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Happening Here & Now: Activating DIY Citizenship through Cultural Memory
Riot Grrrl started in Washington, DC in the early 1990s as a reaction to misogyny within punk subcultures, the lack of respect young women felt in their everyday lives, and the mediagenerated myth that feminism was dead. Young women decided to selforganise, change their scenes, and address feminist concerns in their lives. The figure of the girl was made central, but resignified as grrrl to make a new statement of a girl/young woman full of creative anger. "For girls to pick up guitars and scream their heads off in a totally oppressive, fucked up, male dominated culture is to seize power. We recognize this as a political act."---Tobi Vail, drummer of Bikini Kill
RG encompassed collective organising, skill shares, speaking out, selfpublishing, and cultural production as a form of political mobilisation. (Alongside conventional grassroots actions such as abortion clinic defence). RG took old-fashioned images of girls and appropriated them with a sense of irony and pleasure. The emphasis was on active not passive girlhood.
Riot grrrl was taken up in the mainstream press, both sympathetically and with hostility. Though often trivialising or exploitative, press coverage helped the network grow internationally and to reach young women outside of major cities.
Riot grrrl was critiqued within the zines of women of colour and working class women for its unrecognised class and race privileges. (e.g. the universalising tendencies behind the slogan: Every girl is a riot grrrl).
Left: A Renegade's Handbook zine (Ciara Xyerra) Above: flyer for Race Riot zine (Mimi Nguyen)