Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk rock movement that originally started in the early to mid-1990s, in Washington, DC and the greater Pacific Northwest, especially Olympia, Washington and Portland, Oregon. It is often associated with third-wave feminism which is sometimes seen as its starting point.
(wikipedia)
There has always been an underground for punky feminist girls in the western world, but it managed to make it to the mainstream in the 90's with bands such as Bikini Kill, L7 and Sleater-Kinney. This third-wave feminism sparked a new generation of alternative girls who serve as an inspiration for many to this day. For instance, if there had never been bands like L7 with the coolest bass player of all time (Jennifer Finch) I doubt that the chick bass player in school of rock would have been a chick and without her I would have never even thought of picking up a bass. However, in recent years this wave of radical feminism has slipped into the background and women's rights have taken the backseat. Unfortunately this has resulted in a new form of "acceptable sexism" putting women at the butt of misogynistic jokes about getting back into the kitchen once again. Quite frankly I could not think of a better time for something so serious to become trendy. Sure it must be annoying for some people to hear impressionable youths declaring their status to the world as a feminist when they haven't even studied the fundamentals as hard as you did, but can you really say that promoting equality into the mainstream is a bad thing?
The increase of girls choosing to not shave their armpits in the name of feminism is major, although this may seem disgusting to some I think it's quite a good choice no matter how unconventional it is. I suppose the reason why i'm so supportive of people like this is because I am pretty much a slave to the razor, I've always had it drilled into my head that body hair is disgusting when really it's natural and the more people we see embracing that promotes a better attitude to women's bodies everywhere and the choices they make. However, even if there are more girls throwing out their bics there is no doubt that the everyday persons point of view on how a woman should look is still pretty deformed, with the easy access to porn and sexualisation of almost everything in the media it's not really a surprise.
One of the more interesting things about the modern riot grrrl has to be the way in which they function. Although it was only 20 years ago our society and the way it functions has changed greatly since the end of the twentieth century, for instance, the internet. It is no longer necessary for people to make zines and hide their opinion on certain subjects when you have tumblr, twitter and whatever else is out there. The new riot grrrl isn't an underground scene but more of a nostalgic trend, founded by the girls and boys that were just a bit too young to know what it meant before.
Unfortunately, I would not be surprised if this revival is short lived like so many other things these days, not to mention the fact that it's probably going to become some sort of joke for those that piss everyone off. If you're a riot grrrl keep riot grrrling, you guys are cool. B.x
*image from - thisishangingrockcomics.tumblr.com
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