Riot Grrrls - A Primer

Published: Oct. 16, 2019, 3:01 a.m.

b'There is no question that the vast majority of rock history involves dudes\\u2026it\\u2019s been a very male thing\\u2026not always, but most of the time\\u2026\\n\\nThere was a time when it was \\u201ccommon knowledge\\u201d that girls just couldn\\u2019t rock\\u2026they didn\\u2019t have the feel\\u2026they were built wrong\\u2026it just wasn\\u2019t in their DNA like it was with guys\\u2026\\n\\nThat\\u2019s crap, of course\\u2026but it took a long, long time for those prejudices to be defeated\\u2014dead and buried\\u2026\\n\\nThe original punk rock of the mid-70s was a great help, thanks to the movement\\u2019s dogma that anyone with anything to say should be able to say it, regardless of musical ability, social class, race, or sex\\u2026lots of women were able to get on board with that\\u2026\\n\\nBut there was some backsliding in the 80s\\u2026for example, hardcore punk was among the most testosterone-drive bro-rock ever\\u2026women were pushed to the back\\u2026and when grunge came along in the early 90s, it was again very dude-heavy\\u2026\\n\\nEven though parts of the grunge world were down with feminist causes and ideals\\u2014Kurt Cobain and the guys in Pearl Jam pretty woke and sympathetic, the scene as still very much a boy\\u2019s club\\u2026very male\\u2026\\n\\nThis time, though, a group of women were determined to carve out their own space\\u2026music that would be about them and for them\\u2026music that would speak to issues that they cared about\\u2026and music that could rock just as hard and be just as abrasive as what the guys were doing\\u2026sometimes even more so\\u2026a lot more\\u2026\\n\\nThey became known as \\u201criot grrrls\\u201d\\u2026and this is their story\\u2026\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'