Redefining a Movement: The Riot Grrrl Collection at Fales Library

redefining a movement  /  109

An article about the Montreal massacre published in 

McLean’s (Dec. 18, 1989)

Fragment from “Bodies that Matter” by Judith Butler 

(“Phantasmatic Identification”)

Heinrich Himmler, “A Body of Authority by Susan Griffin” 

(Whole Earth Review, 1989)

A pamphlet on abortion rights

Ann Cvetkovich “Sexual Trauma/Queer Memory: Incest, 

Lesbianism, and Therapeutic Culture” (copied from GLQ)

Laura Kipnis, “(Male) Desire and (Female) Disgust Reading 

Hustler” (extensive notes on back)

Excerpts from Z Magazine (1999)

Nikki Craft, “In Defense of Disobedience” (copied from 

Fight Back)

bell hooks, “Beauty Laid Bare: Aesthetics in the Ordinary”

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If we accept the fact that, given Hanna’s place as one founder of 

Riot Grrrl, her personal reading inventory is by no means incon-

sequential to understanding the political and intellectual roots 

of the movement, then I maintain the above inventory is worth 

considering at length. First, several articles point to the influ-

ence of deconstructionist, poststructuralist, and postmodern 

theorizing (for example, the reviews of books by and about the 

Derrida, the excerpt from Butler’s Bodies that Matter, the copied 

articles by and about French feminist theorists, and the chapter 

of Terry Eagleton’s Illusions of Postmodernism). Second, there is 

substantial evidence that Hanna, like many of her peers at the 

time, was still grappling with second wave feminist debates (for 

example, Laura Kipnis’s article on reading Hustler and Hazel V. 

Carby’s discussion on the “politics of difference”). At the same 

time, the inventory points to the strong influence of queer theory 

and politics (see Gregg Bordowitz). These scholarly articles nota-

bly intermingle with news clippings (the article about the mas-

sacre of fourteen women in a classroom at École Polytechnique 

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110  /  redefining a movement

in Montréal on December 6, 1989) and features from the radical 

press (the articles copied from the Whole Earth Review and Z 

Magazine). Finally, there are references to a particular lineage 

of avant-garde writers and artists through the references to Wil-

liam Burroughs, Yoko Ono, Hilton Als, and Kathy Acker.

While Hanna’s papers at the Riot Grrrl Collection paint 

a deeply complex picture of Riot Grrrl’s relationship to hard-

core, punk, feminism, popular culture, critical theory, and 

figure 3.1 Subject topics listed in the finding aid to the Kathleen Hanna 

Papers, Riot Grrrl Collection, Fales Library and Special Collections.

subject topics

•

Alternative Spaces (Arts facilities).

•

Art | v Exhibitions.

•

Art | x Exhibitions | z New York (State) | z New York.

•

Art | x Experimental methods.

•

Artists and community | z United States.

•

Dance music | z United States.

•

Electronic music.

•

Evergreen State College.

•

Feminism and art.

•

Feminism.

•

Feminist music.

•

Gender Identity | z United States.

•

Interactive art.

•

Lesbians | z United States.

•

Multimedia (art).

•

Musicians | y 1990–2000.

•

Politics in art.

•

Punk culture.

•

Punk rock music.

•

Riot grrrl movement.

•

Women artists | z United States.

•

Women’s rights

•

Zines

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redefining a movement  /  111

avant-garde literature and art, to date, few scholars of Riot Grrrl 

have accounted for this complexity. I admit that my own research 

on Riot Grrrl, beginning with a thesis on girl zines in 1994, is 

by no means exempt from this criticism. Looking back on my 

thesis (for the first time in well over a decade), I discovered that, 

although I recognized that the girl zine networks at the center of 

my research were inspired by, but not exclusively connected to, 

Riot Grrrl and further acknowledged the danger of constructing 

girl zine networks as a manifestation of a single youth culture or 

subculture, when discussing Riot Grrrl I generally referred to the 

movement as a subculture. My early research on Riot Grrrl, how-

ever, was consistent with other early studies on the movement, 

including Joanne Gottlieb and Gayle Wald’s article, “Smells like 

Teen Spirit: Riot Grrrl, Revolution and Women in Independent 

Rock,” which appeared in Tricia Rose and Andrew Ross’s edited 

collection, Microphone Fiends in 1994. In what was likely the first 

scholarly publication on Riot Grrrl, Gottlieb and Wald maintain 

that “from its inception, Riot Grrrl emerges as a bona fide sub-

culture.”

68

 They draw generously on the work of Angela McRob-

bie and other British subcultural studies theorists, such as Simon 

Frith and Dick Hebdige, to support their depiction of Riot Grrrl 

as a “bona fide subculture.” Wald extends this position in her 

1998 Signs article, “Just a Girl?: Rock Music, Feminism, and the 

Cultural Construction of Female Youth,” referring to Riot Grrrl 

as a “female youth subculture,”

69

 and a “musical subculture.”

70

 

In many respects, it was by no means misleading to construct 

Riot Grrrl as a subculture. With its own distinctive style, music, 

discourse, and social codes, the movement fit neatly into exist-

ing case studies on subcultures, including Hebdige’s studies on 

British punk and McRobbie’s studies of the British rave scene. 

However, as Fateman emphasizes, “Many academics viewed RG 

rather romantically and wishfully. . . . There was a desire to see 

it as a spontaneous radical feminist teen movement that had a 

kind of ‘street cred,’ rather than something that was connected 

to campus women’s centers, take back the night marches, femi-

nist scholarship, and avant-garde literature.”

71

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