What was the riot grrrl movement’s manifesto?
Punk and feminism were never really associated until riot grrrl came along. However, the third-wave movement brought the two phenomena together by empowering women to reclaim their identities and sexualities outside of a male gaze point of view through music, zines, and revolution.
The primary leader of riot grrrl, Kathleen Hanna, spearheaded the movement through her band Bikini Kill, galvanising women throughout the American underground scene. In both their music and the associated zines they produced, Bikini Kill rebelled against the patriarchal dominance that plagued not only the punk music industry but society as a whole, and they were a seismic vehicle in setting about to change that.
In the second zine Bikini Kill ever produced, they laid out the riot grrrl manifesto, and like any good political movement, it made their priorities clear. Published some 33 years ago in 1991, it is still as startingly resonant to read today as it was then, highlighting precisely what the riot grrrl movement stood for and what it aimed to achieve.
Its opening three lines read: “BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways. BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other’s work so that we can share strategies and criticise-applaud each other. BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create our own meanings.”
From this, it’s clear that riot grrrl was a feminist space taking shape in a deeply masculinised landscape, and they were set to go all guns blazing to make it work. “Taking over the means of production”, as they put it, meant that Bikini Kill and all the other associated bands of the movement were there to make an impact; they did so by reclaiming many misogynistic and derogatory terms such as ‘bitch’ and ‘slut’, with Hanna known to write them over her body on stage.
As the manifesto continues, it touches on points of anti-authoritarianism and non-hierarchical standards intrinsic to the punk market as a whole, but its key point of contention remains the impact this has on the female demographic. “BECAUSE we don’t wanna assimilate to someone else’s (boy) standards of what is or isn’t,” and “BECAUSE we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists of all kinds as integral to this process,” it proclaims later.
Although riot grrrl was a massive cultural shift that has rightfully earned its place in feminist history, it’s in reading points like these that we realise how little society has progressed in certain respects. Some of the simplest-seeming statements within the manifesto, perhaps, but also among those over 30 years later that at points look furthest from fruition.
Ultimately, however, the riot grrrl manifesto is an uncannily timely documentation of the story of women’s rebellion and deserves to be richly studied throughout the social history of feminism and beyond. While there are still undoubtedly many more bridges to be crossed, the landscape for women in music, as well as society at large, would be much different without Kathleen Hanna and Bikini Kill leading the cause.
Their lasting legacy can be summed up by one line above the rest: “BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak.”
