U.S. feminism-grrrl style! Youth (sub)cultures and the technologics of the third wave

Feminist Studies

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 141-170

  Garrison, Ednie Kaeh ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0040196035     PISSN: 00463663     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3178596     Document Type: Article

References (92)

1. For more on this significant disctinction between generation as age and generation as "the having-done-this-ness," see E. Ann Kaplan's introductory essay, "Feminism, Aging, and Changing Paradigms," in Generations: Academic Feminists in Dialogue, ed. Devoney Looser and E. Ann Kaplan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 13-29.
2. Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London: Methuen, 1979); and Angela McRobbie, Feminism and Youth Culture: From "Jackie" to "Just Seventeen" (Houndsmill and London: Macmillan Education, 1991).
3. Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London: Methuen, 1979); and Angela McRobbie, Feminism and Youth Culture: From "Jackie" to "Just Seventeen" (Houndsmill and London: Macmillan Education, 1991).
4. I include the caution that the name "Third Wave feminism" may be more about desire than a reflection of an already existing thing. Recent publications dedicated to Third Wave or "youth" feminism include Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake, eds., Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); "Third Wave Feminism," Special Issue of Hypatia 12 (summer 1997); and "Feminism and Youth Culture," Special Issue of Signs 23 (spring 1998).
5. I include the caution that the name "Third Wave feminism" may be more about desire than a reflection of an already existing thing. Recent publications dedicated to Third Wave or "youth" feminism include Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake, eds., Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); "Third Wave Feminism," Special Issue of Hypatia 12 (summer 1997); and "Feminism and Youth Culture," Special Issue of Signs 23 (spring 1998).
6. I include the caution that the name "Third Wave feminism" may be more about desire than a reflection of an already existing thing. Recent publications dedicated to Third Wave or "youth" feminism include Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake, eds., Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); "Third Wave Feminism," Special Issue of Hypatia 12 (summer 1997); and "Feminism and Youth Culture," Special Issue of Signs 23 (spring 1998).
7. See Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991). One of the origins of this essay is a conversation I had with some colleagues after reading Jean Baudrillard's Selected Writings (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988). We had an especially fraught discussion over his argument about the powerlessness of the consumer in the "age of consumption." I find it very seductive to buy into the idea that the consumer has no agency in the late twentieth century, but I resist this conclusion because it leaves no room for counter-hegemonic relations of consumption. This essay focuses particularly on the ways subcultures/scenes engage with consumer society through the symbol and form of consumption that dominates our historical moment: technology, and especially communications technologies.
8. See Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991). One of the origins of this essay is a conversation I had with some colleagues after reading Jean Baudrillard's Selected Writings (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988). We had an especially fraught discussion over his argument about the powerlessness of the consumer in the "age of consumption." I find it very seductive to buy into the idea that the consumer has no agency in the late twentieth century, but I resist this conclusion because it leaves no room for counter-hegemonic relations of consumption. This essay focuses particularly on the ways subcultures/scenes engage with consumer society through the symbol and form of consumption that dominates our historical moment: technology, and especially communications technologies.
9. In White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1993), Ruth Frankenberg uses "discursive repertoire" to describe the combinations of discursive tools the women in her study used to maneuver through narratives of race (16). See also James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 23.
10. In White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1993), Ruth Frankenberg uses "discursive repertoire" to describe the combinations of discursive tools the women in her study used to maneuver through narratives of race (16). See also James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 23.
11. Ann Swidler, "Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies," American Sociological Review 51 (April 1986): 273.
12. See Ednie Kaeh Garrison, "The Third Wave and the Cultural Predicament of Feminist Consciousness in the United States" (Ph.D. diss., Washington State University, 2000).
13. Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in her Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 180, 181.
14. This naming makes chronological and metaphorical sense because it self-consciously draws upon the language of women's movement activists, historians, and theorists. This feminism is "Third" to the "First" and "Second" which preceded it, and it shares with its predecessors an understanding of social movement activity as "waves"-collectivities and actions that rise and fall over time, measured most often by degrees of mobilization. The First, Second, and Third Waves represent moments of increased, coordinated, and intentional feminist activity. "Wave" is a metaphor often employed to describe highly visible and organized social movement formations. This is especially true of women's movement formations. The language and image is so pervasive as to be taken for granted, so "Third Wave" is only one recent example.
15. The same erasure has often been done in Second Wave constructions of "First" and "Second," ignoring feminist activity and cohorts between 1920 and the 1960s. It is only in the past fifteen years that the period between the first two "waves" has become the subject of scholarly interventions. See Barbara Ryan, Feminism and the Women's Movement: Dynamics of Change in Social Movement Ideology and Activism (New York: Routledge 1992); Leila Rupp and Verta Taylor, Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women's Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); and Nancy Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987).
16. The same erasure has often been done in Second Wave constructions of "First" and "Second," ignoring feminist activity and cohorts between 1920 and the 1960s. It is only in the past fifteen years that the period between the first two "waves" has become the subject of scholarly interventions. See Barbara Ryan, Feminism and the Women's Movement: Dynamics of Change in Social Movement Ideology and Activism (New York: Routledge 1992); Leila Rupp and Verta Taylor, Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women's Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); and Nancy Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987).
17. The same erasure has often been done in Second Wave constructions of "First" and "Second," ignoring feminist activity and cohorts between 1920 and the 1960s. It is only in the past fifteen years that the period between the first two "waves" has become the subject of scholarly interventions. See Barbara Ryan, Feminism and the Women's Movement: Dynamics of Change in Social Movement Ideology and Activism (New York: Routledge 1992); Leila Rupp and Verta Taylor, Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women's Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); and Nancy Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987).
18. Marian Sciachitano has suggested to me that feminist women of color are the first Third Wavers, and that the cohort I am writing about actually may be a "Fourth Wave." Her ideas add another dimension to the narratives that construct the Third Wave's origins as the widespread response to Anita Hill's sexual harassment case against Clarence Thomas, as well as complicating the assumptions that "Third Wavers" are of a particular generation. For a fascinating example of this tendency, see Catherine Stimpson's "Women's Studies and Its Discontents," Dissent 43 (winter 1996): 67-75.
19. Chela Sandoval, "U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World," Genders 10 (spring 1991): 1-24.
20. Kathleen Hanna, "Jigsaw Youth," Jigsaw fanzine (Olympia, Washington), no. 4 (spring 1991). Available from http://www.columbia.edu/~rli3/music_html/bikini_kill/jig-saw.html, Internet, accessed February 1995. See also the liner notes from Bikini Kill, The CD Version of the First Two Records, 1994 (Kill Rock Stars, 129 N.E. State Avenue, no. 418, Olympia, WA 98501).
21. Kathleen Hanna, "Jigsaw Youth," Jigsaw fanzine (Olympia, Washington), no. 4 (spring 1991). Available from http://www.columbia.edu/~rli3/music_html/bikini_kill/jig-saw.html, Internet, accessed February 1995. See also the liner notes from Bikini Kill, The CD Version of the First Two Records, 1994 (Kill Rock Stars, 129 N.E. State Avenue, no. 418, Olympia, WA 98501).
22. Rebecca Walker, "Becoming the Third Wave," in Ms. (January/February 1992); reprinted in Testimony: Young African Americans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity, ed. Natasha Tarpley (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 215-18.
23. Rebecca Walker, "Becoming the Third Wave," in Ms. (January/February 1992); reprinted in Testimony: Young African Americans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity, ed. Natasha Tarpley (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 215-18.
24. Sandoval, "U.S. Third World Feminism," 4. I realize that my use of Sandoval's concept of differential consciousness in this essay may have some problematic aspects; I risk being accused of appropriating-inappropriately-a theory about the practices of U.S. Third World feminists for Riot Grrrl, which is composed largely of white middle-class women. I am encouraged by the fact that in "U.S. Third World Feminism," Sandoval herself writes that "the recognition of differential consciousness is vital to the generation of a next 'third wave' women's movement and provides grounds for alliance with other decolonizing movements for emancipation" (4). My purpose here is to explore the possibilities of linking the praxis of U.S. Third World feminism with "the aims of white feminism, studies of race, ethnicity, and marginality, and with postmodern theories of culture" that Sandoval suggests in the passage with which I opened this section. This includes, for me, acknowledging that the theorizing of feminists of color (which I am not), poor women (which I have been for most of my life), and lesbians (which I am) can be part of my feminist tool kit as well.
25. On affinity politics, see Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); and Noël Sturgeon, "Theorizing Movements: Direct Action and Direct Theory," in Cultural Politics and Social Movements, ed. Marcy Darnovsky, Barbara Epstein, and Richard Flacks (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 35-51.
26. On affinity politics, see Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); and Noël Sturgeon, "Theorizing Movements: Direct Action and Direct Theory," in Cultural Politics and Social Movements, ed. Marcy Darnovsky, Barbara Epstein, and Richard Flacks (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 35-51.
27. Sandoval, "U.S. Third World Feminism," 15.
28. On strategic essentialism, see Gayatri Spivak, The Postcolonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, ed. Sarah Harasym (New York: Routledge, 1990); Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The 'Science Question' in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in her Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, 183-202; Teresa de Lauretis, "Upping the Anti (sic) in Feminist Theory," in Conflicts in Feminism, ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller (New York: Routledge, 1990), 254-70; Chela Sandoval, "New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed," in Cyborg Handbook, ed. Chris Hables Gray with Heidi J. Figueroa-Sarriera and Steven Mentor (New York: Routledge, 1995), 407-21; Noël Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Political Action, and Feminist Theory (New York: Routledge, 1997); T.V. Reed, Fifteen Juggles, Five Believers: Literary Politics and the Poetics of American Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
29. On strategic essentialism, see Gayatri Spivak, The Postcolonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, ed. Sarah Harasym (New York: Routledge, 1990); Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The 'Science Question' in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in her Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, 183-202; Teresa de Lauretis, "Upping the Anti (sic) in Feminist Theory," in Conflicts in Feminism, ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller (New York: Routledge, 1990), 254-70; Chela Sandoval, "New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed," in Cyborg Handbook, ed. Chris Hables Gray with Heidi J. Figueroa-Sarriera and Steven Mentor (New York: Routledge, 1995), 407-21; Noël Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Political Action, and Feminist Theory (New York: Routledge, 1997); T.V. Reed, Fifteen Juggles, Five Believers: Literary Politics and the Poetics of American Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
30. On strategic essentialism, see Gayatri Spivak, The Postcolonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, ed. Sarah Harasym (New York: Routledge, 1990); Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The 'Science Question' in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in her Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, 183-202; Teresa de Lauretis, "Upping the Anti (sic) in Feminist Theory," in Conflicts in Feminism, ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller (New York: Routledge, 1990), 254-70; Chela Sandoval, "New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed," in Cyborg Handbook, ed. Chris Hables Gray with Heidi J. Figueroa-Sarriera and Steven Mentor (New York: Routledge, 1995), 407-21; Noël Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Political Action, and Feminist Theory (New York: Routledge, 1997); T.V. Reed, Fifteen Juggles, Five Believers: Literary Politics and the Poetics of American Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
31. On strategic essentialism, see Gayatri Spivak, The Postcolonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, ed. Sarah Harasym (New York: Routledge, 1990); Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The 'Science Question' in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in her Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, 183-202; Teresa de Lauretis, "Upping the Anti (sic) in Feminist Theory," in Conflicts in Feminism, ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller (New York: Routledge, 1990), 254-70; Chela Sandoval, "New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed," in Cyborg Handbook, ed. Chris Hables Gray with Heidi J. Figueroa-Sarriera and Steven Mentor (New York: Routledge, 1995), 407-21; Noël Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Political Action, and Feminist Theory (New York: Routledge, 1997); T.V. Reed, Fifteen Juggles, Five Believers: Literary Politics and the Poetics of American Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
32. On strategic essentialism, see Gayatri Spivak, The Postcolonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, ed. Sarah Harasym (New York: Routledge, 1990); Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The 'Science Question' in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in her Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, 183-202; Teresa de Lauretis, "Upping the Anti (sic) in Feminist Theory," in Conflicts in Feminism, ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller (New York: Routledge, 1990), 254-70; Chela Sandoval, "New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed," in Cyborg Handbook, ed. Chris Hables Gray with Heidi J. Figueroa-Sarriera and Steven Mentor (New York: Routledge, 1995), 407-21; Noël Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Political Action, and Feminist Theory (New York: Routledge, 1997); T.V. Reed, Fifteen Juggles, Five Believers: Literary Politics and the Poetics of American Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
33. On strategic essentialism, see Gayatri Spivak, The Postcolonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, ed. Sarah Harasym (New York: Routledge, 1990); Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The 'Science Question' in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in her Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, 183-202; Teresa de Lauretis, "Upping the Anti (sic) in Feminist Theory," in Conflicts in Feminism, ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller (New York: Routledge, 1990), 254-70; Chela Sandoval, "New Sciences: Cyborg Feminism and the Methodology of the Oppressed," in Cyborg Handbook, ed. Chris Hables Gray with Heidi J. Figueroa-Sarriera and Steven Mentor (New York: Routledge, 1995), 407-21; Noël Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Political Action, and Feminist Theory (New York: Routledge, 1997); T.V. Reed, Fifteen Juggles, Five Believers: Literary Politics and the Poetics of American Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
34. Sandoval, "U.S. Third World Feminism," 22, 17.
35. Neither is this limited to "feminism" in the narrow sense of being about "women." Some of the recent publications I've read with great excitement include Robin Bernstein and Seth Clark Silbermann, eds., Generation Q: Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Born around 1969's Stonewall Riots Tell Their Stories of Growing Up in the Age of Missing Information (Los Angeles: Alyson Publications, 1996); Veronica Chambers, Mama's Girl (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996); Tarpley; Arlene Stein, ed., Sisters, Sexperts, Queers: Beyond the Lesbian Nation (New York: Plume, 1993); Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996); Nan Bauer Maglin and Donna Perry, eds., "Bad Girls"/"Good Girls": Women, Sex, and Power in the Nineties (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996). Most of the writers in these texts focus on the post-1960s' decades from the perspectives of those too young to have personal recollections of it. Although the 1960s is an important marker for all of us in the United States, "our" ("us young people") memories of those times are not literally our own.
36. Neither is this limited to "feminism" in the narrow sense of being about "women." Some of the recent publications I've read with great excitement include Robin Bernstein and Seth Clark Silbermann, eds., Generation Q: Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Born around 1969's Stonewall Riots Tell Their Stories of Growing Up in the Age of Missing Information (Los Angeles: Alyson Publications, 1996); Veronica Chambers, Mama's Girl (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996); Tarpley; Arlene Stein, ed., Sisters, Sexperts, Queers: Beyond the Lesbian Nation (New York: Plume, 1993); Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996); Nan Bauer Maglin and Donna Perry, eds., "Bad Girls"/"Good Girls": Women, Sex, and Power in the Nineties (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996). Most of the writers in these texts focus on the post-1960s' decades from the perspectives of those too young to have personal recollections of it. Although the 1960s is an important marker for all of us in the United States, "our" ("us young people") memories of those times are not literally our own.
37. Neither is this limited to "feminism" in the narrow sense of being about "women." Some of the recent publications I've read with great excitement include Robin Bernstein and Seth Clark Silbermann, eds., Generation Q: Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Born around 1969's Stonewall Riots Tell Their Stories of Growing Up in the Age of Missing Information (Los Angeles: Alyson Publications, 1996); Veronica Chambers, Mama's Girl (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996); Tarpley; Arlene Stein, ed., Sisters, Sexperts, Queers: Beyond the Lesbian Nation (New York: Plume, 1993); Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996); Nan Bauer Maglin and Donna Perry, eds., "Bad Girls"/"Good Girls": Women, Sex, and Power in the Nineties (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996). Most of the writers in these texts focus on the post-1960s' decades from the perspectives of those too young to have personal recollections of it. Although the 1960s is an important marker for all of us in the United States, "our" ("us young people") memories of those times are not literally our own.
38. Neither is this limited to "feminism" in the narrow sense of being about "women." Some of the recent publications I've read with great excitement include Robin Bernstein and Seth Clark Silbermann, eds., Generation Q: Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Born around 1969's Stonewall Riots Tell Their Stories of Growing Up in the Age of Missing Information (Los Angeles: Alyson Publications, 1996); Veronica Chambers, Mama's Girl (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996); Tarpley; Arlene Stein, ed., Sisters, Sexperts, Queers: Beyond the Lesbian Nation (New York: Plume, 1993); Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996); Nan Bauer Maglin and Donna Perry, eds., "Bad Girls"/"Good Girls": Women, Sex, and Power in the Nineties (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996). Most of the writers in these texts focus on the post-1960s' decades from the perspectives of those too young to have personal recollections of it. Although the 1960s is an important marker for all of us in the United States, "our" ("us young people") memories of those times are not literally our own.
39. Neither is this limited to "feminism" in the narrow sense of being about "women." Some of the recent publications I've read with great excitement include Robin Bernstein and Seth Clark Silbermann, eds., Generation Q: Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Born around 1969's Stonewall Riots Tell Their Stories of Growing Up in the Age of Missing Information (Los Angeles: Alyson Publications, 1996); Veronica Chambers, Mama's Girl (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996); Tarpley; Arlene Stein, ed., Sisters, Sexperts, Queers: Beyond the Lesbian Nation (New York: Plume, 1993); Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996); Nan Bauer Maglin and Donna Perry, eds., "Bad Girls"/"Good Girls": Women, Sex, and Power in the Nineties (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996). Most of the writers in these texts focus on the post-1960s' decades from the perspectives of those too young to have personal recollections of it. Although the 1960s is an important marker for all of us in the United States, "our" ("us young people") memories of those times are not literally our own.
40. JeeYeun Lee, "Beyond Bean Counting," in Listen Up, 205-11.
41. I am using the words "mutually exclusive" to link this notion of gender as an identity, experience, condition of embodiedness separate from other identities, experiences, or conditions of embodiedness like race, class, sexuality, not/able-bodied, etc.) to Chela Sandoval's discussion of the production of histories of "hegemonic feminism" which have made different forms of feminism "mutually exclusive" and therefore maneuverability between feminisms impossible and/or invisible practices. See her "U.S. Third World Feminism," 3-10.
42. Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 120. See Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto," 149-82; Donna Haraway, "The Promise of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others," in Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler (New York: Routledge, 1992), 295-337; "Situated Knowledges," 183-202; and Sandoval, "U.S. Third World Feminism," 1-24.
43. Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 120. See Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto," 149-82; Donna Haraway, "The Promise of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others," in Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler (New York: Routledge, 1992), 295-337; "Situated Knowledges," 183-202; and Sandoval, "U.S. Third World Feminism," 1-24.
44. Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 120. See Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto," 149-82; Donna Haraway, "The Promise of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others," in Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler (New York: Routledge, 1992), 295-337; "Situated Knowledges," 183-202; and Sandoval, "U.S. Third World Feminism," 1-24.
45. Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 120. See Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto," 149-82; Donna Haraway, "The Promise of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others," in Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler (New York: Routledge, 1992), 295-337; "Situated Knowledges," 183-202; and Sandoval, "U.S. Third World Feminism," 1-24.
46. Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 120. See Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto," 149-82; Donna Haraway, "The Promise of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others," in Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler (New York: Routledge, 1992), 295-337; "Situated Knowledges," 183-202; and Sandoval, "U.S. Third World Feminism," 1-24.
47. In fact, Candy-Ass Records is currently being managed by Donna Dresch under her own company, Chainsaw Records, in Olympia, Washington.
48. Ednie Kaeh Garrison, "Are We on a Wavelength Yet? On Feminist Oceanography, Radios, and Third Wave Feminism," Women's Center Dissertation Fellows Colloquium, University of California, Santa Barbara, 21 Apr. 1999.
49. Latour, 3.
50. Patricia Zimmerman, "The Female Bodywars: Rethinking Feminist Media Politics," Socialist Review 23, no. 2 (1993): 35-56. See also Sean Cubitt, Timeshift: On Video Culture (London: Routledge, 1991).
51. Patricia Zimmerman, "The Female Bodywars: Rethinking Feminist Media Politics," Socialist Review 23, no. 2 (1993): 35-56. See also Sean Cubitt, Timeshift: On Video Culture (London: Routledge, 1991).
52. There are literally thousands upon thousands of girl-centered zines, some still in production, some no longer circulating. Some of the names of the zines I have collected are Bamboo Girl, Feminist Carpet Cleaner, Bitch: Feminist Response to Popular Culture, I Scare Myself, My Evil Twin Sister, Fat Girl, Fat? So!, I'm So Fucking Beautiful, Revolution Rising, Meat Hook, Housewife Turned Assassin, Bust, Chestlick, Nightmare Girl, Pokerface, Hysteria Action Forum, Her Posse, Chainsaw, Girlie Jones, and Mystery Date. As well, S. Bryn Austin and Pam Gregg write about a variety of queer zines in their essay "A Freak among Freaks: The 'Zine Scene," in Sisters, Sexperts, Queers (81-95), and a number of zine makers have scored book contracts for their zines, including Pagan Kennedy's zine Pagan's Head which is now a "novel" called "Zine: How I Spent Six Years of My Life in the Underground and Finally . . . Found Myself . . . I Think (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995); and Marilyn Wann's, Fat!So? Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1999). Besides distribution networks that circulate zines locally, nationally, and transnationally, there are a number of stores across the country that specialize in alternative and small press publications. Three of my major sources are in Portland, Oregon: Ozone Records, Powell's Bookstore, and Reading Frenzy: An Alternative Press Emporium (all within a block of one another). The largest publication that reviews zines is Fact Sheet Five: The Big Fat Guide to the Zine Revolution, published by R. Seth Freidman (P.O. Box 170099, San Francisco, CA 94117-0099), which covers the gamut from science fiction to thrift shopping to s/m to comix to queer to politics to food to "grrrlz."
53. There are literally thousands upon thousands of girl-centered zines, some still in production, some no longer circulating. Some of the names of the zines I have collected are Bamboo Girl, Feminist Carpet Cleaner, Bitch: Feminist Response to Popular Culture, I Scare Myself, My Evil Twin Sister, Fat Girl, Fat? So!, I'm So Fucking Beautiful, Revolution Rising, Meat Hook, Housewife Turned Assassin, Bust, Chestlick, Nightmare Girl, Pokerface, Hysteria Action Forum, Her Posse, Chainsaw, Girlie Jones, and Mystery Date. As well, S. Bryn Austin and Pam Gregg write about a variety of queer zines in their essay "A Freak among Freaks: The 'Zine Scene," in Sisters, Sexperts, Queers (81-95), and a number of zine makers have scored book contracts for their zines, including Pagan Kennedy's zine Pagan's Head which is now a "novel" called "Zine: How I Spent Six Years of My Life in the Underground and Finally . . . Found Myself . . . I Think (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995); and Marilyn Wann's, Fat!So? Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1999). Besides distribution networks that circulate zines locally, nationally, and transnationally, there are a number of stores across the country that specialize in alternative and small press publications. Three of my major sources are in Portland, Oregon: Ozone Records, Powell's Bookstore, and Reading Frenzy: An Alternative Press Emporium (all within a block of one another). The largest publication that reviews zines is Fact Sheet Five: The Big Fat Guide to the Zine Revolution, published by R. Seth Freidman (P.O. Box 170099, San Francisco, CA 94117-0099), which covers the gamut from science fiction to thrift shopping to s/m to comix to queer to politics to food to "grrrlz."
54. There are literally thousands upon thousands of girl-centered zines, some still in production, some no longer circulating. Some of the names of the zines I have collected are Bamboo Girl, Feminist Carpet Cleaner, Bitch: Feminist Response to Popular Culture, I Scare Myself, My Evil Twin Sister, Fat Girl, Fat? So!, I'm So Fucking Beautiful, Revolution Rising, Meat Hook, Housewife Turned Assassin, Bust, Chestlick, Nightmare Girl, Pokerface, Hysteria Action Forum, Her Posse, Chainsaw, Girlie Jones, and Mystery Date. As well, S. Bryn Austin and Pam Gregg write about a variety of queer zines in their essay "A Freak among Freaks: The 'Zine Scene," in Sisters, Sexperts, Queers (81-95), and a number of zine makers have scored book contracts for their zines, including Pagan Kennedy's zine Pagan's Head which is now a "novel" called "Zine: How I Spent Six Years of My Life in the Underground and Finally . . . Found Myself . . . I Think (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995); and Marilyn Wann's, Fat!So? Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1999). Besides distribution networks that circulate zines locally, nationally, and transnationally, there are a number of stores across the country that specialize in alternative and small press publications. Three of my major sources are in Portland, Oregon: Ozone Records, Powell's Bookstore, and Reading Frenzy: An Alternative Press Emporium (all within a block of one another). The largest publication that reviews zines is Fact Sheet Five: The Big Fat Guide to the Zine Revolution, published by R. Seth Freidman (P.O. Box 170099, San Francisco, CA 94117-0099), which covers the gamut from science fiction to thrift shopping to s/m to comix to queer to politics to food to "grrrlz."
55. There are literally thousands upon thousands of girl-centered zines, some still in production, some no longer circulating. Some of the names of the zines I have collected are Bamboo Girl, Feminist Carpet Cleaner, Bitch: Feminist Response to Popular Culture, I Scare Myself, My Evil Twin Sister, Fat Girl, Fat? So!, I'm So Fucking Beautiful, Revolution Rising, Meat Hook, Housewife Turned Assassin, Bust, Chestlick, Nightmare Girl, Pokerface, Hysteria Action Forum, Her Posse, Chainsaw, Girlie Jones, and Mystery Date. As well, S. Bryn Austin and Pam Gregg write about a variety of queer zines in their essay "A Freak among Freaks: The 'Zine Scene," in Sisters, Sexperts, Queers (81-95), and a number of zine makers have scored book contracts for their zines, including Pagan Kennedy's zine Pagan's Head which is now a "novel" called "Zine: How I Spent Six Years of My Life in the Underground and Finally . . . Found Myself . . . I Think (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995); and Marilyn Wann's, Fat!So? Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1999). Besides distribution networks that circulate zines locally, nationally, and transnationally, there are a number of stores across the country that specialize in alternative and small press publications. Three of my major sources are in Portland, Oregon: Ozone Records, Powell's Bookstore, and Reading Frenzy: An Alternative Press Emporium (all within a block of one another). The largest publication that reviews zines is Fact Sheet Five: The Big Fat Guide to the Zine Revolution, published by R. Seth Freidman (P.O. Box 170099, San Francisco, CA 94117-0099), which covers the gamut from science fiction to thrift shopping to s/m to comix to queer to politics to food to "grrrlz."
56. Riot Grrrl has also traveled across the Atlantic at least to Great Britain. The most notorious group of grrrls involved in England are the members of Huggy Bear (Niki, Jo, Chris, John, and Karen-three women and two men) who Amy Raphael calls "DIY revolutionaries, full-on feminists, art terrorists." See Amy Raphael, Grrrls: Viva Rock Divas (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1996), 148. ("DIY" stands for "do it yourself" and is a central philosophy among punk aestheticists.)
57. Spirit, "What Is a Riot Grrrl Anyway?" available from http://www.columbia.edu/ ~rli3/music_html/bikini_kill/girl.html, Internet, accessed 6 Jan., 1995.
58. Chantal Mouffe coined the term, "Nodal Point." See Mouffe's The Return of the Political (London: Verso, 1993), 8.
59. Chantal Mouffe coined the term, "Nodal Point." See Mouffe's The Return of the Political (London: Verso, 1993), 8.
60. In Hillary Carlip's Girl Power: Young Women Speak Out! Personal Writings from Teenage Girls (New York: Warner, 1995), the author includes a chapter, "Riot Grrrls," in which she combines the writings of young women with a descriptive narrative of what Riot Grrrls are about (31-64).
61. I avoid "correcting," altering, or changing the grammar in any of the excerpts from zines or Internet pages, unless the text interferes with the ability to comprehend the intended meanings.
62. Some of the articles Spirit and other Riot Grrrls have been reacting to and resisting include Farai Chideya, Melissa Rossi, and Dogen Hannah, "Revolution-Girl Style," Newsweek, 23 Nov. 1992, 84-86; "Riot Grrrls," Rolling Stone, 8 July 1993, 23; Nina Malkin, "It's a Grrrl Thing," Seventeen 52 (May 1993): 80-82; another possible inclusion that isn't simply about "Riot Grrrl" is Louise Bernikow, "The New Activists: Fearless, Funny, Fighting Mad," Cosmopolitan 214 (April 1993): 162-65, 212.
63. Some of the articles Spirit and other Riot Grrrls have been reacting to and resisting include Farai Chideya, Melissa Rossi, and Dogen Hannah, "Revolution-Girl Style," Newsweek, 23 Nov. 1992, 84-86; "Riot Grrrls," Rolling Stone, 8 July 1993, 23; Nina Malkin, "It's a Grrrl Thing," Seventeen 52 (May 1993): 80-82; another possible inclusion that isn't simply about "Riot Grrrl" is Louise Bernikow, "The New Activists: Fearless, Funny, Fighting Mad," Cosmopolitan 214 (April 1993): 162-65, 212.
64. Some of the articles Spirit and other Riot Grrrls have been reacting to and resisting include Farai Chideya, Melissa Rossi, and Dogen Hannah, "Revolution-Girl Style," Newsweek, 23 Nov. 1992, 84-86; "Riot Grrrls," Rolling Stone, 8 July 1993, 23; Nina Malkin, "It's a Grrrl Thing," Seventeen 52 (May 1993): 80-82; another possible inclusion that isn't simply about "Riot Grrrl" is Louise Bernikow, "The New Activists: Fearless, Funny, Fighting Mad," Cosmopolitan 214 (April 1993): 162-65, 212.
65. Some of the articles Spirit and other Riot Grrrls have been reacting to and resisting include Farai Chideya, Melissa Rossi, and Dogen Hannah, "Revolution-Girl Style," Newsweek, 23 Nov. 1992, 84-86; "Riot Grrrls," Rolling Stone, 8 July 1993, 23; Nina Malkin, "It's a Grrrl Thing," Seventeen 52 (May 1993): 80-82; another possible inclusion that isn't simply about "Riot Grrrl" is Louise Bernikow, "The New Activists: Fearless, Funny, Fighting Mad," Cosmopolitan 214 (April 1993): 162-65, 212.
66. This is one example of what I mean when I critique Baudrillard's critique of consumer society (see note 4). Whereas he sees only "fashion, trend, fad," I want to continue to allow for the possibility of challenging and questioning, that is leaving open the possibility of a politics of style, or style as politics. This is not a naive, utopian denial-I realize the "trend" has cultural dominance-but the radicalizing possibilities still exist. Perhaps the "Riot Grrrl" who stands most visibly on the border between fad and politics is Courtney Love. The more recent musical phenomenon from Great Britain, the Spice Girls, who sell themselves as advocates of "girl power," are more troubling for me as they seem to completely fit into the kind of world Baudrillard describes.
67. Bikini Kill, The CD Version of the First Two Records (1992), liner notes.
68. Mimi, "The Bikini Kill Homepage," available from http://www.columbia.edu/ ~rli3/music_html/bikini_kill/bikini.html, Internet, accessed 6 Jan. 1995. Notice that Riot Grrrl is a "pseudomovement" here. I imagine that the term could refer to a number of things: the way the media has emptied it of its "revolutionary" and political content; the fact that Riot Grrrl doesn't fit the characteristic of what gets called a "social movement" in the sociological sense; or perhaps that because it is viewed as a "subcultural" phenomenon it is not considered a full-blown social movement. I suspect that for some, "pseudomovement" is preferable to "movement" for the simple reason that it can resist some of the problems "movements" experience, in terms of hierarchical leadership and organizational structures, the impulse to unify around a single issue or ideology, and the seduction of institutionalization.
69. One strategy many women and girls in the punk and indie scenes have devised is the creation of their own recording companies as vehicles for producing the music they want to hear. Some of these companies include Kill Rock Stars and K Records, both in Olympia, Washington; Chainsaw and Candy-Ass Records, both in Portland, Oregon (recently moved to Olympia); and Thrill Jockey Records, Chicago. Like many of these labels, Outpunk, a queer punk zine and distribution network run out of Matt Wobensmith's apartment in San Francisco, distributes zines, books, and other hard-to-find underground print media, besides putting out CDs, tapes, and 7-inch records by queerpunk bands in the United States and England.
70. Kathleen Hanna, interview with Andrea Juno, "Kathleen Hanna: Bikini Kill," Angry Women in Rock, vol. 1 (New York: Juno Books, 1996), 100, 98.
71. Some of the better-known role models often listed include Joan Jett, Patti Smith, the Runaways, the Go Gos, the Au Pairs, and Cyndi Lauper.
72. Jennifer Miro, quoted in Spirit.
73. Iris Marion Young, "Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women as a Social Collective," Signs 19 (spring 1994): 736, 728. Young's use of the series is drawn from a concept of "seriality" developed by Jean-Paul Sartre as a specific kind of social collectivity distinguishable from what he calls "groups." However, Young also makes it clear that she "raids" Sartre for her own ends, "taking and rearticulating for my own purposes the concepts I think will help resolve the dilemma I have posed. In doing so I need not drag all of Sartre with me, and I may be 'disloyal' to him" (723). Ironically, this strategy also helps Young avoid being Sartre in drag.
74. The other woman behind Girl Germs is Molly Neuman, who, with Allison Wolfe, was in the band Bratmobile. See Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman, Girl Germs, no. 4 (1991): 25-26.
75. In their 1978 essay, "Girls and Subcultures," Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber raise questions about the lack of research on girls in subcultures in England, wondering, specifically, if this is a consequence of the invisibility of girls in those subcultures. McRobbie especially challenges this perception. See McRobbie, Feminism and Youth Culture.
76. Rebecca B., "Girl: because you know we'll rock and sock it to ya," Girl Germs, no. 4 (1991): 21-22. Thanks to Carol Siegel for pointing out the way in which two different worlds "are in contact" in this story. Her suggestions about the modeling of Girl's Night after Second Wave women's music festivals is even more potent considering the notorious problems girl-positive bands (whether or not they are identified with Riot Grrrl) have had with protests by boys when their performances are advertised as women-only. Many Riot Grrrl-sponsored events have had to put up with such dissension-even at Riot Grrrl Conventions where Second Wave models of the c-r group have been imitated. At the Riot Grrrl Convention in Los Angeles in 1995 at least one boy protested when "Free to Fight" held grrrl-only self-defense workshops. For example, see Tamra, "riot grrrl convention, los angeles, summer 1995," available from http://ernie.bgsu. edu/~ckile/rg95.html, Internet, accessed February 1996. This is complicated even more by the experiences of the lesbian hard-core/punk band Tribe 8 at the Michigan Women's Music Festival. See Evelyn McDonnell, "Queer Punk Meets Womyn's Music," Ms. 5 (November 1994): 78-82; and Karla Mantilla, "Tribe 8: Bridging the Generations?" off our backs 26 (October 1996): 19.
77. Rebecca B., "Girl: because you know we'll rock and sock it to ya," Girl Germs, no. 4 (1991): 21-22. Thanks to Carol Siegel for pointing out the way in which two different worlds "are in contact" in this story. Her suggestions about the modeling of Girl's Night after Second Wave women's music festivals is even more potent considering the notorious problems girl-positive bands (whether or not they are identified with Riot Grrrl) have had with protests by boys when their performances are advertised as women-only. Many Riot Grrrl-sponsored events have had to put up with such dissension-even at Riot Grrrl Conventions where Second Wave models of the c-r group have been imitated. At the Riot Grrrl Convention in Los Angeles in 1995 at least one boy protested when "Free to Fight" held grrrl-only self-defense workshops. For example, see Tamra, "riot grrrl convention, los angeles, summer 1995," available from http://ernie.bgsu. edu/~ckile/rg95.html, Internet, accessed February 1996. This is complicated even more by the experiences of the lesbian hard-core/punk band Tribe 8 at the Michigan Women's Music Festival. See Evelyn McDonnell, "Queer Punk Meets Womyn's Music," Ms. 5 (November 1994): 78-82; and Karla Mantilla, "Tribe 8: Bridging the Generations?" off our backs 26 (October 1996): 19.
78. Rebecca B., "Girl: because you know we'll rock and sock it to ya," Girl Germs, no. 4 (1991): 21-22. Thanks to Carol Siegel for pointing out the way in which two different worlds "are in contact" in this story. Her suggestions about the modeling of Girl's Night after Second Wave women's music festivals is even more potent considering the notorious problems girl-positive bands (whether or not they are identified with Riot Grrrl) have had with protests by boys when their performances are advertised as women-only. Many Riot Grrrl-sponsored events have had to put up with such dissension-even at Riot Grrrl Conventions where Second Wave models of the c-r group have been imitated. At the Riot Grrrl Convention in Los Angeles in 1995 at least one boy protested when "Free to Fight" held grrrl-only self-defense workshops. For example, see Tamra, "riot grrrl convention, los angeles, summer 1995," available from http://ernie.bgsu. edu/~ckile/rg95.html, Internet, accessed February 1996. This is complicated even more by the experiences of the lesbian hard-core/punk band Tribe 8 at the Michigan Women's Music Festival. See Evelyn McDonnell, "Queer Punk Meets Womyn's Music," Ms. 5 (November 1994): 78-82; and Karla Mantilla, "Tribe 8: Bridging the Generations?" off our backs 26 (October 1996): 19.
79. Rebecca B., "Girl: because you know we'll rock and sock it to ya," Girl Germs, no. 4 (1991): 21-22. Thanks to Carol Siegel for pointing out the way in which two different worlds "are in contact" in this story. Her suggestions about the modeling of Girl's Night after Second Wave women's music festivals is even more potent considering the notorious problems girl-positive bands (whether or not they are identified with Riot Grrrl) have had with protests by boys when their performances are advertised as women-only. Many Riot Grrrl-sponsored events have had to put up with such dissension-even at Riot Grrrl Conventions where Second Wave models of the c-r group have been imitated. At the Riot Grrrl Convention in Los Angeles in 1995 at least one boy protested when "Free to Fight" held grrrl-only self-defense workshops. For example, see Tamra, "riot grrrl convention, los angeles, summer 1995," available from http://ernie.bgsu. edu/~ckile/rg95.html, Internet, accessed February 1996. This is complicated even more by the experiences of the lesbian hard-core/punk band Tribe 8 at the Michigan Women's Music Festival. See Evelyn McDonnell, "Queer Punk Meets Womyn's Music," Ms. 5 (November 1994): 78-82; and Karla Mantilla, "Tribe 8: Bridging the Generations?" off our backs 26 (October 1996): 19.
80. Rebecca B., 22. Angela McRobbie has already suggested that there are some potent affinities between punk style and feminist style in her 1978 essay, "Settling Accounts with Subcultures: A Feminist Critique," in Feminism and Youth Culture, 16-34. Rebecca's comments about the impact playing musical instruments and performing in public can have on girls (as performers and as audience) and its subsequent impact on punk culture supports McRobbie's assertion that subcultures are symbolically connected to political movements like feminism and the New Left (the two she names). This also goes a long way in arguing for a "politics of style," an understanding of "style" as a form of politics-as overt political expression.
81. Rebecca B., 22.
82. Nomy Lamm, "It's a Big Fat Revolution," in Listen Up, 94.
83. Nomy Lamm was chosen as one of Ms.'s women of the year for 1996. See Anastasia Higginbotham, "Nomy Lamm," Ms. 7 (January/February 1997): 61-63. Lamm's piece which appeared in Ms. in 1996 was preceded by letters on the way fat oppression has not been dealt with by the magazine and then followed by letters of enthusiasm for Ms.'s inclusion of Lamm's piece. See Nomy Lamm, "Fat Is Your Problem," Ms. 6 (March/April 1996): 96.
84. Nomy Lamm was chosen as one of Ms.'s women of the year for 1996. See Anastasia Higginbotham, "Nomy Lamm," Ms. 7 (January/February 1997): 61-63. Lamm's piece which appeared in Ms. in 1996 was preceded by letters on the way fat oppression has not been dealt with by the magazine and then followed by letters of enthusiasm for Ms.'s inclusion of Lamm's piece. See Nomy Lamm, "Fat Is Your Problem," Ms. 6 (March/April 1996): 96.
85. Walker, 218.
86. Christine Doza, "Bloodlove," in Listen Up, 251, 253.
87. Hanna.
88. Gilbert and Kile (152) use "meme" as defined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene. See Laurel Gilbert and Crystal Kile, Surfergrrrrls: Look Ethel! An Internet Guide for Us! (Seattle: Seal Press, 1996), 154, 6.
89. Gilbert and Kile (152) use "meme" as defined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene. See Laurel Gilbert and Crystal Kile, Surfergrrrrls: Look Ethel! An Internet Guide for Us! (Seattle: Seal Press, 1996), 154, 6.
90. Zimmerman, 52.
91. McRobbie, Feminism and Youth Culture, xv.
92. See Joanne Gottleib and Gayle Wald, "Smells Like Teen Spirit: Riot Grrrls, Revolution, and Women in Independent Rock," Critical Matrix 7, no. 2 (1993): 11-44, esp. 13.