Editors Note: mention of sexual assault, rape.
Despite being an avid Bikini Kill fan, I did not know Kathleen Hanna was a stripper before I listened to the audiobook of this memoir. Hanna speaks of stripping as ‘Sage’ to pay for college where she studied photography. Stripping was for Hanna a ‘highest return for smallest investment’ job.
I was thrilled to bits to hear about Hanna’s foray into fanzines, DIY spaces, spoken word poetry before being told by Kathy Acker, a fellow worker, to start a band–because that would better grab people’s attention, because spoken word sets are when people go out to smoke cigarettes.
It’s affirming for me to know more about the journeys of multidisciplinary artists who took a while to find their favourite medium. I too have traversed a similar pipeline searching and longing for the form that sits right and feels correct.
Hanna recounts taking on Andrea Dworkin head on, only to then be accused of being Dworkian in a sex worker space. Other stories recounted include: working at various strip clubs throughout America and their unique quirks; constantly being called into question for being a feminist punk and a sex worker; the history Hanna’s friendships with Kurt Cobain and Joan Jett; reluctantly starting the “Riot Girl” movement with peers; being slagged off by Courtney Love; promoting “girls to the front”; delving into making DIY punk spaces anti-racist; and frog marching abusive men out of venues where they are performing.
Stripping was for Hanna a ‘highest
return for smallest investment’ job.
I’ve got to be honest, I have had a long and fraught relationship with Bikini Kill since my mid-teens, when a nefarious high school art teacher decided to burn me a ‘mix tape’ including Bikini Kill and Joy Division, amongst other things… I was too awkward, young, and autistic to realise this was courting. He later sexually assaulted me in his car, much to my surprise. I think he was surprised that I rebuffed his ‘advances’. I only share this personal experience because it seems to reflect some of Hanna’s own at that time in her life. Her memoir is full of stories about sexism, rape, and gender inequality that are nuanced enough to paraphrase Kathy Acker: patriarchy hurts men too, thats feminism 101.
I was inspired by Hanna’s carving out spaces for community to connect. As a producer myself, I was glad to have a comrade in the trenches who’s prepared to discuss privilege, failure, and unnecessary hierarchy in the scene. It’s reassuring to know my idols have also been disappointed by some of their own idols.
I had the privilege of seeing Bikini Kill perform at Brixton Academy and this experience did not disappoint. They KILLED it. They lived up to that politically nuclear name. I am glad my shitty experience in high school was unable to ruin the band for me completely. And I am glad that this memoir exists to fortify my gratitude to the punk scene for helping me survive a remote hellscape growing up. I’m grateful to know that I am not the only person in the entire world that people assume is “kind of a bitch” from the get go.
It’s reassuring to know my idols have also been disappointed by some of their own idols.
It’s inspiring to listen to a first person account of the toil involved in getting where you want to go, achieving the things you want to achieve. I doubt I will ever have the privilege now of visiting Portland, despite it being a literal teenage dream of mine, but having access to these stories is good enough for me for now. It felt like Hanna kept me company on the 12 hour train journey where I listened to this memoir. I couldn’t bear to pause, I didn’t want her voice to stop telling me about her life, despite being surprised how sort of valley-girl-preppy her reading voice was–much softer than her front person vocals would have you believe.
I admit I bought two official Bikini Kill t-shirts when I went to their London gig, but I also forked out for the DIY raglan that a merchant was pedaling on the street, and I think I love them all equally. I wear them with pride. I have worn them through some extremely difficult times in my life. I even wore the DIY shirt to my original autism diagnosis and have the silly selfie to prove it.
This is the sex worker maternal figure I have been searching for, and I plan to devise more performances to Bikini Kill tracks going forward. The final chapter discusses self-sabotage as an artist and had me in tears after a long weekend of curating DIY space for queer community. It's so refreshing to have and hold this conversation with one of the greatest of all time punk front women.
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