In honour of Bikini Kill, Le Tigre and Julie Ruin frontwoman, Kathleen Hanna, visiting Boston today, the city’s mayor, Marty Walsh (who also tried – and failed – to make The Modern Lovers’ Roadrunner the official rock song of Massachusetts two years ago) has proclaimed the 9th April “Riot Grrrl Day”!
The musician, activist and original “TRUEPINKROCKSOULCRUSADER” of the feminist movement, will be speaking and performing with Julie Ruin at Wilbur Theatre, where she will be presented with the proclamation by Joyce Linehan, her friend of 20 years and the city’s chief of policy. According to Boston Magazine, it takes inspiration from Hanna’s Riot Grrrl Manifesto, originally published in the BIKINI KILL ZINE 2 in 1991, and part of it reads:
“The riot grrrl philosophy has never felt more relevant, with misogyny still rampant in many cultural spaces… 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.’ It sure does: women’s voices telling their stories can shut that down.”
Happy Riot Grrrl Day!