What Was: The Riot Grrrl Movement
Warning: Many songs and other forms of media considered “Riot Grrrl” contain profanity and intense themes.
The 1990s gave birth to some of music’s most influential and memorable artists and bands, most notably, groups in the grunge and punk scene. While Nirvana was taking center stage in the music industry, a new type of punk was born in the underground scene known as Riot Grrl. With its roots beginning in Olympia Washington, Riot Grrl was the angry woman punk revival of third-wave feminism centered around moving in the punk scene. Feminism, by definition, is the belief that men and women should have equal opportunities and voices, a concept that has been overlooked for centuries. Tired of being overlooked and underpaid, the cultural movement of Riot Grrrl allowed women to use their voices to express their anger and speak their opinions. In this article, we will look at the history, impact, and specific women who shaped the Riot Grrl movement and music as a whole
What Makes Something “Riot Grrrl?”
Riot Grrrl had no official stamp of approval. Therefore, anyone could be a Riot Grrrl. With a high emphasis on “Do It Yourself,” most media and music that would come to be considered “Riot Grrrl” was quickly written, produced, and viewed by others. The overall common denominator of media classified as Riot Grrrl or Riot Grrrl adjacent is that it is typically loud, unapologetic, feminist, and punk.
Kathleen Hanna & Bikini Kill
Many consider Kathleen Hanna to be the mother of Riot Grrrl, as her resilience and influence in the punk community. Hanna started notably the largest Riot Grrl band, Bikini Kill, in 1990 with Tobi Vali and Kathi Wilcox. The mission of Bikini Kill was to use music to express their political beliefs. Songs such as “Rebel Girl,” and “Double Dare Ya!” were loud and fierce, not just musicality-wise, but also through lyrics. For example, in the song DoubleDare Ya, Hanna yells out the lyrics,
Don’t you talk out of line
Don’t go speaking out of your turn
Gotta listen to what the Man says
Time to make his stomach burn
You can find Double Dare Ya on the Bikini Kill album, “Revolution Girl Style Now,” which was another popular phrase used throughout the movement as a sort battle cry of sorts. Such lyrics were common in all Riot Grrl songs. Hanna prioritized the voices, safety, and overall experience of women at Bikini Kill shows, and even would bring women to the front of the stage during performances. At the time, it was incredibly unsafe to be a woman attending a rock show, as a great deal of assaulting and general rough-housing took place in mosh pits filled with mostly men. For this reason, Hanna cried, “Girls to the front,” a phrase that would come to mean more than just its literal interpretation. Apart from Bikini Kill, Hanna would go on to form Le Tigre in the late 1990s and also become a Zine writer, creating the fanzine, “Riot Grrl Manifesto.” Zines are short, self-published magazine-like pieces of media that would usually circulate around a community or group of people. Underground movements such as Riot Grrl often used Zines to spread information about shows, political events, and even just the movement itself.
Riot Grrrl Today
Though the popularity of the Riot Grrrl bands started dipping after the blowup of the initial birth in the 1990s, there are still groups being formed with the mentality and goals of the Riot Grrrl movement. Feminist movements and riots continue to pop up all over the world, led by women with a ferocious hunger for change and equality.
Final Thoughts
Some will say that Riot Grrrl never really caught on within the grunge and punk scene when compared to their “male counterparts” like Nirvana or Pearl Jam. However, after learning more and diving deeper into the culture, I would say that the whole point of being a Riot Grrrl is to not care about how critics, especially men, perceive you and your identity. If there is one final lesson to take away from this period in music history, it would be that if you have a strong opinion on something, it’s guaranteed that others share the same idea and that everyone should have an equal voice, even if you have you shout for it.
