Riot Grrrl Totally Explained

Everything about Riot Grrrl totally explained

Riot grrrl (or riot grrl) is an underground feminist punk movement that started in the early 1990s and is often associated with third-wave feminism (it is sometimes seen as its starting point). However, riot grrrl's emphasis on universal female identity and separatism often appears more closely allied with second-wave feminism than with the third wave. Riot grrrl bands often address issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, and female empowerment. Some bands associated with the movement are: Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Le Tigre, Excuse 17, Free Kitten, Heavens to Betsy, Huggy Bear, L7, and Team Dresch. In addition to a music scene, riot grrrl is also a subculture; zines, the DIY ethic, art, political action, and activism are part of the movement. Riot grrrls hold meetings, start chapters, and support and organize women in music.

History

Origins

In the early 1990s, many young women involved in underground music scenes throughout the United States articulated their feminist thoughts and desires through the "Do-It-Yourself" methods of making punk-rock fanzines and forming garage bands. The political model of collage-based, photocopied handbills and booklets was already used by the punk movement as a way to activate underground music, leftist politics and alternative (to mainstream) sub-cultures. Many women found that while they identified with a larger, music-oriented subculture, they often had little to no voice in their local scenes, so they took it upon themselves to represent their own interests by making their own fanzines, music and art.
   In 1991, in what many believe to be an unorganized collective response to the Christian Coalition's Right to Life attack on abortion and the Senate Judiciary Hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas--in which Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment and was mocked by the media--young feminist voices were heard through multiple protests, actions and events (L7's Rock for Choice) that would later become part of a larger organized consciousness. This consciousness coalesced in late 1991 under the movement known as "riot grrrl."
   Women and bands often cited as important influences to this movement in feminism include but are not limited to: Suzi Quatro, Patti Smith, Daisy Chainsaw, X-Ray Spex, Crass, The Avengers, Yoko Ono, Joan Jett and The Runaways, The Slits, L7, Lunachicks, Ann Magnuson of Bongwater, Gladys Bentley, The Plasmatics, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Ronettes, The Raincoats, Aretha Franklin, Betty Davis, The Shirelles, Honey Bane, Ma Rainey, Moe Tucker, Big in Japan, Judy Nylon, Nico, Bush Tetras, Au Pairs, Niagara, Sharon Cheslow, Penetration, The Shaggs, Rubella Ballet, LiLiPUT, Lydia Lunch, Poison Girls, Exene Cervenka, Julia Cafritz of Pussy Galore, The Nuns, The Bags, Frightwig, The Shop Assistants, Kim Gordon, Yeastie Girls and others; feminist artists like Carolee Schneemann, Linda Benglis, Yayoi Kusama, Martha Rosler, Johanna Went, Diamanda Galás, Vaginal Creme Davis, and Barbara Kruger; and writers such as Angela Davis, Kathy Acker, bell hooks, Gertrude Stein, Julia Kristeva, Emma Goldman, and Le Butcherettes, which is a band of two young women that dress up like house-wives and sing sensually about gender politics .
   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. Writing in Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital, Mark Andersen reports that early Bratmobile member Jen Smith (later of Rastro! and The Quails), reacted to the violence by prophetically writing in a letter to Allison Wolfe: "This summer's going to be a girl riot." Other reports say she wrote, "We need to start a girl riot." 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: "angry grrls".

"Revolution Grrrl Style Now"

Although they're known for frequently denying exclusive credit for the movement, two bands in particular remain inextricably linked to its early formation.

Bikini Kill

Kathleen Hanna had been working as an exotic dancer to support herself, volunteering at a women's shelter, and studying photography at Evergreen State College in Olympia, where she'd opened her own small art gallery called Reko Muse, and would frequently have bands like The Go Team and Some Velvet Sidewalk play in between art exhibitions (partially just to keep the gallery running). While there, she started a band herself called Amy Carter with fellow gallery-founders Heidi Arbogast and Tammy Rae Carland to open at shows. After touring with some other projects like Viva Knievel, she hooked up with The Go Team drummer and zinester Tobi Vail, who'd been writing of her own experiences:
Bikini Kill, which would eventually become a band after recruiting friends Kathi Wilcox and Billy "Boredom" Karren.

Bratmobile

Allison Wolfe met Molly Neuman at the University of Oregon, and while Wolfe was turning Neuman onto bands like Beat Happening and The Melvins, Neuman was introducing Wolfe to sociology classes and Public Enemy.
They began working on zines called Girl Germs, and later riot grrrl with Vail and Hanna.
Wolfe and Neuman started frequenting shows by bands like Fugazi and Nirvana, bragging every chance they got about their band Bratmobile (which at the time didn't really exist yet). In 1990 though, Calvin Johnson called them up and asked them to play a show on Valentine's Day with Some Velvet Sidewalk and Bikini Kill, which had just started. Terrified at first, insisting they weren't really a band and having only played a few garagey jam sessions at each others' houses, they finally accepted it as a dare and played the show at Olympia's North Shore Surf club. After eventually hooking up with guitarist Erin Smith in March '91, they finally started playing together as a trio just in time for the IPU convention in August of that year.

International Pop Underground Convention

From August 20-25, 1991, K Records held an indie music festival called the International Pop Underground (IPU) Convention. A promotional poster reads:
Heavens to Betsy, Nikki McClure, Lois Maffeo, Jean Smith of Mecca Normal, 7 Year Bitch, and 2 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 following days would also feature bands like 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, The Melvins, Jad Fair, Thee Headcoats, and Steve Fisk.
   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've 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 70s, 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.
   Quickly amassing a devoted cult audience, the riot grrrl bands worked to ensure their shows were safe spaces in which women could find solidarity and create their own subculture, thus setting the tone for much of the movement. Consciousness-raising activist-punk group meetings began taking place in international chapters, held in any available space from dorm rooms to community centres to studio apartments, soon becoming much bigger things like conventions and conferences, one of the first of which took place from July 31-August 2 1992 in Washington, DC.
   Other bands and artists associated with the riot grrrl movement in one way or another include Mecca Normal, Slant 6, Sta-Prest, Sue P. Fox, Jenny Toomey, Autoclave, Jack Off Jill, Raooul, Nomy Lamm, Excuse 17, Oiler, Canopy, Third Sex, Cheesecake, CWA (Cunts with Attitude), Tattle Tale, Growing Up Skipper, The Need, Team Dresch, Fifth Column, Bangs, Free Kitten, Emily's sassy lime, The PeeChees; in the UK, bands like Huggy Bear, Mambo Taxi, Skinned Teen, Pussycat Trash, The Phantom Pregnancies, Linus, Budget Girls, Sister George, Karen Ablaze, and Voodoo Queens; and in Asia, bands like Hang on the Box, Nonstop Body, Red Bacteria Vacuum, and Lolita No. 18.
   However, it's also worth noting that there were quite a few girl-centric or all-women punk bands of this era like 7 Year Bitch, Red Aunts, Thee Headcoatees, or Spitboy, who were plenty independent and political themselves, but didn't necessarily self-identify with the 'riot grrrl' label, despite sharing similar DIY tactics and feminist ideologies.

Zines and self publishing

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, devotedly working instead with indie labels such as Kill Rock Stars, K Records, Slampt, Piao! Records, 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 with sexism, mental illness, body image and eating disorders, sexual abuse, racism, rape, discrimination, stalking, domestic violence, incest, homosexuality, and sometimes vegetarianism. 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:
Fantastic Fanzine; Ms. America; Satan Wears A Bra; Quit Whining; The Kitten Kore; resister; Wrecking Ball; Battle Dress; Not Your Bitch; Mons of Venus; Princess Charming; h2so4; Bamboo Girl; Ocho y Media; Looks Yellow, Tastes Red; Cupsize; ROCKRGRL; Pucker Up; Sourpuss; Alien; Gogglebox; Ben is Dead; Maxine; Kusp; Mama; provo-CAT-ive; Bust; Easy; hip Mama; FaT GiRL; Pisces Ladybug; Plotz; Girlie Jones; Brat Attack; Hey There, Barbie Girl; Scram; I Am A Cliché; Rats Live on No Evil Star; Boji for the Mentally Ill; Quarter Inch Squares; Sewer; Doris; Blue Stocking; Pawholes; Scrawl; Charm Booklet; youtalkintame?; Diabolical Clits; Hope; Pasty; Tobi's Veil; Twat! A Grrrl Zine Catalogue; Wives Tales; two girls review; Yawp; YOB; Spilt Milk; Squealworm; Spinsterwitch; Slug and Lettuce; Starache; Sticks and Stones; Patti Smith; Tazewell's Favorite Eccentric; Thrift Store; Pussycat Rag; Ramona the Infamous Toothpaste Queen; Rebel Fux!; Rock Candy; Sappho's Scribblers; Skin on Skin; Skew; Madwoman; Maxine; Ms. 45; Ms. Stucco Girl; Mudflaps; Muffin Bones; My Last Nerve; My Live and My Sex Thrive in the J. Crew Catalogue; Mystery Date; Pornorama; Fat! So?; Girljock; Glitterscum; Hot Snot Pot; Imaginary Friend; I'm so Fuckin' Beautiful; Lezzie Smut; J.T.O.:; Indignant Gingham; bunny rabbit; Butterknife Junior; Bombscare; Cupcake; Dog Star Girl; Disgruntl TV; Ectodern; Everything I Touch Turns to Shit and Garbage; Face First; Coming Out Party; Cunt; Crush; Cheshire; Boredom Sucks; 100% Acrylic; The Adventures of Baby Dyke; Aunt Franne; Babykins; The Bad Girl Club; The Barber Shop News; Oppress This; Bi-Girl World; Billy's Mitten; Sissy Butch; Bea's Busy Bush; Sanimag; Feeble; Cunt Fear; Out, Damn Spot and many others.
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.

Concerts and conflict

Although many riot grrrl bands included male band members, like Billy Karren of Bikini Kill or Jon Slade and Chris Rowley of Huggy Bear, the bands weren't always so enthusiastically received at shows by male audience members. Bands like Bikini Kill would often actively invite members of the audience to talk about their personal experiences with sensitive issues like sexual abuse, pass out lyric sheets to everyone in the audience girl and boy, and almost always demand that the mosh boys move to the back or side to allow space in front for the girls in the audience, a controversial decision which sometimes led to booing (and sometimes violence) and once caused Melody Maker to accuse them and riot grrrl in general of being "anti-men", a common criticism.
   However Punk Planet editor Daniel Sinker wrote in We Owe You Nothing:
Kathi Wilcox said in a fanzine interview:
Bands would often reappropriate ordinarily derogatory phrases like 'cunt', 'bitch', 'dyke' and 'slut' (the very same words often received from male audience members), writing them proudly on their skin with lipstick or fat markers, thus nullifying their attempted offensive power and making them ultimately harmless and funny.
   Kathleen Hanna would later write:
   Indeed, members of riot grrrl culture, fans or members of bands, include males too. Calvin Johnson and Slim Moon have been instrumental in publishing a great many of the 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."

Media misconceptions

As media attention increasingly focused on alternative rock in the early nineties, the term 'Riot Grrrl' was often applied to less political (and less independent) female alternative music acts such as Hole, Veruca Salt, The Breeders, PJ Harvey, and even No Doubt. To their chagrin, riot grrrls found themselves in the media spotlight during 1992, accused of dragging feminism into the mosh pit in magazines from Seventeen to Newsweek. This increased press coverage led to conflict within the riot grrrl community as many felt that the culture was being misappropriated by the media against the movement's will and its radical message marginalized, as well as adversely affecting their private lives, with the media often deliberately lying and relying largely on erroneous speculation and conjecture about personal information and motivations. Fallout from the media coverage led to resignations of people like Jessica Hopper, who was at the center of the Newsweek article. Kathleen Hanna called that year for "a press block". In an essay from January 1994, included in the CD version of Bikini Kill's first two records, Tobi Vail responded to media simplifications and mis-characterization of Riot Grrrl:
Writer/musician/historian/performance artist Sharon Cheslow said in EMP's Riot Grrrl Retrospective documentary:
Sleater-Kinney said:
Legacy 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 and festivals (though sometimes with only one female performer per band) like Lilith Fair.
However, the influence of riot grrrl can still be felt in many aspects of indie and punk rock culture. 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.
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 punky 'protest pop' group Le Tigre, 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 movement, and Bratmobile reunited in 2000 to release two albums, before Allison Wolfe began singing with a new all-women band, Partyline. Molly Nueman now runs 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.
   In addition, girl-positive independent music festivals such as Ladyfest continue to thrive, and many DIY elements promoted by the early riot grrrl tradition endure in other contemporary independent female bands, whether or not they personally self-identify with the movement, including The Gossip, Erase Errata, Scarling., Swan Island, Mika Miko, The Peppermints, Comet Gain, The Husbands, Lung Leg, Panty Raid, the tigers, Gravy Train!!!!, The Riff Randells, LOOK LOOK (dancing boys), Manic Cough, titti!, Comanechi, Winelord, Le Paper Dolls!, Follow That Bird!, FINALLY PUNK, BEESSIES FOREVER, care bears on fire, Tricrotic, Tu Seras TerriblemenT Gentille, Tamar-Kali, The Deptford Beach Babes, Misty Martinez, The A-Lines, Las Pulpas, New Bloods, The Magik Markers, Les Georges Leningrad, MODERN REVERIES, Shoplifting, Caroliner Rainbow, The Shondes and Peaches.
   The legacy of riot grrrl is clearly visible in numerous girls and women worldwide who cite the movement as an interest or an influence on their lives and/or their work. Some just listen to riot grrrl bands while others form or join bands themselves, slowly paving the way for fulfillment of one of the goals of original riot grrrl - increasing the number and significance of women in alternative music and music in general. Some of them are self-proclaimed riot grrrls while others consider themselves simply admirers or fans. There are many fansites and message boards for riot grrrl on the Internet.
   In the foreword to Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now! Beth Ditto writes of riot grrrl,
Writing about riot grrrl's personal influence on her and her music, she muses on the meaning of the movement for her generation,

Relation to feminism

Riot grrrl culture is often associated with third wave feminism, which also grew rapidly during the same early nineties timeframe. It is often viewed as a third wave feminism cultural movement, and sometimes seen as its starting point. However, riot grrrl's emphasis on universal female identity and separatism often seems more closely allied with second wave feminism. On the other hand, third wave feminism attempted to foster an acceptance of the diversity of feminist expression. Riot grrrl arose after the queercore movement, although the distinction between the two movements is at times blurred, given bands such as Team Dresch and Fifth Column who embraced both genres. Riot grrrl lyrics often address issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality and female empowerment. Nomy Lamm has said:
Corin Tucker said:

Riot Grrrl in popular culture

In film

The producers of the film Itty Bitty Titty Committee have mentioned that the film was "very much inspired by the riot grrrl music of the early 90s, and we wanted to do a film that was in the spirit of that type of music".
In the film 10 Things I Hate About You, Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles' character) listens to Grrrl music as a hobby, and a lifestyle.
Times Square
All Over Me
Red Doors (2006) included a shot of the words "riot grrrl" on character Katie Wong's locker
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains
In the film "Not Another Teen Movie", Jeanie, the main character, claims to listen to Bikini Kill

In fiction

Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing - a semi-fictional depiction of the guerrilla activist riot grrrl/anarcho-punk scene of 90s DC, told in an epistolary collage of documents: journals, letters, zines - written by all the different characters, mostly comprised of "militant vegetarians, manifesto-writing shoplifters, and strippers who write feminist theory". 'Positive Change House', the name of their political squatter headquarters is even a play on the Positive Force house, out of which the real riot grrrl bands often operated

Tank Girl

Jim Mahfood's Grrl Scouts.

Sarah Dyer's Action Girl Comics

Douglas Coupland's Microserfs uses the pastiche term "riot nrrrd" in one scene.

In television

An episode of Roseanne in which Jackie and Roseanne pick up a hitchhiker punk (played by Jenna Elfman), who starts talking about riot grrrl and plays Bikini Kill's single "New Radio".

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