The Future is Female

A few weeks ago, I shared a video on Instagram that had been shared with me. The clip featured a band called The Linda Lindas. They’re a four-piece band from California comprised of teen and pre-teen girls. In the video, they’re playing a song called “Racist, Sexist Boy” at the LA library.

Many people have called their music punk, but it’s really closer to a subgenre called Riot Grrrl. This style of music emerged in the late 80s and really hit its peak in the 90s. Bands that created this movement include Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Huggy Bear, and L7. There were many others. Here is a quick video that has a great breakdown of the history of the movement.

There’s been a revival of sorts for riot grrrl music. The awesome film Moxie uses a lot of riot grrrl music and even features a performance by The Linda Lindas. It’s fitting that female-oriented punk is making waves. Women’s rights are under assault all over this country. Restrictive laws are being passed that would strip women of control over their bodies. What better way to push back against this tide of misogyny than with a musical genre dedicated to doing just that.

I was watching a clip of The Linda Lindas on Jimmy Kimmel with Lexi when at one point she turned to me and said something like “I am here for this new generation of women”. I couldn’t agree more. Unlike many of the women of my generation, being seen as a person with the same rights and flaws as men isn’t a revolutionary idea. This is not a knock on Gen X females. Let me explain.

For the girls growing up in the 80s and 90s, their feminist role models were women who stood up to the patriarchy with such radical ideas as “women can work” and “women aren’t babymaking housewives”. You can trace this back to the women of the 50s and 60s who really invented modern feminism. But the underlying thought behind all this was that women who sought equality were demanding something new and radical. It was not a given to a girl born in 1980 that she could have an independent life. Riot grrrl is a great example of this.

Punk rock is roughly 50 years old and for the first 30 years or so, women were not totally welcome. In a lot of ways, they were expressly forbidden. Odd, since the whole punk aesthetic was about turning one’s nose up at cultural norms. But misogyny is strong and unfortunately, it infected the punk scene too. Riot grrrl was a reaction to this. If the men weren’t going to let them into the scene then they’d create their own.

You can draw a straight line from riot grrrl scenes to the waves of grunge music that dominated the 90s. Many of the bands from that era were influenced by riot grrrl and often played in the same circles as them. Not only did the women in these bands create their own space, but it also went on to rule music for almost a decade. There is no better example of this than a compilation CD that came out in 1996 and featured a number of riot grrrl bands playing alongside massively popular bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. It’s a fantastic collection of music and introduced me to the movement when I was 13.

This brings us to today. Unlike the women my age, who had to demand rights, the women today have an assumed entitlement to them. Which…of course. But the mindset is different, I think. Teenage girls nowadays grow up knowing they do not have to demand rights or ask permission for them. They’ve been taught that they simply have them. They rebel against the remnants of what Gen X women burned down. This is not to say it is easy or there isn’t still sexism. There definitely is. What I am saying is that the mindset is different.

Girls growing up in the 80s had an eclectic set of feminist role models to identify with. They mostly came from what’s known as second-wave feminism. Knowledge of these women was a little harder to come by than it is today, as much of the education, media, and the government was controlled by men (still is). Most of society still tried to enforce typical, traditional social norms upon women. So when female-oriented punk music started to gain popularity, it was seen not as a natural thing but as a rebellious movement. And it certainly was.

Today, girls can go online and listen to riot grrrl and read about all that came before them. They’ve been taught (in liberal-leaning areas, anyway) that they can do, say, wear, act, and have whatever they want. And so when a group of girls gets together to start a band it isn’t a revolutionary act in their minds. They are simply girls doing something that anyone else can do. This was not always the case. Loud, aggressive music with screaming vocals has not been the domain of women for as long as it has been for men.

The beautiful thing in what we have now is a generation of girls who are growing up with intimate knowledge of the struggle against the patriarchy. They see it for what it is and they hate it. They don’t just want to burn it down, they resent its very existence. And while women in past generations likely felt the same, it has become normalized to feel that way. Equality for women is no longer a revolutionary concept or something that requires explanation. It is a given and just as any man would be outraged at stripping of his rights, women now react with the same rage.

Go back and watch the video at the top of this article. The girls’ faces say it all. They’re pissed. And they aren’t going to take any shit from a racist, sexist boy. They’ve been taught, just like the generations of boys before them, that they have a right to exist. It is expected, not requested, or won from men.

We are now in the fourth wave of feminism, perhaps approaching the fifth wave. It focuses not only on women’s rights and sex-positivity but the intersectionality of other movements. As The Linda Lindas make clear, their song isn’t just about sexism but racism as well. I am far from an expert on feminism and there are a lot of other sources to learn about this from than a geriatric millennial male.

I mean, listen to this young lady! She knows so much! It’s incredible.

I’m sure I haven’t been as articulate as I wanted to be here. I’m a man, after all. My perspective is obviously colored by that. I’d love to hear some feedback about what I’ve written here so I can continue to learn about this topic.

The future is female and I am here for it.