"Riot Grrrl Day" Declared in Boston in Honour of Kathleen Hanna

BY Alex HudsonPublished Apr 8, 2015

In the last couple of years, the return of Sleater-Kinney and Kathleen Hanna has meant that the riot grrrl scene of the 1990s has enjoyed something of a resurgence. This week, the genre will be recognized more officially by the city of Boston, as Mayor Marty Walsh has declared this Thursday (April 9) to be "Riot Grrrl Day."

This celebration is specifically intended to honour Hanna. Of course, the Bikini Kill/Le Tigre/Julie Ruin singer doesn't hail from the region — she got her start in the Pacific Northwest and now resides in New York — but she's in Boston on Thursday to lecture and perform at the city's Wilbur Theatre.

At her show, Hanna will be presented with a proclamation by Joyce Linehan, a veteran of the city's arts scene who has been acquainted with Hanna for 20 years, according to Boston Magazine. The proclamation is signed by Walsh and part of it is adapted from Hanna's "Riot Grrrl Manifesto" from 1991.

"The riot grrrl philosophy has never felt more relevant, with misogyny still rampant in many cultural spaces," the proclamation reads. "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."

Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna : The Riot Grrrl Manifesto from Bicephaly Pictures on Vimeo.

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