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Music

I Am Not a Rock Chick

It's 2012 and "challenging femininity" is about more than Riot Grrrl and Alanis' bitching.

Mish is the lead singer of the Vancouver-based punk band White Lung.

Of all the things that piss me off, nothing pisses me off more than the term “rock chick.” Why? Because it’s 2012, that’s why. The whole women-playing-in-bands thing is not shocking anymore. I hate it when people ask me what it’s like to be a girl who plays “punk” music. You want to know what it’s like? That’s what it’s like. The only difference about being a girl who plays “punk” music is that people ask you that stupid question.

However, I know that once upon a time way back in Olympia in 1992, there were a bunch of college girls who thought it was important to separate themselves as female musicians, even to go so far as to call themselves “riot grrrls.” But this was a political strategy invented on their own terms. Riot Grrrl was their answer to the violence that had merged in the hardcore punk scene. They wanted to talk about rape, sexuality, abortion, and women’s health, as well as boys and girls they fucked and loved. It was conscious, about starting a discourse while invoking rebellion and empowering for them. But that ship has sailed. Kathleen Hanna lives in a loft in Soho or whatever and is married to a Beastie Boy. She’s doing her own new thing in the Millennium. Let her do it. We still have Girls Rock Camp though and I believe in that stuff. Riot Grrrl has laid its head to rest and that is okay. It will always, always be influential, just not relevant.

Read the rest over at NOISEY.