Hey girlfriend, I got a proposition goes something like this: Dare ya to do what you want. Dare ya to be who you will. Dare ya to cry right outloud. “You get so emotional, baby.”
I remember sitting in a university class back in 2002, in a course entitled ‘The Idea of Youth: Film, Fiction and Music’. I failed the course as a result of my refusal to submit any papers due to the absolute distaste that the music section left in my mouth. Not that it was a bad course – I mean, it was post-modern critical theory and thus, for the most part, a load of tripe – but the ideas and texts they were pushing were interesting. It was the day we hit the topic of music and feminism and were played Bikini Kill that I decided that the course was not for me. As discussion began in the following tutorial, a number of the girls in the class spoke up. “We didn’t get it. What’s feminist about making tuneless noise and throwing your instruments around.” OK, maybe it’s just me. Maybe, it’s having spent a lot of my teenage years listening to bands like Nirvana, Mudhoney, Big Black, Black Flag and all those masculine punk bands of the late 80s and early 90s but my reaction was ‘What the hell is there not to get?’ Here we have a group intent on wrestling an essentially male sound in an essentially male scene and smashing it to pieces in the name of Girl Power – and NOT the Girl Power of later pisstaking groups like the Spice Girls – but real Girl Power. The Riot GRRLS. Bikini Kill lived and acted and demanded their wants and desires.
So to the album. It’s a noisy affair, this riot grrl. It’s dirty, it’s dangerous and it’s angry. From the opening riffs of Double Dare Ya to the closing grunge pop of Outta Me, this album grips you. It’s there to shake the system. It’s attacking patriarchy. It’s daring women to rise. To challenge men. And to lead their own way. ‘White Boy. Don’t Laugh. Don’t Cry. Just Die!’ they scream in White Boy – while later calling out to the Rebel Girl and letting men know how little they need them.
Don’t need you to tell us we’re good
Don’t need you to say we suck
Don’t need your protection
Don’t need your dick to fuck
As a man, I sometimes find myself questioning whether or not I should like this. But I can’t not like it. I mean the constant theme throughout the album is an attack on patriarchy. It could be seen as borderline misandrist. But it’s not misandrist. It’s anti-idiot, it’s anti-inequality but certainly not anti-men. Rather, it’s PRO-women. And why not? Too often throughout life, women are discouraged, sexualised, commodified, maltreated and manipulated. Fifteen years later, this is still the case. In fact, perhaps backwards steps have been taken. Taking a real life example, a facebook status update I just received read ‘ ……….. readily admits women are the inferior sex.’ Bikini Kill would be fuming. And so they should. And as a man, I should be fuming with them.
Everything about this album is great. The raw production, the guitars coming through amplifiers that sound like they’ve been thrashed to death, the tinny drums, this is punk rock at it’s best. It’s not friendly music. Your mum will still hate it. Your boyfriend or girlfriend will probably too. But if you for a moment think that there isn’t injustice between the genders – or for that matter any injustice at all in the world – put on this record. You will have your fist in the hair, ready to tear down hierarchy, patriarchy, domination and despair in the name of humanity.
Rebel Girl, Rebel Girl, You are the Queen of my World.
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Good post. The day I picked up ‘The Singles’ – knowing almost nothing about it – was a revelation.
Regarding your points on gender – I’ll just say people repeatedly insist on fair play to the institutionally unfair.