Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk

by Kathleen Hanna

I opened my mouth and said, “Because no one has listened to me my whole life and I really want to be heard.” She appraised me for a second and then said, “You should start a band. Most people go outside and smoke when someone gets up to do spoken word, but people wanna see bands.”

Nearly every crisis call I took involved a survivor telling me she shouldn’t take up my time because other women had way worse things happen to them.

Audience dudes were like bad art critics who thought our music only counted if it was uncorrupted by explanation.

I realized that night that there was something really powerful about counseling women at places where they already hung out instead of at a crisis center.

Poetic lyrics were important, but it felt like women sometimes hid behind poetry as a way to say something without actually saying it. I was on a mission to just fucking say it.

Johanna’s catchy feminist garage rock anthem “Mediocrity Rules.” We played the song live in front of the words “Behind the veil of male expertise lies the magic world of our unmade art.”

Sometimes I wondered how many more records I would’ve put out if I wasn’t so busy dealing with male violence. And then I’d wonder, If not for male violence, would I have ever written anything at all?