The Rise of Riot Grrrl Zines
Publishing became part of a feminist punk movement—and a place to question the movement itself.
Riot grrrl was a feminist punk movement that developed in the early 1990s. Its participants made music, but they also made publications in which they could discuss gender, sexuality and their experiences.
Zines mattered because a person did not need to be onstage to contribute. Writing, drawing and sharing an issue were other ways to take part.
Music and publishing belonged together
Cornell University's Riot Grrrl collection holds zines alongside records and tapes. Its catalogue includes Girl Germs, credited to Molly Neuman and Allison Wolfe, as well as material by Bikini Kill.
Keeping those objects together helps explain the movement. The writing was not simply publicity for the music. It belonged to a wider exchange of ideas.
A song might express anger or solidarity in a few minutes. A zine could give space to an account of what happened, a longer argument or responses from other people.
A personal account could raise a shared question
Consider the difference between being told that an unpleasant experience is only your problem and reading someone else's account of something similar.
Publishing can make comparison possible. Readers can ask whether a pattern exists, what causes it and how they might respond together.
That does not make every personal account representative of everyone. Its value begins with the writer's particular experience, including details that a broad statement can overlook.
The Smithsonian's Music HerStory exhibition places riot grrrl zines within an informal network of punk fans, showing how publications and music could circulate together.
The movement was also criticised from within
A feminist movement is not automatically free from racism.
Mimi Thi Nguyen's Race Riot brought together work by punks of colour addressing racism in punk and riot grrrl. NYU's description of her collection places that work alongside her other zine publishing and her collection of writing by women of colour.
This is part of the history, not a footnote to it. Zines could challenge exclusion in an established culture and also challenge exclusion within an alternative one.
A fuller account therefore needs more than the best-known bands or a familiar photocopied look. It needs attention to who could speak, who was heard and whose criticism was resisted.
What remains in the archive
A collection title such as “Riot Grrrl” is an organising tool. It does not mean that every contributor used the label or agreed with everyone else.
Read individual issues for their own arguments. Look at contributor names, dates and correspondence rather than treating the whole movement as a single voice.
The lasting contribution of these publications includes the space they made for disagreement: readers could answer an idea by making another page, another letter or another zine.
Read next: How Feminist Zines Changed DIY Publishing.