Riot Grrrl Essay

While these white punks were able to return to their middle-class, financially stable lives, many minorities had no choice but to live in the cheap apartments they were offered at the time. Although the intention of the white punks may have been to unify all races under the label of ‘punk’, they actually reinforced clear differences between the two groups. The lifestyle became a desired object to white privileged punks into which they launched themselves head-on. The white punks desired to internalize the struggle rather than be contradictory by singing about it and not actually living it. White punks believed that by doing this, they were not only eliminating race within the punk subculture, but they were also furthering their own participation within the subculture by creating a “self-imposed minority”2 and an “appropriation of Otherness”2.

The Guerrilla Girls are a group of women formed in 1984 after an art exhibition hosted by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City where it became clear to them that the art industry was gender bias with women artists not being acknowledged. Since then they have been devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world, their mission to bring gender and racial inequality within the arts into focus. They have done this by producing factual and humorous posters that comment on these issues and that challenges and confronts society to realise the injustice.

When thinking about feminism in today’s society we tend to direct our minds and thoughts to a more radical and powerful train of thought. Feminism has been going on for centuries, with two main ideologies at the forefront; liberal and cultural feminism. Someone who identifies as a liberal feminist is someone who believes that women and men are a like and equal in most respects and deserve equal roles and opportunities (Wood & Fixmer-Oraiz, 2017, p. 58). And cultural feminism is someone who identifies as someone who believes that men and women are fundamentally differently; you have different rights, role and opportunities (Wood & Fixmer-Oraiz, 2017, p. 58). The women’s rights movement can be understood and broken down into three “waves”.

Feminists today are viewed as raging, man-hating bitches, but feminism in its true sense simply advocates women’s rights. While there are extremes on either side of the scale, most feminists fight

Women yearn for their voices to speak loud enough for the entire world to hear. Women crave for their voices to travel the nations in a society where they are expected to turn the volume all the way down. The world expects females to stay quiet and ignore the pain brought onto them from sexual crime. They do not dare stand up for what they believe in or discuss their experiences that bring them pain. Poets such as Ana Castillo and Lawrence Ferlinghetti describe parts of life that society often ignores. E. E. Cummings supports the ideas of Castillo and Ferlinghetti by appropriating a more disturbing mindset. These poets demonstrate the way in which women obtained a supposable to behave and react to situations that have caused them harm or have the potential to.

The NYC Radical Cheerleaders describe their activity as, “[A]ctivism with pomp poms and middle fingers extended. It’s screaming F*CK CAPITALISM while doing the splits” (qtd. in Adams and Bettis 36). Since their inception in the mid-1990s, the feminist Radical Cheerleaders have given women a stronger voice in the activist sphere while they scream, shout, and protest against a myriad of social issues. These range from the patriarchy, LBGTQ discrimination, and beauty standards, to police brutality, sexual assault, and capitalism, but they are all linked to the fight for human rights. In their protest, they subvert the stereotypical image of the white, blonde, thin cheerleader, looking to incite public interest and engagement. Ultimately, radical cheerleaders channel the theatricality and obscenity of the women’s liberation movement to reclaim their rights in the public sphere with curses, vulgarity, and action.

In order to understand the topic that is to be discussed in this essay, one must first understand two seemingly unrelated topics. Those topics are feminism and punk rock. These two social movements spawned the love child that has come to be known as the riot grrrl movement. The history of the riot grrrl movement is deep and intensely intertwined with themes of monumental social change, musical evolution, and the previously unseen all-encompassing nature that is unique to third wave feminism.

   The media portrays feminists in unflattering ways. Largely because of the media portrayal, the word 'feminist' usually evokes images of crass, butch, men-hating, very masculine women. Many women believe in the feminist doctrine, but they would never consider themselves as a feminist because they cannot relate to the images of crass, butch, men-hating, masculine women.  In fact, it has only been within the past year that I've been able to accept the fact that I am a feminist and that my preconceived images of feminists are merely media stereotypes.

The mainstream feminist organizations and the more radical feminist protests were both equally important to the changing gender expectations. The mainstream feminist organizations like the National Organization for Women helped fight gender discrimination through the courts, and legislatures. The NOW lobbied congress for pro-equality laws and assisted women who were battling workplace discrimination. The more radical feminist protests fought for a change in gender expectations than the mainstream feminist organizations. They protested many things. For example protesting sexism that was shown in the media. They would use stickers on offensive advertisements; sit-in on local media outlets, and the radical feminist would also turn aggressive

The Guerilla Girls are a women’s activist art group. They are masked women who came together to make change in the world of art and women’s involvement in society. GG emerged in 1985 and still are active today in New York after 30 years of the emergence of the group. The Guerilla Girls used posters with real statistics to show awareness of sexism in the art world and the discrimination of women in politics as well as in the mass media. The Guerrilla Girls spread awareness of sexism in art, discrimination in politics and the mass media through their workshops, performances, and posters.

No matter what your agenda is, if it is not common place and you can get enough people to buy into your cause, then the attention will come. By going against the grain, The Riot Grrrl subculture brought attention to women’s rights and provided them with a voice that for many years they did not have. As Haenfler (2016) described, Riot Grrrl was created “to give voice to girls’ anger and to confront sexism in both the music scene and larger society” and furthermore, “young women found a political voice, bringing feminism to a new generation of girls” (p. 134). The attention the Riot Grrls received provided them with not only a platform and the power for women speak their minds but also push for social change. For group such as the Riot Grrrls who want to have a voice through political and social change, I believe a wider audience will be more conducive to their movement and agenda These topics draw interest and discussion which can draw attention. During the Riot Grrrl movement by going against the norms of society and sticking up for feminist ideals, it was a contradiction to the norm and when people bought into their agenda, it gave the Riot Grrrl movement power to make

Many times in life men do not think that women can do the same things that they can; whether it’s picking up boxes or being president. There will always be that “macho man” thought of the man being stronger than the woman. In many jobs women might do the exact same thing that men do except men are getting paid more than women even if it is an insignificant amount, it happens in many places and even though many people disapprove of it there are still jobs like that out there. And there are still employers who think that a woman should not be in the work force if so home. Many feminist have been working to solve this problem and there are still people who are working to solve and change many more of these problems, and even though in some places it doesn’t seem like it, feminism and feminists

Burma, like many other Southeast Asian nations, is a land of much culture and diversity of ethnic groups. Unfortunately, unlike the people of other nations, the people of Burma have been stripped of their human rights. Since the military junta had overtaken the Burmese government in 1988, the people of Burma have been among the most oppressed people in the world. The continuation of the government’s brutality has caught the attention of many outside nations around the world who increasingly have been intervening in Burma’s issues to help its people. As these occurrences are a major issue for the people of Burma, these problems are not restricted to its boundaries. They are also becoming a problem for

simple goal in mind: equal rights for women. Since the earliest forms of feminism in the eighteenth century, women have overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and made leaps and bounds in the direction of that goal. Today, women are in a better position than they ever have been in American history, or the history of the world, but the goal has still not yet been met. Freedom fighters advocating for the equality of both genders are still very much a part of everyday life, and will continue to be until equality is realized. However, over the past few decades, certain portions of these freedom fighters have arisen to be a separate movement altogether under the guise of feminism. These “radicals” seem to have an ulterior motive, however consciously, inconsistent with the overall aim of true feminism: female superiority. Under the modern definition of feminism, most of the general population would be considered feminists. It is the radical groups that undermine the efforts of those who desire equality, and it is each individual 's responsibility to bring to light the extent of the damage these separatists inflict upon the underlying cause.

Women’s movements have long used their voices as a disruptive force to subvert and undermine the patriarchal institutions at work. It is through their art and writings that their voices are heard by those who are listening. However, only being heard by those who are willing to listen is not sufficient enough to permanently install their presence in the public arena. This is why artists have turned to the method of performance art to actively communicate their messages without being disregarded by the public. Performance art goes beyond the relative scope of visual art in that it is actually executed in front of an audience. It is an aggressive “form of consciousness raising” that not only breaches the confines of one’s personal space but