‘From Riot Grrrl to Pussy Riot: to what extent has the underground protest movements ‘Riot Grrrl’ shaped the feminist punk we hear across Europe and America today?’ Literature Review and Methodology (How went about it) current feminist bands in general- current punk bands in general (INTRO: 500 WORDS) ‘We need to start a girl riot’ are the words Jen Smith, activist and co-conceiver of the term ‘Riot Grrrl’, wrote in a letter to lead singer of her band ‘Bratmobile’, Allison Wolfe in 1991 (Barton 2017). Some of the bands who are principally associated with the ‘Riot Grrrl’ movement include Emily’s Sassy Lime, Heavens to Betsy, Huggy Bear and Team Dresch (Appell, Hemphill 2006) however, it was arguably the radical combination of ‘Bikini Kill’ …show more content…
One of the main focal points of ‘Riot Grrl’ was the concept of girls revisiting the same girlhood that had been unwillingly taken away from them, and reclaiming it (Anderson et al 2013). The development of this to the growling of ‘grrrl’ is possibly a tool to automatically embody the anger and frustration that surrounds the movement to someone who has just come across it for the first time. Uses and connotations of the term ‘Riot Grrrl’ have significantly changed over time but the etymological origins can be traced back to the Mount Pleasant Riots in Spring 1991 in which ‘the streets were filled with rioters, protesting what was rumored to be a case of police brutality between an African American police offer and a 30-year-old Latino man’ (Freidman 2011). Critic Julia Downes argues the ‘Riot Grrrl’ revolution “coalesced and crystallised following the 1991 Mount Pleasant riots,” (Shrodes 2012). Perhaps it was the overpowering atmosphere among women in the city that became the unlikely founding inspiration for ‘Riot Grrrl?’ What we do know is that this was the poignant event that caused Jen Smith to write to her bandmate Alison Wolfe, advocating girl riot ‘against a society they felt offered no validation of women's experiences’ (Schilt …show more content…
Through the use of zines, the band were able to resonate and distribute the concerns and desires for equality of both the LGBTQ community and the punk subculture, to the wider masses. The band also used their power to highlight topics that weren’t directly linked to gay rights. For example, the record label ‘Candy Ass’ that was set up by ‘Team Dresch’s lead singer, Jody Bleyle, co-released ‘Free to Fight’: the ‘women’s self defense compilation record’ (Sinker 2013) addressing significant issues such as sexual abuse, rape and harassment. There was an emergence of numerous pioneering female punk and rock musicians from the UK, throughout the period of the late 1970 and early-mid 1980’s who ultimately served to influence the ‘Riot Grrrl’ movement (Sabin 1999). Musicians such as ‘The Slits’, ‘Siouxie Sioux’, ‘Poly Styrene and X-Ray-Spex’ ‘Au Pairs’ and ‘The Raincoats’ are all examples of British Musicians who later went on to inspire ‘Riot Grrl’
In his most recent album, Kanye West raps, “Now if I fuck this model/ And she just bleached her asshole/ And I get bleach on my T-shirt/ I 'mma feel like an asshole.” He suggests that it is the girl’s fault for getting bleach on his tee shirt, which she only did to make herself more sexually appealing. This misogyny in hip-hop culture is recognized to bring about problems. For instance, the women around these rappers believe they can only do well in life if they submit themselves to the men and allow themselves to be cared for in exchange for physical pleasure. In her essay, “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hoes”, Joan Morgan argues that the same rap music that dehumanizes women can be a powerful platform for gender equality if implemented correctly.
8-Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters is a compelling glimpse into the lives of females in gangs. The book highlights two things: these women do exist, and they are screaming for help. The book's author, Gini Sikes, is a New York-based journalist who spent two years chronicling the worlds of these girls and women in three cities--Los Angeles, San Antonio and Milwaukee. Through her travels she became immersed in the lifestyles of each gang. What she found on her journey through backyards, living rooms and housing-projects was startling. There are perhaps thousands of girl gang members across the nation, and yes, many of them are violent. Sikes' portrait of female gangs in America will both shock and move you. She delves far beyond the usual clichés and shows a depth to her subjects that are rarely seen. These girls carry razor blades in their mouths and get into fights just like their male counterparts, but many of them overcome tremendous adversity to get out of their gangs and change their lives. Sikes reports on these girl gangsters with compassion and honesty, compellingly raising the issue of our troubled urban youth without posturing or preaching. Sikes details the girl's reactions to her as well as to their own environment. 8-Ball Chicks describes everything from gang members' stories of dangerous initiation rites (girls knowingly having sex with an AIDS infected boy; gang rape initiations; gang wannabes allowing a dozen girls to beat them up at once) to the conditions that drive these young women to join gangs in the first place. Most of these girls she discovered entered the gangs for power and belonging. They did not care if they were hurt because survival became their most significant recourse. If they survived the abuse and the poverty, then they felt powerful. In 8 Ball Chicks, we discover the fear and desperate desire for respect and status that drive girls into gangs in the first place--and the dreams and ambitions that occasionally help them to escape the catch-22 of their existence.
In modern day society, popular culture has gained equal status to world issues and politics. Music, movies, and literature have started cultural revolutions and challenged the straight-forward thinking many individuals have accepted in the past. But while popular culture can advance new ideas and create movements, it also has the ability to challenge advancements society has made. Imani Perry’s essay, The Venus Hip Hop and the Pink Ghetto, focuses on hip hop and its negative impact on women and body image.
Riot Grrrl began in 1991, when a group of women in Washington, D.C., held a meeting to discuss sexism in the punk scene. Inspired by recent antiracist riots, the women decided they wanted to start a “girl riot” against a society that oppressed women and their experiences.
Leblanc, L. (1999) Pretty in punk: Girls’ gender resistance in a boys’ subculture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
The story of the birth of rock ‘n’ roll has a mythical quality to it. It speaks of racial barriers bridged through the fusion of Afro-American musical styles with white popular music in 1950s America. Not only did white record producers and radio disc jockeys market Afro-American artists, but white artists began to cover their songs, as well as incorporate Afro-American style into their own song writing. The musical style was so powerful that the white audience was infected by it, despite the social stigma that listening to “race music” possessed. The common view of teenagers’ participation in the creation of rock ‘n’ roll as an act of rebellion runs parallel with the music’s legendary origins. Through rock ‘n’ roll, the teenagers of the United States created a generational gap that angered their parents’ generation. Teenagers rejected kitchy Tin Pan Alley, “Sing Along with Mitch,” and the sleepy crooning of Perry Como in favour of sexually charged race music. Historians have taken different approaches to the question of teen rebellion. While some consider their love of rock ‘n’ roll revolutionary, others argue that the music cemented teenagers within the conformity and materialism of the 1950s; what cars were to adults, rock ‘n’ roll was to teens.[1]
Adolescents and young adults have been disregarding the rules of the older generation and sparking up arguments since time could tell. One of the forerunners for this teen-angst filled defiance was none other than the king of outcasts, Kurt Cobain, lead singer and songwriter for Nirvana. Cobain was a trailblazer ready to defy the Baby Boomers and all that the tired generation saw to be important; Cobain pushed against many traditional structures but few more relevant than sexism and the mainstream music industry. Cobain rallied his army of misfits, labeled Generation X, to also stand against the sexists and the money-grubbing music bosses. Although Cobain didn’t do so by leading rallies or picket-marches, he found his rebellious essence through writing strange, contentious, and confusing music. With this in mind, it’s easy to say that Kurt Cobain was a model for Generation X; however, he is most notable as a rebel writer that expressed his resistance to sexism and to the music industry through his unconventional writing, mixed-music styles, and controversial songs.
Women’s sphere was as the homemaker before revolutions sprang in the 1960s. While other sexual revolutions were going on, music strayed from the social norms of this women’s sphere as well. “Another fundamental role of music within the countercultural movement was to provide female artists with ability to forge their own distinctive place within the music business” (“Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll: Music in the Counterculture”). With this ideal of Rock music challenging group identity for women, female musical groups began to emerge. Martha and the Vandellas was one of many girls groups, which enjoyed the vogue style. Women were given a secure place in the music industry with the emergence of Rock. This new style broke through old “social norms” and styles, creating a new, refined value of
Over the last twenty years the Guerrilla Girls have established a strong following due to the fact that they challenged and consistently exhibited a strong supportive subject matter that defies societal expectations. In an interview “We reclaimed the word girl because it was so often used to belittle grown women. We also wanted to make older feminists sit up and n...
The 1960’s was one of the most controversial decades in American history because of not only the Vietnam War, but there was an outbreak of protests involving civil and social conditions all across college campuses. These protests have been taken to the extent where people either have died or have been seriously injured. However, during the 1960’s, America saw a popular form of art known as protest music, which responded to the social turmoil of that era, from the civil rights movement to the war in Vietnam. A veritable pantheon of musicians, such as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan sang their songs to encourage union organizers to protest the inequities of their time, creating a diverse variety of popular protest music, which has reached out to the youthful generations everywhere demanding for a revolutionary change. The protest music took the children of the 1960’s to a completely new different level. Musicians of this generation were not going to sit and do nothing while the government lied to the people about what was going on in Vietnam. Instead, they took their guitar-strumming troubadours from the coffee houses, plugged them in, and sent the music and the message into the college dorm rooms and the homes of the youth of America. However, as decades went by, protest music does not have much of an impact as it use to because of the way things have changed over the years. Through the analysis of the music during the 1960’s, there shall be an understanding on how the different genres of protest music has affected social protesters based on how musicians have become the collective conscience of that generation through their lyrics and music and the main factors that contributed to the lack of popula...
The Sex Pistols emerged in the late seventies as one of the first politically charged punk bands, advocating anarchy in most of their tunes. The band embraced and produced songs that reflected the punk ideology: rebellion and nihilism. The Sex Pistols also reacted to the stark social conditions that infected Great Britain in the late seventies – rising unemployment, a hard-line, conservative government, and a depressed post-industrial economy. With a hopeless future at the horizon, the restless youth in Britain had plenty of things to get angry about. The Sex Pistols embodied the era’s anger and restless ambition.
Artists like the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, Talking Heads, and Blondie, came out of the U.S, but Punk took on greater strength in England, where Bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Clash, and the Buzzcocks emerged with more aggression than their softer Amer...
Additionally, I will look at fan feedback of the band and see if even the people who are buying the albums and going to the concerts are even acknowledging the successes of the band as something of merit, or are viewing their music in terms of how the patriarchy tells them to (i.e as a guilty pleasure). This is where I will apply the idea of discourses (whole systems of thought, speech, and knowledge production that structure institutional and social practices, (O’Brien & Szeman, 2014), ISAs, and feminist ideas of patriarchy spurring off Gill’s challenges of postfeminist assumptions of power that “women have not overthrown but rather internalized the disciplinary regime that dictates particular and compulsory ways of looking and acting” (O’Brien & Szeman, 2014), the idea that not only is the band not given respect musically, but perhaps these young women themselves become convinced that their music is more of a “guilty pleasure” than it is “quality
In comparison to mainstream, punk rock lyrics frequently comment on social or political issues or use them as themes. Some of these include employment, corruption, and the mortal coil. These lyrics were often confrontational, blunt, and consequently, controversial. For example, when the Sex Pistols' politicized hit "God Save the Queen" was released around the time of the Queen of England's highly anticipated Jubilee, many were vexed by its obscenity (this reason was, of course, what the Sex Pistols were aiming to elicit).
Candi. "Punk Music in Britian." BBC News. BBC, 07 Apr. 2002. Web. 05 Apr. 2014