EPISODE · Oct 16, 2019 · 26 MIN

Riot Grrrls - A Primer

from Ongoing History of New Music · host Curiouscast

There is no question that the vast majority of rock history involves dudes…it’s been a very male thing…not always, but most of the time… There was a time when it was “common knowledge” that girls just couldn’t rock…they didn’t have the feel…they were built wrong…it just wasn’t in their DNA like it was with guys… That’s crap, of course…but it took a long, long time for those prejudices to be defeated—dead and buried… The original punk rock of the mid-70s was a great help, thanks to the movement’s dogma that anyone with anything to say should be able to say it, regardless of musical ability, social class, race, or sex…lots of women were able to get on board with that… But there was some backsliding in the 80s…for example, hardcore punk was among the most testosterone-drive bro-rock ever…women were pushed to the back…and when grunge came along in the early 90s, it was again very dude-heavy… Even though parts of the grunge world were down with feminist causes and ideals—Kurt Cobain and the guys in Pearl Jam pretty woke and sympathetic, the scene as still very much a boy’s club…very male… This time, though, a group of women were determined to carve out their own space…music that would be about them and for them…music that would speak to issues that they cared about…and music that could rock just as hard and be just as abrasive as what the guys were doing…sometimes even more so…a lot more… They became known as “riot grrrls”…and this is their story… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices