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My Vision Of Punk Rock Was These Dudes Who Were Spitting On The Audience And Moshing. That's Why I Kind Of Left That Scene. Then I See All These People Around My Same Age Or Between 17 And 25 That Were Making Music Themselves In Their Own Town. They Weren't Just Singing, But Creating. I See Them Putting Out This Music Where There Are Tons Of Women Involved In The Scene And Involved In The Bands.

-Kathleen Hanna

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My Vision Of Punk

Kathleen Hanna

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My Vision Of Punk Rock Was These Dudes Who Were Spitting On The Audience And Moshing. That's Why I Kind Of Left That Scene. Then I See All These People Around My Same Age Or Between 17 And 25 That Were Making Music Themselves In Their Own Town. They Weren't Just Singing, But Creating. I See Them Putting Out This Music Where There Are Tons Of Women Involved In The Scene And Involved In The Bands.

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Having A Good Time

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While Sexism Hurts Women Most Intimately, It Also Damages Men Severely.

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Internalized Sexism That Makes Us Feel Like We Can't Show Ourselves Not Being Perfect.

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Underground Music

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Art Revolves Around Creating Something That Isn't There.

Creating Something

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My Advice For Someone Who Wants To Be Creative But Has A Chronic Illness Is To Think Of Something That You Can Do As Opposed To All The Things You Can't Do - And Do That. It's Just Like Gardening: What Can Grow In This Soil? There's Some Soil You Can Grow Roses In And Some Soil You Can Only Grow Cactuses In, So If You Can Only Grow Cactuses, Become The Best Cactus Grower In The Whole World. Taking Care Of Yourself Is The Most Important Thing. Find Something That Makes You Happy. Don't Get Down On Yourself That You Can't Run A 4k Or Dance All Night Long At A Fun Club. Give Yourself A Break.

What I've Heard From Younger Women And Women My Age Is That The Albums Changed Their Lives Or It Was The First Time They Had Heard Feminism That They Could Relate To. So That's Great.

I Wanted To Make Something That I Wanted To Hear That I Wasn't Hearing.

Sexism And Racism And Homophobia And Classism Are So Naturalized. All These Stereotypes Make People Think It's Just Normal That Straight White Men Are Getting All The Breaks.

I Get Emails Every Day From People Saying, "i Never Heard Your Music. I Don't Know Anything About You. I Just Happened To Watch This On Netflix. I Hope You're Feeling Better. More Power To You." It Just Shows You, I Don't Know, How Generous And Wonderful People Can Be.

It's Not Like Somewhere Along The Way I Decided To Be A Total Formalist In Terms Of Music And To Not Care About Content; The Content Is Going To Be There Whether I Try To Make It Be There Or Not, And I Can Have Fun And See What Happens.

It Was One Of The First Things I Did On My Own; I Worked At Mcdonald's, Raised The Money And Did It. I'm Really, Really Passionate About Pro-choice, Because I Wouldn't Be Here Talking To You Right Now If I'd Had A Kid At 15.

I Think As A Culture, We Don't Like Conflict Or Looking At Icky Stuff - Especially In Our Downtime.

I Am Such A Bossy Producer And Such A Control Freak That There's A Part Of Me That Really Longs To Be Bossed Around.

Me And My Friends In High School Were The Only Girls Who Went To Hardcore Shows. It Was Three Of Us, And The Rest Of The Audience Was Male. We Didn't Really Think About It. We Weren't Thinking We Were Alienated Or Whatever, But Eventually, As There Started To Be Violence In The Scene We Were In During High School, We Started To Be Turned Off By The Violence.

I Think The [fan] Access Is Complicated, Because It Brings Wonderful Things Into My Life, And It Brings Really Negative Things Into My Life. I Just Try To Keep The Negative Stuff At Arm's Length. Laugh At It And Walk Away.

We Support Hillary [clinton]. We're Saying That Strongly. "i'm With Her," I Don't Think That We Can Be Any Less Strident. She's The Best Person For The Job.

I Almost Wish We Would've Filmed A Whole Fake Tampon Commercial Around ["i'm With Her"].

You Guys Are Seriously Missing Out Unless You All Start Listening To Girls.

I've Always Talked A Lot On Stage - I Really Wanted To Communicate My Ideas And When You're Playing At A Lot Of Shitty Punk Clubs They Don't Have Good Pas And So No One Knows What You're Singing About.

Every Time I Get Sexually Harassed, I'm Supposed To Turn Around And Yell At The Person, But There Are Safety Issues. Sometimes The Best Thing You Can Do It Just Walk Right Past That Person And Have A Great Day. But Sometimes You Feel Like You Really Need To Say Something.

You Learn That The Only Way To Get Rock-star Power As A Girl Is To Be A Groupie And Bare Your Breasts And Get Chosen For The Night. We Learn That The Only Way To Get Anywhere Is Through Men. And It's A Lie.

I'm A Very Binary Person In A Bad Way Where It's Like Everything Is Either Totally Great Or Totally Awful.

The Idea That Musicians/artists Have A Responsibility To Be Community Leaders Or "role Models" Is Problematic To Me Because I Really Believe That Some Of The Most Exciting Art Is Not Community-minded At Least In Any Obvious Or Direct Way, Which Is Not To Say That It Is Not Ethical Or Consciousness-changing.

I've Always Been Like, "look, You're Going To Die And It's Not Going To Matter After You Die That You Got Out Onstage And Bombed."

What Usually Happens With Me Is That I Start With One Idea In Mind And Then Something Else Happens.

I Really Love That I'm Giving Myself The Opportunity Finally To Not Have The Pressure Of Every Single Song You Do Having To Be "political" Or Whatever. I'm Just Making What I Wanna Make.

Women Didn't Want To Be On The Stage With Other Women Because They Didn't Want Their Bodies To Be Compared. They Didn't Want Another Female Act Opening For Them Because Of This Weird Competitive And Tokenistic Attitude.

Young Girls Getting Into Feminism.

I Always Knew She Was Being Funny, But When I Tell My Therapist That My Mom Played The Trust Game With Me And Let Me Fall On The Ground, My Therapist Does Not Find That Funny. She's Like, "that's The Reason For Everything! That's Why You Have Such A Hard Time With Trust!" And I'm Like, "i Don't Really Have A Hard Time With Trust. I Thought It Was Funny."

It's Really Funny - When I'm Depressed Or I'm Having A Hard Time, I'll Write Really Fun Stuff. And Then When I'm Really Happy, I Write Really Depressing Stuff.

I'm Totally Into Taylor Swift. I Think She Has Super-clever Lyrics, And I Love That She Writes Her Own Music. Some Of The Themes She Writes About Are Stuff I Wish Was There For Me When I Was In High School, And I'm So Happy She Really Cares About Her Female Fans. She's Not Catering To A Male Audience And Is Writing Music For Other Girls.

Feminism Is Something You Do. It's A Verb. It's What You Are. It's An Activity; It's Something You're Actively Engaged In.

I Talked A Lot Early On In My Career About Intersectionality And How Racism And Classism And Sexism And Homophobia And Capitalism Are All Connected With Each Other, And They're These Crazy Systems That Are Feeding On Each Other And Are Also Damaging. I Can't Even Go Into The Whole Spectrum Of It. But I Feel Like Kids Today Are So Much More Savvy About That Conversation. And I'm So Thrilled When I Get To Meet Younger People Who Are Doing That So Much Better Than I Did.

I'm A Big Proponent Of Open Adoption, Because It Allows A Relationship Between The Birth Mother And Her Child So That The Kid Isn't Like, "where Did I Come From?" And To Have It Be Like, "look, You Have A Bunch Of People Who Love You." Not Just The Parents Who Are Raising You On A Day-to-day Basis, But Also To Have Contact With Your Birth Mother And Hopefully Your Birth Father. So That You Can Be Like, "oh, They Love Me Too, And They Love Me So Much That They Knew They Couldn't Take Care Of Me But They're Still In My Life To Some Extent."

I Feel So Lucky That I Met The Love Of My Life. You Know Somebody's In It To Win It When...you're Having A Seizure And They're Holding You.

Love Of My Life

Taking Care Of Yourself Is The Most Important Thing.

Take Care Of Yourself

I Saw A Video On Youtube Of A Girl Who Had Very Similar Reactions To Late-stage Lyme Disease As I Did. And I Thought It Was Crazy. And When I Saw Her Basically Have A Seizure On Camera That Looked Very Much Like My Seizure I Felt, "oh My God. That's Me." And So It Was Really Important To Me, And I Said To Sini, 'we Have To Find Some Way To Not Just Talk About Lyme Disease, But To Show It.

The Only Thing I Collect Is Art. I Collect It Because I Like Looking At It. A Lot Of It Is Really Personal Stuff That My Friends Have Made, Paintings That My Husband's Mother Made, And Things That I Bought. I Buy Abstract Art On Ebay, And I Buy Some Outsider Art On Ebay, Or What Is Called Folk Art, I Buy A Lot Of. I Have A Lot Of Professional Art Work As Well As More Stuff My Friends' Kids Make. To Have A Wall Of Art To Look At, I Feel Really Surrounded By Love, Because So Much Of The Work Is Related To My Friendships.

I Was In A Band In The '90s Called Bikini Kill, And We Were So Freaked Out About Documentation Then, And There Was The Whole Thing, Not Just About The Male Gaze, But That People Were Going To Misrepresent You... A Kind Fear Of The Mainstream That A Lot Of Us Had.

Whatever Your Personality Was Before, An Illness Makes It That Plus A Thousand. I'm A Very Binary Person In A Bad Way Where It's Like Everything Is Either Totally Great Or Totally Awful. I Don't Understand Grey Area That Well, And I've Been Working At That.

I Think Music Can Definitely Be Art; I Also Think Music Can Be Crap And Not Be Art.

My Mom Wasn't, Like, She Was Reading All These Historical Romance Novels The Majority Of The Time. She Read A Feminist Book And Then My Dad Would Sit Down And Explain It To Her Like She Was An Idiot.

I Wouldn't Want To Play Miss Hannigan. I'm Not A Villain. She's Mean To Little Children! I Can't Do That. That Would Disrupt My Brand.

You Have These Stepford Wives Who Are Negating Other Women. But That's Their Job. [donald] Trump Is The One Who Is To Blame, No Matter How Much I Enjoy Watching His Surrogates Fail Massively.

I Would Much Rather Be The Obnoxious Feminist Girl Than Be Complicit In My Own Dehumanization.

I'm Sure If You See Things You Wrote When You Were 19, You Cringe. I Saw Stuff Like Angry Poetry That I Wrote When I Was Mad At My Father, Or Photos I Took Where I Smeared Period Blood On Myself. It's Embarrassing.

So Many Women Have Experienced Horrific Forms Of Male Violence Throughout Their Lives, And Why Isn't There A Song About How You Get Depressed Because Of It?

It Feels Amazing And Beautiful That Music Can Have Such An Importance On The Way That People Form Social Groups. Music Can Change People. People Can Change The World.

I Feel Like There's This Weird Thing That As A Feminist Band You Get Put In This Role As Ambassadors.

I'm In A Really Lucky Position Where People Will Be Interested In Whatever I Do, But What I Do Is Sing.

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