Riot Grrrl QuotesLooking for riot grrrl quotes? Want to know what Bratmobile, L7, Bikini Kill, Huggy Bear and the rest were all about? Is riot grrrl dead or just resting? What does feminist music sound like, or read like? Find all your answers, and even more, below! 
Riot grrrl was a large and diverse social movement, with many different styles of music and self-expression. Though primarily based in the US and the UK, this form of feminist music quickly gathered a following among women during the 1990s. Unfortunately, the mainstream media tried to package the movement (as you will see from some of the quotes below). Today, riot grrrl music continues to inspire many young women and men, from many different backgrounds. If you're not sure where to get started, why not check out the Riot Grrrl Manifesto first? Quotes are separated by source, and alphabetized by last name and the first letter(s) of the band name (so, L7 comes before Tobi Vail). If the source is unclear or anonymous I put it at the top of the section. InterviewsI hate the attitude of, "oh we already have a Lydia Lunch, so do we need a Bikini Kill." Well, there's like 2 hundred million all-male bands writing "baby baby I love you, let me drag you around on my ankle." Is that enough already? Duh! 
Our second fanzine was called Girl Power and I remember wondering: Did the Spice Girls get that from us or was that just a coincidence? On the first tour, I started seeing the same outfits I was wearing onstage turn up in clothing catalogues. I was thinking: Am I an egomaniac that I think this is happening? Have they been following us around, or was it just cultural osmosis? It does make you nuts. Antifeminism sold as feminism is so super-creepy! Our situation was different to the one the American Riot Grrrls were responding to. The underground in London had deteriorated totally, there wasn't really much of an alternative ...'indie' just became an abstract term for a style of music, not ideas or values, 'cause they were all signing to major labels. The notion of selling out wasn't important. Punk rock wasn't important. Fanzines were seen as a sad joke, so we had to explain stuff that might have been obvious to American kids but was alien to young British kids. The reasons for being independent were snorted at. 
The whole point of Riot Grrrl was that we were able to re-write feminism for the 21st century. Feminism was a concept that our mothers and that generation had… It was written in a language that was academic, that was inaccessible to young women. And we took those ideas and re-wrote them in our own vernacular. 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. There’s a whole girl culture that exists when you’re little. There girls have their own scene. And it always gets totally fucked up when girls start dating boys. Like two of them like the same guy. Or they just start dating guys and that becomes their life. Then they get married and that’s traditionally how women get into these situations where they are totally separated from each other in these domestic spheres. What we want to say is, 'no, that’s not happening to us. This is girl culture and these are our rituals'. Riot grrrl seemed to be geared towards and made up of young, punk, mostly white and middle class girls. i think in many ways this limited the political impact of and perhaps led to the schisms and break up of the "movement." But this reality does not mean riot grrrl was negative, trivial or meaningless. i think it had a tremendous impact on young girls' self-image/self-esteem, it encouraged self-respect and early political consciousness in young girls, and it legitimised (sp?) young girls' concerns and agendas to the academic and mainstream worlds. 
LyricsDon't need you to tell us were're good I can't say everything about it 
"Why you runnin round harmin' things? if you dissect it you can control it i see the moon in texas My diet pill is wearing off Wargasm, wargasm, one two three Find more Riot Grrrl quotes, and feminist quotes, at riotgrrrlonline. ZinesMany thanks are owed to the The Riot Project for making these zines available online. If you have any riot grrrl zines and would like to sell or trade, please write to me.We don't have to sit around being negative, saying 'men are pigs'...we can think about what we can do to improve things and then DO it. Too often, women are judged by their appearance, or morals, or age - like Kim Gordon - instead of their ideas! We have to take into account their ideas first. I mean, we can't know what they're really like, but we don't have to know. I believe this is it. A movement, hopefully a revolution, of grrrls...suddenly deciding they don't want to take this shit anymore and starting to get up and make things happen...for THEMSELVES. Like I have just done. Like you can too. And yeah, this is still anger...but leading to hope, optimism and CHANGE..." Burn down the walls that say you can't BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock "you can do anything" idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours. Riot Grrrl has now evolved into more than just a branch of the punk scene - we come from all sorts of backgrounds, like all sorts of music, dress in all sorts of styles... Riot Grrrl is open to everyone. Riot Grrrl is inspiring, empowering and most of all fun, so why not join our group or start your own and help infiltrate society with REAL grrrl power. I'm not the tragic muse who makes him sing the sad songs of love gone wrong. I may be the inspiration for his wardrobe, but I can do it better than him and it's got him running scared.
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