#riot grrrl

[legendarytragedynacho]

Bikini Kill

[bikini-kill-pilled]

im really interested in the revival of riot grrrl; i think its absolutely possible for it to make a comeback, and i could even argue that it never actually went away...i mean, its definitely lost a bit of its edge, but their are bands coming out in its genre and they keep the spirit alive. anyway, the essential thing for the revival is that riot grrrl fixes its previous mistakes. i hate when people try to trivialize its importance because i do think it made a difference in the small span of time that it was really popular, but the main issues were how whitewashed it was, how it mostly focused on middle/upper suburban women, and how it (in my opinion mostly) centered a lot around reclaiming femininity, thereby neglecting gnc women who don't WANT to reclaim it. i found a cool article on black women in the feminist punk movement--specifically how they made their own movement, sista grrrl riot--and these quotes stood out to me. this ones by musician tamar kali brown:

"Being in this urban jungle, I was a different type of girl. I was hearing what they were saying, but I was living in an environment where people were getting stabbed. Riot Grrrl felt like a bubblegum expression. I was bald, and I would get a lot of negative attention that bordered on violence, so I wasn't in the world of [baby voice] 'You just think I can't play because I'm a girl!'

and this one by laronda davis:

"I never looked at a magazine and thought that that was what I was supposed to look like. On one hand, it's actually kind of liberating to not be what this standard of womanhood is. That standard put a lot of women in boxes, and they spend their li[ves] trying to get out of the box. Black women were never allowed in the box. I wasn't looking at TV saying, 'Oh, that represents me.' I wasn't listening to music telling about my experience. I had experiences that told me I wasn't concerned with these things that the happy songs were about."

(article here)

all in all i think what riot grrrl needs to change is its idea of a universal female childhood in their songs that we can all relate to. it kind of sucks to say but really all women do have in common are the stereotypes we're given, and when punk women criticized and defied those stereotypes they really shone; i was reading that people called kathleen hanna writing "slut" on her stomach white feminism and i was like....err. sexualization is something all women are subjected to. i've just been in a bit of a rabbit hole which started when i researched the history of trans people in riot grrrl, then to modern times when i found a claim that kathleen hanna had stopped using the line "all girls to the front" and edited her riot grrrl manifesto, and finally ended here with me thinking "man, riot grrrl's spirit is needed now more than ever, but like we need to make it WAAAAYYY better so it actually works out". the good news is, like i said, it hasn't actually faded out of mainstream consciousness.

i might add on to this in later posts. sorry if it's messy.

[animalslang]

todays jewellery

[grrrls-against-the-patriarchy]

IMPORTANT!!!

I’ve only seen like one person talk about this and it’s super important that this gets out there

Multiple punk symbols and sayings have been added to the FBI’s domestic terrorism guide

Things included are

The symbol for anarchy

ACAB and 1312

The three arrows pointing down in a circle

Eat the rich

Those are a few but it also mentions anything anti-fascist and anti capitalist

So if you live in the US please be careful

[jasmancer]

BLACK PUNK CRASH COURSE!!!

BLACK PUNK OGS

Death

X-Ray Spex

Bad Brains

Pure Hell

Fishbone

MODERN BLACK PUNK ARTISTS

Ho99o9

The Muslims

Pleasure Venom

Fuck U Pay Us

Big Joanie

Nova Twins

MORE NAMES TO KNOW

Tina Bell: frontwoman of the band Bam Bam, often called the Godmother of grunge because of its influence. Racism within the scene has led to her influence being pretty extensively erased but her bandmate and lifelong friend Scotty Buttocks has been working hard to counteract that by doing press and preserving their music here. Kurt fucking Cobain was their roadie

Betty Davis: 70s funk rock legend who just recently passed away. Incredibly unique performer that was way ahead of her time. Not to be confused with Bette Davis.

Sistah Grrrl Riots: A black punk collective put together in response to alienation and racism in the 90s punk and riot grrrl scenes. Organized by legends Tamar-Kali Brown, Honeychild Coleman, Maya Glick, and Simi Stone. You can read more about sistah grrrl in this article.

Ronnie Spector: Frontwoman of the Ronettes and rock n roll pioneer. Black girl groups were a huge influence on the sound of Rock n Roll as we know it from The Beatles to Led Zepplin to the Rolling Stones. She recently passed but her autobiography came out last year and it's worth the read.

READ A FUCKING BOOK

Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll by Maureen Mahon

Rip It Up: The Black Experience in Rock N Roll by Kandia Crazy Horse (Anthology)

Shotgun Seamstress Zine Anthology by Osa Atoe

BONUS LINKS

POC Zine Project @poczineproject

Maya Glick's Storm fan film RAIN

Black Women in Rock Archive

IMDb for the documentary Afro-Punk (2003) currently not available for streaming in the US

[caroldanver]

Bikini Kill & Joan Jett performing together (July 1994) | Photo by Ebet Roberts

[hannahstinks666]

Xx

[elliot-amy]

designs from Jack Off Jill shirts

[restingcorpse]

[venuscentipede]

[calimarikid]

[souvlakic]

[b1kinikiller]

[slicedupapple]

Bikini Kill Performing at Club Asylum in Washington, D.C., 1992.

[jasmancer]

at the end of the day riot grrrl wouldn't exist without bell hooks and Poly Styrene. their work was foundational not only in terms of feminist philosophy from the both of them, but in the case of Poly Styrene, her performance style as a feminist punk artist.

it just kills me that a movement that has been so thoroughly (and justly) associated with White Feminism was built off the work of these brilliant black feminists with every intent to be intersectional in theory. but in practice it only created space for white women and actively alienated nonwhite women ESPECIALLY if they spoke up about it. the fact that the sistah grrrl riots even had to be created by and for black women because they were so alienated both from the general white male population of hardcore/punk spaces AND the riot grrrl spaces made in response makes me crazy!!!

riot grrrl did a lot in terms of making feminist education and art more accessible to young women and teaching young women how to organize for their rights but in terms of intersectionality riot grrrl failed big time. went the way of 2nd wave white feminism with little resistance. the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that.

I just. it had good bones. yknow?