Rebel Girl: My Life As A Feminist Punk book review

Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve recently grown fond of reading memoirs and seeing as how I am also currently delving a bit more into the riot grrrl side of the punk scene, Kathleen Hanna’s book had been on the lookout so I was very happy to finally get myself a copy.

Despite not being fully versed in Bikini Kill’s discography, in fact I will admit I prefer Le Tigre over the band, this was still a very enjoyable read. While it may give a slightly more limited run through of the riot grrrl scene as a whole, I would argue that it does feel a lot more earnest especially since it’s coming from the pioneer of the movement herself. I enjoy Kathleen’s genuineness in her writing and I guess that should be obvious since that’s what the scene has been all about from the beginning. Seeing as I’m kind of new around here I almost didn’t expect to see such straightforward discussions on topics that most would consider taboo and I greatly appreciate Kathleen’s honesty in discussing the dark parts of her life without feeling the need for censorship whatsoever. It would make sense to see such things written in a perzine from the 90s but today that seems to be a bit lacking for present published works.

Obviously Rebel Girl doesn’t serve as a feminist punk guide book whatsoever, in fact Kathleen adresses quite a bit of the flaws the scene had as well as her own personal controversies or critiques but it has opened more doors for me to actually look into more feminist literature, especially those written by BIPOC women and with that I would still like to thank Kathleen even though she would feel that half of the thanks shouldn’t go to her in the first place but influence plays a lot in our lives, this book is no exception in any way. I really can’t say much more at this point but to end I will just say that this book is worth the read regardless of whether you’re part of the scene or not.

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