Riot Grrrl Classic Bikini Kill’s ‘Pussy Whipped’ at 30

At a Bikini Kill show in the early 1990s, you’d see Kathleen Hanna‘s scrappy passion and drive manifest in the veins popping out of her neck when she wailed. You would see it exposed in her body language and attitude. You can hear it documented on their most famous record and a centerpiece of the riot grrrl social movement, 1993’s Pussy Whipped, an uninhibited, game-changing punk album by dissident young women.

Hanna presented herself as a bold leader at the edge of the stage, erupting with charisma in a mini dress and combat boots. Bikini Kill’s performances were full of rage as well as bop. Always the playful showgirl, Hanna would dance and strike poses while howling melodies, sometimes in a facetious Valley Girl accent. She would joke with the crowd between songs and tell stories while the band tuned up, making it clear that having fun was still a prerogative of going to live punk shows. She would announce upcoming meetings and give intimate speeches. People would cheer Hanna’s clarion calls and imposing persona, and Bikini Kill would explode into another song.

The members of Bikini Kill met at Evergreen State in Olympia in the late 1980s. Studying photography, Hanna befriended a fellow photography student in class, Tammy Rae Carland, now an accomplished artist and academic. When Hanna’s socially critical photo collages were largely rejected by their art classes, Hanna and Carland co-founded an art gallery focused on feminism called Reko Muse. Carland introduced Hanna to alternative music, a realm of pop culture unknown to Hanna at the time, and both explored sexism, feminism, female representation, and societal consciousness of the female experience through school and art. Concurrently, Hanna worked as a stripper to pay her tuition and performed spoken word at Reko Muse. Her spoken word performances were charged with jittery honesty and punctuated by rhythmic foot stomps. She always wanted to be on stage and felt more like herself with all eyes on her.

Kathi Wilcox and Tobi Vail were also students at Evergreen State. They were friends before meeting Hanna, bonding over feminism and punk rock, and wanted to start a band even though they didn’t know how to play instruments. Seeing Hanna as strong, inspiring, and bursting with raw reactions – the perfect personality for a frontwoman – they asked Kathleen to sing. Unable to find a fitting female guitarist, Tobi asked her friend Bill Karren to join. With Hanna on vocals, Wilcox on bass, Vail on drums, and Karren on guitar, Bikini Kill formed in 1990, and the band’s courageous, punk rock protest shows were in full swing.

Bikini Kill gave a voice to women in a new way, breaking the mold of what a girl is expected to be. The band’s hit single “Rebel Girl” is about the deserved admiration of a girl who exudes resolute confidence (a trait Western social standards attribute to masculinity), an unshakable disposition, and defiance of submissiveness and obedience. Truthfully, every track on Pussy Whipped is a defiant celebration of female empowerment. Bikini Kill also delved into the inner conflicts that arise when rebelling against the establishment. The chunky punk riffs of “Alien She” bounce around a concept of being at odds with the established socially accepted characterization of femininity, depicting a hateful conflict portrayed as two parts of a single woman unable to destroy the opposition without total self-destruction.

Viewing Bikini Kill and their politics as mutually exclusive would be a massive misunderstanding. The band members loved punk culture in its purest form, and their political ideals catalyzed Hanna’s risk-taking presentation as a brash, powerful female persona. Bikini Kill took the DIY ethics of punk culture and used them to redefine the culture as a whole. They didn’t like that punk was male-dominated, so they started a female punk band, taking it upon themselves to change the culture’s infrastructure from within. Bonding over an idea they dubbed “Revolution Girl Style Now”, the band became a means to enact change and focus their fury, a step in the right direction these particular individuals could take for the sake of marginalized groups. 

Every show was an exhibit that Hanna made for the inclusion of women into punk culture. From the stage, she would police against brutally aggressive men who made the space unsafe for women. Much of the reason why women felt excluded from shows is because of how dangerous it was. This is why Hanna would call girls to the front of the stage. It was a means for the group to protect and let them feel included and welcome. Out of necessity, Hanna would instruct people to be respectful. She was adamant about ensuring men didn’t dominate the room when Bikini Kill was involved. Hanna personally ejected disobedient people from events, literally exhuming people from their shows and making it evident to the entire room when it was nearly a spectacle as if it were meant to be a part of the show. If nobody wanted to comply with her principles of female inclusion and physical safety, they would be directed to leave, an act of challenging social parameters.

Bikini Kill embodied the philosophy of punk: a rebellion against complacency and the establishment. They weren’t the first to do this, but perhaps they were the noisiest and most resonant. Moreover, they applied the classic, audacious punk attitude to feminism, adding grit to their socio-political ideology. The songs on Pussy Whipped illustrate youthful resistance with bravado. “Magnet” dictates a refusal of social binding, a rejection of expected passivity. “Sugar” mocks the way female pornography actresses speak and moan for the benefit of a man’s climax, using an explicit example to demand that Western society consider a woman’s desires rather than prioritizing that of a man. Pussy Whipped is a reaction to male entitlement and misogyny, the reason why Hanna, Wilcox, and Vail felt like they couldn’t be a part of the music culture that they admired.

In addition to live performances, creating zines (locally circulated, self-published periodicals) was another integral mode for Hanna and crew to empower women and spread feminist ideas. Hanna and Carland produced a zine called I (heart) Amy Carter, and Hannah deeply admired Tobi Vail’s fanzine, Jigsaw, before the two met each other. The girls of Bikini Kill published a two-issue fanzine called Bikini Kill at the same time the band formed. It was their way of promoting and cultivating intellectual discourse. It was self-publishing before the internet. The circulation of their zines was like spreading an all-inclusive, communal, feminist gospel source.

Shortly after Bikini Kill and fellow feminist punk band Bratmobile moved to Washington, DC together in 1991 – and sparked by news of sexism and violence against women, such as the Anita Hill court hearings – they began organizing community discourse within the female population regarding sexual abuse. The term “riot grrrl” was created from an amalgamation of things said between DC artist and activist Jen Smith and Tobi Vail. Hanna, Bratmobile members Allison Wolfe and Molly Newman (creators of the zine Girl Germs), Smith, and Vail started making and spreading a weekly zine called riot grrrl.

Hanna wrote a manifesto for the riot grrrl movement, encouraging others to use the name “riot grrrl” and write their own manifestos of what they wanted it to mean. They opened the phrase to the public domain to let the idea spread and germinate a social movement. Soon, more riot grrrl zines began popping up nationwide, becoming an interactive phenomenon. Through music and the written word, feminism was cementing itself into pop culture for the first time via riot grrrl, and Bikini Kill acted as dynamos for the movement.

Bikini Kill were already demonstrating their vivacity in full force by 1993, and the release of Pussy Whipped enunciated their stance. With Hanna’s flippant valley girl accent riding over fiery instrumentation, “Blood One” is a sassy yet raging opener. It lunges forth with Wilcox’s blown-out, Fugazi-style bassline, which rips through the entire album. Songs like “Lil’ Red” and “Star Bellied Boy” show how vigorously Wilcox and Karren smashed their distorted sounds together to create singular crunchy punk riffs. Pussy Whipped swings with animated dynamics from beginning to end, bouncing on the beefy riffs of “Alien She” to the post-punk cleanliness of “Star Fish” and “For Tammy Rae”. The record moves from hardcore noise to driving krautrock while hanging on overarching wails and growling guitars.

Pussy Whipped is one of the most aggressive albums jammed into the history of punk music. Bikini Kill hit the jackpot of memorable songwriting with “Rebel Girl”, an anthem they re-recorded multiple times – the single version features production from Joan Jett – solidifying the imprint as punk icons as well as Kathleen Hanna’s star power. However, Hanna isn’t the only one releasing guttural shrieks in the lead vocal position on the album. Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox’s contribution to Bikini Kill brought the band’s style closer to hardcore punk. Wilcox seemingly tears her throat up on “Speed Heart”, a resentful track about women being able to meet the standards of men, but sexism and deception get in the way of success. Vail screams through the choruses of “Tell Me So”, and her blusterous squawks on “Hamster Baby” lead into a satisfying last-minute breakdown. Hanna refers to Carland on the closing track of Pussy Whipped, “For Tammy Rae”, a song about the desire to escape the relentless media attention that comes with fame to spend sincere time with her dear friend.

Brimming with the disgusted affectation of the marginalized, Pussy Whipped could be the antithesis of Henry Rollins and Black Flag‘s Damaged, a seminal hardcore punk album that strutted with masculine wrath. Pussy Whipped boasts the same punk indignation but from the female perspective. With all its combative energy, it argues for reconsidering established gender norms by asking an important question: are you a manifestation of your genuine thoughts and feelings or someone who fits social expectations? Through their records, daring live shows, zines, community organizing, and the popularity of the riot grrrl movement, Bikini Kill helped to open cultural eyes to sexual harassment and prejudices against women. It revealed to society that sexism is still a problem.