Kathleen Hanna: “Queen of the Riot Grrrls”
During Bikini Kill’s heyday, when you thought about the future—say, 2013—are the women working in music better or worse off than you expected us to be? I didn’t really have expectations or think about the future. I just did what I did. And I can only speak for myself that things have gotten a lot better. I’ve been on tour and people aren’t saying, “Shut up and play the song” when I’m talking in between. I feel happier onstage than I’ve ever felt before. But then again, I read comments on BrooklynVegan about, you know, the Dum Dum Girls, and I feel like I want to kick someone in the fucking face. I’m so heartbroken when I see these younger women dealing with the same kind of crap that we had to deal with. I can’t speak for them—I don’t know exactly what they’re going through—but some of the stuff I’ve read is the same exact shit that we dealt with. People saying stuff like, “Oh, well, people only like that band because that girl is pretty. Or that girl’s this. Or that girl’s too fat.” When I go to shows, I see more women. That’s what we were working for—more female participation in the scene—and I think we’ve achieved that. I think there are more people like you, who are female journalists, who are asking good questions. [Ed’s note: blushing] The rock camps that are all across the country—I think that’s really the legacy of Riot Grrrl. They’re really doing it right. They’re way more diverse than Riot Grrrl ever was, and they’re bringing up a new generation of female musicians. Even if those girls don’t become musicians, they’re learning how to work together, and have arguments, and how to survive them. The idea suggested in your Riot Grrrl Manifesto, that feminism can be what you what it to be and everyone’s definition doesn’t need to perfectly sync up—they can even be in disagreement—just now seems to be clicking with the larger culture. Why do you think that notion has taken so long to sink in? I think it’s that a lot of us were brought up to be the people in our families who smoothed things over. We were brought up to be nice. We were brought up to try to be popular. Those were the goals—and you’re not going to be popular if you criticize someone.