Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna
I never set out to review musicians’ memoirs, but here we are. I suppose I’m the age when my heroes are the age that they’re writing memoirs. A couple weeks ago, I wrote about Robyn Hitchcock’s recent publication, and since that writing, he’s announced an album of covers of songs considered in his book. Here’s the first single. I haven’t listened to it yet!
Totally unrelated, last week I somehow saw that the audiobook version of Kathleen Hanna’s memoir is available with a Spotify subscription. She’s also created a playlist of the songs she discusses. I’ve had my eye on the book since it was announced, but hadn’t picked it up yet. Kathleen Hanna is arguably a more important musician and cultural figure than good ol’ Robyn, but she doesn’t loom as large in my personal cosmology—though, to be very clear, I have nothing but the deepest admiration and respect for her and her artistic, musical, and other work.
KH reads the memoir herself. I love that. I’ve always appreciated hearing her speak—especially because she plays on people’s expectations by delivering insightful cultural critique and political outrage wrapped in a sweetened verbal delivery that our prejudices lead us to find disarming—even as she’s making world-shaking points. It’s as engaging as it is effective.
To be candid, the memoir is hard to listen to—especially the first half, which is how far I’ve gotten as of this writing. The book is great. But to hear a woman recount the stories of an incestuous household, sexual assault, and the everyday harassment that she and the women she knows/knew have survived is incredibly heavy. Of course, part of the reason it feels so heavy is that I have been protected from the various forms of literal violence that most women live with. Every woman I’ve ever known well has had stories: “bad dates,” cat calling, attacks, domestic violence, having to do something sexually to avoid something worse.
I have to be candid about the limits of my own perspective here as a hetero cis-gendered white male, but I strive to educate myself and be an ally. For me, feminism isn’t complicated at its most fundamental level; it’s a commitment to women and men having the same rights, status, and opportunities. How that plays out and how we root out the implicit biases that our society perpetuates is, of course, where things get complicated. It’s strange to write about feminism in juxtaposition with the collages I created (in part) to wrestle with my complicity in the exploitation of women. I don’t have anything particularly insightful to say about that, but I wonder what KH would make of the Animal-headed Pin-up Model Series.
Continue reading beyond the paywall for how all of this relates to Barbie
CotD: Centrefold
This is a big one. It’s probably more than two feet tall. It went out with a record bought by my open mic pal, Brennan Carrol. I dunno why I opted for the cover-ups with this one. Just felt right. It’s also unusual in that there is no background. The gray surrounding the figure is the metal board I use to magnet together collage pieces before I tape/glue them. I sometimes piece together a background for a big central figure, but I like this one standing on it’s own.
Subscriber-only collage: No Business Like Goat Business (beyond the paywall!)
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