s.

Of the original riot grrrl bands, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy and Huggy Bear had split in 1994, Excuse 17 and most of the UK bands had split by 1995, and Bikini Kill and Emily's Sassy Lime released their last records in 1996. However, Team Dresch were active as late as 1998, the Gossip were active from 1999, Bratmobile reformed in 2000 and, perhaps most prolific of all, Sleater-Kinney were active - initially - from 1994 to 2006, releasing 7 albums.

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 "protest pop" group Le Tigre and later the Julie Ruin, Kathi Wilcox joined the Casual Dots with Christina Billotte of Slant 6, and Tobi Vail formed Spider and the Webs. Corin Tucker of Heavens to Betsy and Carrie Brownstein of Excuse 17 co-founded Sleater-Kinney at the tail end of the original movement, and reformed the band again in 2014 after an 8-year hiatus, 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 and managing the Donnas, Ted Leo, Some Girls, and the Locust. Kaia Wilson of Team Dresch and multimedia artist Tammy Rae Carland went on to form the now-defunct Mr. Lady Records which released albums by the Butchies, the Need, Kiki and Herb, and Tracy + the Plastics.

Feminism and riot grrrl culture

Riot grrrl culture is often associated with third wave feminism, 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.[27] 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, sexuality, and female empowerment.[28]

An undated, typewritten Bikini Kill tour flier answers the question "What is Riot grrrl?" with:

"[Riot 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."[29]

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, but had to 'fight ten times harder' because they were female, and sexually charged violence such as groping and rape had been reported."[30]

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.[19] The bands weren't always enthusiastically received at shows by male audience members. Punk Planet 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 editors' use of 'bitches', 'cunts', 'man-haters', and 'dykes' was proof-positive that sexism was still strong in the punk scene.

Kathi Wilcox said in a fanzine interview:

I've been in a state of surprise for several years about this very thing. I don't know why so-called punk rockers are so threatened by a little shake-up of the truly boring dynamic of the standard show atmosphere. How fresh is the idea of fifty sweaty hardcore boys slamming into each other or jumping on each others' heads? Granted, it's kind of cool to be on stage and have action in the front, much more inspiring than to look out at a crowd of zombies, but so often the survival-of-the-fittest principle is in operation in the pit, and what girl wants to go up against a pack of Rollins boys who usually only want to be extra mean to her anyway just to make her "prove" her place in the pit. This was the case when I was first going to shows, and it's sad that things haven't changed at all since. ... But it would have been so cool if at one of these shows someone onstage would have said, hey let's have more girls up in the front, just so I could have had more company and girls over to side could have seen better/been in the action. So yeah, we do encourage girls to the front, and sometimes when shows have gotten really violent (like when we were in England) we had to ask the boys to move to the side or the back because it was just too fucking scary for us, after several attacks and threats, to face another sea of hostile boy-faces right in the front.[31]

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."[32]

Many men were supporters of riot grrrl culture and acts. Calvin Johnson and Slim Moon have been instrumental in publishing riot grrrl bands on the labels they founded, K Records and Kill Rock Stars 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."[33] 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 and even convinced the Raincoats to reform. He once said, "The future of rock belongs to women."[34] 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."[33] Riot grrrl concerts provided a safe haven for women, and often addressed issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality and female empowerment. 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.[35]

Influenced heavily by DIY culture, most bands' presentation subverted traditional or classically trained 'musicianship' in favor of raw, primitive, avant-lo-fi passion and fiercely deliberate amateurism: an idea growing rapidly in popularity, especially in the Olympia music scene, 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.

Media Misconceptions

As media attention increasingly focused on grunge and alternative rock in the early nineties, the term "Riot Grrrl" was often used as a catchall for female-fronted bands and applied to less political alternative rock acts. While many of these female-centric or all-women rock bands such as Hole, 7 Year Bitch, Babes in Toyland, the Breeders, the Gits, Lunachicks, Liz Phair, Veruca Salt, and L7 shared similar DIY tactics and feminist ideologies with the riot grrrl movement, not all of these bands or musicians self-identified with the riot grrrl label.

To their chagrin, in 1992 riot grrrls found themselves in the media spotlight gracing magazines from Seventeen to Newsweek.[36][37] Fallout from the media coverage led to resignations from the movement, including Jessica Hopper, a teenaged music critic who was at the center of the Newsweek article. To ease tension, Kathleen Hanna called a "press block" for that year. In an essay from January 1994 that had been included in the CD version of Bikini Kill's first two records, 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.'

Musician 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 barrettes in their hair or writing 'slut' on their stomach.

Musician Corin Tucker 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 and sexual assault for teenagers and young women. I think those are really important concepts that the media never addressed.[38]

Other female-fronted punk bands, such as Spitboy, 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.[39] Lesbian-centric Queercore[40] bands, such as Fifth Column, Tribe 8, Adickdid, the Third Sex, Excuse 17, and Team Dresch, wrote songs dealing with matters specific to women and their position in society, exploring issues such as both sexual[41] and gender identity.[42] A documentary film put together by a San Diego psychiatrist, Dr. Lisa Rose Apramian, Not Bad for a Girl, explored some of these issues in interviews with many of the musicians in the riot grrrl scene at the time.[43]

Other bands and artists associated with the United States riot grrrl movement include Slant 6, Sta-Prest, Jenny Toomey, Tattle Tale, Jack Off Jill, the Need, Nomy Lamm, Lucid Nation, the Frumpies, Bangs, and the Quails; and in the United Kingdom, Blood Sausage, Mambo Taxi, Voodoo Queens, Pussycat Trash, Frantic Spiders, Linus, Sister George and Lungleg.

Zines and publications

Even as the Seattle-area rock scene came to international mainstream media attention, riot grrrl remained a willfully underground phenomenon.[29] Most musicians shunned the major record labels, devotedly working instead with indie labels such as Kill Rock Stars, K Records, Slampt, Piao! Records, Simple Machines, Catcall, WIIIJA and Chainsaw Records. The movement also figured fairly prominently in cassette culture, with artists often starting their own DIY cassette labels by as basic and spartan a means as recording their music onto cheap off-the-shelf boom-boxes 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 defiantly homemade cut and paste, xeroxed, collagey zines that covered a variety of feminist topics, frequently attempting to draw out the political implications of intensely personal experiences in a "privately public" space.[29] Zines often described experiences with sexism, mental illness, body image and eating disorders, sexual abuse, racism, rape, discrimination, stalking, domestic violence, incest, 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.[44]

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 and Anne Frank, the thoughts of teenage girls have rarely been taken seriously.

Bands would often attempt to reappropriate derogatory phrases like "cunt", "bitch", "dyke", and "slut", 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.[15] 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, Sister Nobody, Jane Gets A Divorce and I (heart) Amy Carter by Tammy Rae Carland 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 of Riot Grrrl.

Starting during the fall of 2010, the "Riot Grrrl Collection" has been housed at New York University's Fales Library 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 [Riot Grrrl] movement overall".[45] Kathleen Hanna, Johanna Fateman, and Becca Albee have donated primary source material, while Molly Neuman, Allison Wolfe, Kathi Wilcox, and Carrie Brownstein are expected to donate material shortly. 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, "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".[45][46]

Criticism

The "Riot Grrrl" movement has received criticism for not being inclusive enough. Riot Girls are often accused of being separatists: they want to form a life away from men and invent "girl culture".[47] One major argument is that the movement focuses on middle-class white women, alienating other kinds of women.[48][49][50] 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.[29]

Musician Courtney Love 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![51]

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, a trans-exclusionary events that had a "womyn-born womyn" policy. Former members of Le Tigre did see protests at their shows for having participated in the festival in 2001.[52] 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, another former member of Le Tigre, is a proponent of gender fluidity[53]. The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, celebrated its last annual festival in 2015. The Advocate speculated that the decision was related ongoing controversy around the festival's decision to not admit transgender women.

Legacy and Resurgence
Carrie Brownstein of Excuse 17 and Sleater-Kinney in 2005

In the foreword to the 2007 book, Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now!, Beth Ditto 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.[54]

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 NOW feminist trying to take a stand in shop class. Now I am a musician, a writer, a whole person.[54]

Many women write to Hanna in hopes of reviving the Riot Grrrl Movement. Hanna says, "Don’t revive it, make something better".[55] In 2010 Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution became the first published history of the riot grrrl movement.[56][57] The author had had also attended Riot Grrrl meetings herself.[58] As of 2019 there were approximately ten weekly riot grrrl meetings held nationwide and bands multiplying faster than can be counted.[47][59]

The Regrettes formed in 2015 and merge riot grrrl with elements of doo-wop[60]

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.[61][62][63] 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[64]).

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)[65] and a roller derby league in Singapore.[66]

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.[67][68] 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.[69] 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. Additionally, the riot grrrl movement has influenced an eclectic array of music genres and art in modern times.

In January 2019, Bikini Kill announced their reunion tour for the first time since their last show in Tokyo 22 years ago. The Guardian 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. In the same article, drummer Tobi Vail stated her frustration with lack of social progress related to feminism.[70]

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.[70]

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.[70]

Global Proliferation
Pussy Riot. Photo by Denis Bochkarev.

Since its beginnings, the riot grrrl movement was attractive to many women in varied cultures. Its spread across the world established bands in Brazil, Paraguay, Israel, Australia, Malaysia, and Europe,[71] and it's globalization was also aided by the distribution of zines across Asia, Europe, and South America.[72] The discovery of riot grrrl provided women across the globe with access to an outlet that challenged the dominant culture around female bodies through a form of self-expression[71] that previously was often inaccessible to women in non-western nations.[72] 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.[73]

One of the most well-known bands to come out of the globalization of the riot grrrl movement is Pussy Riot, a Russian group who self-identifies as twenty-first century Russian riot grrrls.[72] 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 lines such as, “Holy Mother, Blessed Virgin, chase Putin out!”[74] All three members of Pussy Riot at the time were arrested by authorities and accused of hooliganism.

Currently Pussy Riot performs music with themes of feminism, LGBT rights, and opposition to the policies of Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom the group considers to be a dictator.[75] 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.[72]

gollark: Currently I think it's mostly just useful as a writer's block avoidance tool.
gollark: So you have to be careful with prompting and probably not expect it to write your entire thing from scratch.
gollark: I mean, it's trained to predict the next text in things, not to accurately reproduce the facts you give it or something.
gollark: Worrying.
gollark: If you aren't using it how is it enslowing things?

See also

References
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  4. Garrison, Ednie-Kach (2000). "U.S. Feminism-Grrrl Style! Youth (Sub)Cultures and the Technologics of the Third Wave". Feminist Studies. 26 (1): 142. doi:10.2307/3178596. JSTOR 3178596.
  5. "When punk went feminist: the history of riot grrl". Gen Rise Media. May 12, 2020. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
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  8. Meltzer, Marisa (February 15, 2010). Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music. Macmillan. p. 42. ISBN 9781429933285.
  9. Jackson, Buzzy (2005). A Bad Woman Feeling Good: Blues and the Women Who Sing Them. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-05936-6.
  10. Forman-Brunell, Miriam (2001). Girlhood in American: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 563. ISBN 9781576072066.
  11. Schilt, Kristen (2003). ""A Little Too Ironic": The Appropriation and Packaging of Riot Grrrl Politics by Mainstream Female Musicians" (PDF). Popular Music and Society. 26 (1): 5. doi:10.1080/0300776032000076351.
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  13. E. McDonnell, Rock She Wrote (Cooper Square Press, 1999), ISBN 0815410182
  14. Rosenberg, Jessica; Garofalo, Gitana. "Riot Grrrl: Revolutions from Within". Signs.
  15. Marcus, Sara (2010). Girls to the Front. Harper. p. 146. ISBN 9780061806360.
  16. Marcus, Sara (2010). Girls to the Front: The true story of the riot grrrl revolution. HarperCollins. p. 94. ISBN 9780061806360.
  17. Andersen, Mark (2001). Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital. Soft Skull Press. ISBN 978-1887128490.
  18. Leonard, Marion (1998). "Paper Planes: Travelling the New Grrrl Geographies". In Skelton, Tracey; Valentine, Gill (eds.). Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. Routledge. pp. 101–118.
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  23. Baumgarten, Mark (2012). Love Rock Revolution: K Records and the rise of independent music. Sasquatch Books. ISBN 978-1570618222.
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  25. Moore, Ryan (2009). Sells Like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth Culture, and Social Crisis. NYU Press. ISBN 9780814796030.
  26. Leonard, Marion (2007). Gender in the Music Industry: Rock, Discourse and Girl Power. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 9780754638629.
  27. Fisher, J.A. (May 16, 2013). "Today's Feminism: A Brief Look at Third-Wave Feminism." Being Feminist". Wordpress. Retrieved December 6, 2015.
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  70. Ewens, Hannah. "Riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill: 'We're back. It's intense'" The Guardian. 9 Jan. 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/jun/09/bikini-kill-riot-grrrl-were-back-its-intense
  71. Wright, Lindsay (2016). "Do-It-Yourself Girl Power: An Examination of the Riot Grrrl Subculture" (PDF). James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal. 3: 56.
  72. Dunn, Kevin C. (June 16, 2014). "Pussy Rioting". International Feminist Journal of Politics. 16 (2): 317–334. doi:10.1080/14616742.2014.919103. ISSN 1461-6742.
  73. DOWNES, JULIA (January 11, 2012). "The Expansion of Punk Rock: Riot Grrrl Challenges to Gender Power Relations in British Indie Music Subcultures". Women's Studies. 41 (2): 204–237. doi:10.1080/00497878.2012.636572. ISSN 0049-7878.
  74. "Police Open Criminal Probe into 'Punk Prayer' at Christ the Savior Cathedral". sputniknews.com. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
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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.
  • Kaltefleiter, Caroline K. (2016). "Start your own revolution: agency and action of the Riot Grrrl network". International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 36 (11/12): 808–823. doi:10.1108/IJSSP-06-2016-0067. ISSN 0144-333X.
  • Kearney, Mary Celeste. "Brought to You by Girl Power: Riot Grrrl's Networked Media Economy," Girls Make Media. New York: Routledge, 2006. ISBN 0-415-97278-7.
  • 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. ISBN 1557868506.
  • 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. ISBN 0-415-14670-4.
  • Leonard, Marion. "Feminism,‘Subculture’, and Grrrl Power." Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender. Ed. Sheila Whiteley. New York: Routledge, 1997. ISBN 0-415-14670-4.
  • Nguyen, Mimi Thi. "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival." Women & Performance 22. 2-3 (2012): 173-196.

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