Kathleen Hanna / Bikini Kill
Background
After gains of earlier movements, new activists Third Wave Feminists addressed problems of girls – eating disorders, self esteem, and more. These led to ‘grrl power’ campaigns meant to empower young girls and women. Kathleen Hanna is a punk rock musician who recapitulated the term ‘girl’ and turned it into something strong recalcitrant and empowered. Her essay critiques capitalism and internalized sexism, to give a new definition and voice to women. Today she tours and has recently launched a charity project called Tees 4 Togo.
Recap
‘BECAUSE we …’ want to foster girl artist collaboration, ‘take over the means of production’, ‘DISRUPT” status quo, ‘create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things’, counter male-generated criticism, reject assimilation into male standards of cool, embrace the ‘you can do anything’ message of punk rock in our own terms, create ‘non-hierarchical ways’ of living and community, band together to fight ‘racism, ablebodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism’, ‘hate capitalism’, ‘are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak’, reject anger becoming jealousy of other women, believe ‘wholehearymindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.’
Reflection
This manifesto & movement to redefine ‘girl’ can be empowering and inspiring. It takes the strategy to take back a pejorative definition of a group women, instead of rejecting that the group exists (like Wittig). By situating the movement within the punk rock vibe, it makes it hard to connect to the feminist empowerment without also demanding to embrace the anti-authoritarian revolutionary milieu, like anti-capitalism.
My guess would be that Kathleen Hanna, as a female feminist artist, would embrace the Gurrilla Girls movement, and since its anonymous may be part of them.
Readings of E.B. Freedman's Book 