Kathleen Hanna’s memoir, Rebel Girl: My Life As A Feminist Punk, is a timely refresher in resilience, the power of protest art and the tender humanity that we must not lose. Hanna, influential frontwoman of bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, reluctant leader of the Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s and one of the most notable feminist artists of the past 30 years, recounts her heady and social protest-fueled life in the Seattle and Washington, D.C., music scenes. Like a comic book hero, Hanna has seemed to gather superhuman strength with every blow she receives, surviving a difficult childhood and dodging death threats during Bikini Kill’s rise to indie stardom, all while churning out ever more powerful and furious music.
Rebel Girl unapologetically reveals the vulnerability behind that image, discussing the trauma and illness Hanna endured while being hailed as a feminist savior, assaulted by infuriated misogynists and torn down by fellow Riot Grrrls for being human.
It’s now common to find books that document the angsty cultural soup of the ’90s, slickly packaged to inspire nostalgia for the sense of apathetic cool that’s attached to the decade. Where Rebel Girl diverges from these, and succeeds, is in Hanna’s refusal to unhook the headiness of the time from its more difficult and complicated aspects. She does not shy away from unappealing truths about the era, particularly the violence directed toward her and other women from within the overwhelmingly white and male punk scene, and the problematic aspects of the Riot Grrrl movement, with its lack of intersectionality and eventual dissolution into backbiting and purity politics.
Hanna is equally straight-shooting when she reflects on her own failures and culpability, acknowledging them in a way that is refreshing and constructive. By illustrating how you grew, you can show others how to do the same. With Rebel Girl, Hanna intentionally busts open her feminist idol identity, liberating herself from our perceptions and serving some hard-won wisdom.
