Boston’s Marty Walsh, is on a quest to be the world’s coolest mayor. After reintroducing a bill he filed back in 2013 to make the Modern Lovers’ Roadrunner Massachusetts’ official jam, the musically minded Walsh is celebrating another band, Bikini Kill, in a big way.
When Walsh caught wind that legendary Bikini Kill frontwoman and OG riot grrrl Kathleen Hanna would be in town tomorrow giving a talk and performance at Boston’s Wilbur Theater, the mayor decided to make April 9 “Riot Grrrl Day.” Boston Magazine reports that it was Walsh’s chief of policy, Joyce Linehan, that made the connection, as she’s known Hanna for over 20 years: “[Kathleen’s agent] called me to see if I would introduce Kathleen [at the Wilbur event], probably based on the fact that Kathleen, back in the day, used to stay at my house when bands came through town,” Linehan told the magazine. “We knew each other from the indie rock world.”
Boston also reports that Walsh’s proclamation is partly adapted from the Riot Grrrl Manifesto, the powerful call to arms Hanna penned for Bikini Kill Zine 2 when she was just 21-years-old. “The riot grrrl philosophy has never felt more relevant, with misogyny still rampant in many cultural spaces,” the city’s proclamation states. “Riot grrrls redefine the language used against them and continue to fight the newest incarnations of patriarchy. In doing so, they ironically confirm one ex-congressman’s accidental wisdom: ‘the female body has ways to try to shut that down.’ [A tongue-in-cheek reference to disgraced Republican Representative Todd Aiken’s controversial 2012 comments on ‘legitimate rape’.] It sure does: women’s voices telling their stories can shut that down.”
As an insanely proud Massachusetts native, I speak for my home state when I say: mic drop.
An Evening with Kathleen Hanna tickets can be purchased here.
Credits
Text Emily Manning
Photography Ebet Roberts via Getty Images