Riot Grrrl was a brief movement in the early 1990s which focused on allowing girls to be grrrls. It’s agenda addressed violence and oppression of young women. Focusing on emotional, physical and sexual abuse as well as domestic violence and rape. The movement also address how girls were raised to be complacent about these issues, and in general. This was also at the beginning of the third wave feminist movement which moved the focus to flaws in gender norms, sexuality as well as beginning to address feminism cross culturally.
I reached adolescence right after the peak of the Riot Grrrl movement. My first forays into the internet were filled with riot grrrls. While I wasn’t super into the music, I did dig some of the politics. While the actual history of riot grrrl was only easily found on the internet, riot grrrl was alive and well in almost every counter culture movement I participated in. It was actually an expectation that I would call myself a girl. It was permission to scream, get dirty, get angry, be fun and be passionate. Terming myself a young woman would disallow this kind of behavior.
So while many of us had lost touch with what it meant to be a grrrl, and where that philosophy had arisen from, we embraced it. We rolled around in the dirt, trampled the city in ripped tights and combat boots. It was an amazingly freeing way to be, and even through getting married, finishing up college, and beginning to go to work I looked forward to the days I could be dirty and loud. I remained a grrrl at heart.
Thing is, I’m not a girl anymore. In those in between years when my body, sex drive and mind were all new to me, there was no doubt that womanhood was still far out of reach. Reverting to grrrl, allowed me to keep a sense of control over my development. Stating that those behaviors were a part of the female identity, and were how I would learn and continue to develop was important. I learned a whole lot. Now I’m in my late twenties, and I don’t identify with the grrrls I meet.
They’re young, into experiencing, they lack dedication to long term goals. They’re often not as assertive as they think they are, they don’t know nearly as much as they think they do. I know this in part because I was there no so long ago. At the same time growing up has not quieted me down a bit, I am as loud as ever. I own pleather 10-holed steel-toed combat boots, and they’re muddy. Not much has changed.
Except for that whole experienced piece. At first it really confused me, I was taught to embrace being a grrrl forever. Though I was ceasing to identify with all that a grrrl was. Instead I was feeling more entangled in the mysticism of being a woman. Through being so loud and crazy in my youth I really got to know my body. I began to know what I liked, and how to look good, feel good, and approach these things with a sense of deliberateness and maturity in a way a grrrl can’t.
I woke up one day to realize I was a woman different than the mainstream has known. Though not very different from my mother, the hippie and 2nd wave feminist. Like her, I wear what I want to wear, and do what I want to do. No doubt I’m evolved in that I put more emphasis on sexuality, though it is much the same. No one told me I could grow up to be this way. I got lucky and stumbled into it.
It makes me wonder about how my fellow grrrls are fairing. Many have disappeared. Out of an entire collective of websites only a handful still exist, only 1 or 2 have been updated in the past year. Of my friends in high school I know several have turned to alcohol or drugs, twice that number dropped out of college. In the generation behind mine I know that many are drifting from job to job, relationship to relationship, who knows how many gave up on being a grrrl entirely.
How many of us got lost in wondering what came after grrrl? While it is powerful to speak up for yourself, be in charge and spontaneous there is a certain amount of growth that is absent. While I do despise the classic tutoring of young women, no one taught us grrrls to be anything but. I know that recently I have felt more drawn to taking younger generations under my wing. Teaching that there is a way along the path from grrrl to woman, without becoming complacent to social norms.
In a generation where the term girl has been moved into mainstream culture without the history of its power I can’t see this being anything but necessity. We need to know where we came from, and how to take the next step to being women with the upbringing of grrrls. We can’t grow up and teach when we’re addicted, uneducated, or have simply forgotten who we are and where we came from. We won’t get anywhere unless we empower ourselves and aren’t afraid to grow.
Here are some resources, and I do wish there were more:
- Wikipedia on Riot Grrrl
- Grrrl Zine Network
- From Girl to Woman to Grrrl
- Wikipedia on 3rd Wave Feminsm
Books: