The document discusses the intersection of punk music and feminism, focusing on women of color artists. It provides background on third-wave feminism and early punk bands that addressed issues of race. It then examines riot grrl groups and whether they were inclusive of women of color. It profiles some contemporary women of color artists in punk and rock and analyzes how they view themselves and their art in relation to feminism and race. Interviews with several women artists suggest they see their art as a form of organic, DIY feminism that focuses on direct action over identifying with structured communities.

1. Blaq/k Punk Chix
Riot Grrl, Afro Punk, and Feminisms of Color

2. Background
• 3rd wave Feminism - anita hill, right to life, fmla
• Politi-punk of the 80’s
• Poly-Styrene & X-ray Spex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqrwYHlQePM&feature=related
• Black Flag - White Minority
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLZFnotlTmc&feature=related
• “As Minor Threat’s “Guilty of Being White,” Black Flag’s “White Minority,” the Avenger’s
“White Nigger,” or even Heavens to Betsy’s “White Girl,” aptly demonstrate, not all states
of alienation are alike or “equal.” That is, mine does not match up neatly with yours.”
- Thread and Circuits, Ref: Punk Planet Nov/Dec 1998

3. Riot Grrls and Race;
afterthought, additive, interruption, or reaction?
IPU show...
http://www.empsfm.org/exhibitions/index.asp?articleID=668#1
Riot Girl Retrospective
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1ieiTaJrN4
http://www.empsfm.org/exhibitions/index.asp?articleID=668#1
• Director, Afro-Punk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfQJNYLJISA&feature=related
• Afro Punk Documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1NCS95bJ9Q&feature=related
• Afro-Punk website
http://www.afropunk.com/

4. • Literature Review
• It’s Not a White World: Looking for Race in Punk (Nov/Dec 1998)
http://threadandcircuits.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/its-not-a-white-world-looking-for-race-in-punk-1998/
• “here it is: ‘whitestraightboy’ hegemony organizes punk. And I’m not just talking about its dominant
demographic. ... Race, in punk, is like outer space: this distant constellation of “issues” clustered way,
way out there. This isn’t to say, for instance, that punks haven’t produced some shrewd analyses of
US foreign policy (a perennial punk favorite), effectively organized huge protests against apartheid
or the Persian Gulf War. In fact, punks seem to be pretty good with political economy... what happens
“out there” is rarely reflected “in here.” So when Kathleen Hanna screamed, “SUCK MY LEFT ONE!”
and nailed the Punk Rock to the wall, and when the core soon after went queer, I jumped for joy
because it was about time. But still I’m waiting for my race riot.”
• Punk doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Even on the most superficial level, recruitment, while fun, isn’t a
solution. Diversification of our membership rolls is way different than effecting critical
transformations at the analytic level –and in any case hardly addresses the people of color who are in
or around punk now. (And yes, we’re here, thanks. Banging our heads against the wall, maybe, but
we’re here.) What needs to happen –on a punk-scale and a large-scale sort of way– is a revolution in
the ways in which we frame ourselves within social, psychic and political relations. If you can read
Noam Chomsky, you can also read Chandra Mohanty, Andrew Ross, or Lauren Berlant. If you don’t
know who they are, find out. ...What all this doesn’t mean is, “I can’t talk about anything because I’m
a white, straight male.” That’s too easy — too often an excuse not to do your homework.”
• “You (and I mean everybody now) can be accountable to your social location. Interrogate and
historicize your place in society, punk, whatever, and be aware of how you talk about race, gender,
sexuality – it’s political. Examine all the categories you’re using at least twice for hidden
assumptions, exclusions, erasures. Recognize power in all its forms, how it operates. Engage it, even
use it strategically. And work with me, not for me. Actively creating a public culture of dissent -punk
or not- will have to involve some self-reflexive unpacking of privileges/poverties and their historical
and political contexts.”

5. Sex Revolts
• Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon
• “...she delivers rap payback, trivializing black male rage as Public
Enemy by treating them as sexual objects... mid-song, she goes
head to had with Chuck D asking him where girls fit in to their
revolutionary campaign against white, corporate America, and
parodies Public Enemy’s Fear of Black Planet as a ‘fear of a female
planet;...”
• in “Swimsuit Issue” (rls. 1992) she voices support for Anita Hill
while tackling the media’s portrayal of women as objects for
consumption. (247)

6. • “Post punk demystification is one of the great phases of ‘women in
rock’: there had never been such concerted involvement of women
in bands, as players, and ideologues.” p.313
• “Riot Grrl radicalized the teenage pen-pal and fanzine network in
which girls had used teenybop idols as a pretext to write about
their own desires and fantasies... Riot Grrls discuss their feelings of
alienation from a boy-dominated hardcore punk scene in which
they’re marginalized; they decry the media’s promotion of
unattainable ideals of perfect femeninity; they write moving
confessional accounts of their experiences of harassment and
sexual abuse”p.323

7. Girls Rock
• “ ... women in rock have been forbidden to sidestep daily decisions and rationalizations
about how they construct themselves as racial and sexual beings, and how they negotiate
and understand the peculiar intersections and interactions of race, gender, and
sexuality.”
• “... a lot of assumptions are made about what a black woman should be doing in music. I
know that a couple people at record labels have felt that they can’t market a black rock n’
roll woman because ‘it doesn’t fit one of their boxes’”
• “ I am a real person who is a minority in this country who has assimilated to American
culture, who is redefining her own identity by writing deeply personal and universal
original songs. While pop artists do this all the time in America, it’s no small feat for an
Asian.”

8. Sexing the Groove
• “By providing girls with a collective confidence, riot grrl’s
revolutionary counter-culture and radical political activism
empower female youth to liberate themselves from the rampant
comercialism, misogyny, ageism, racism, and homophobia they
experience in their everyday lives.”
• “...this community is a significant progression not only in the
politics of youth, but in the politics of feminism as well.”

9. • Methods
• Written Interviews
• Do you feel that your art is in any way an expression of feminism?
“I think it is as I write with my beliefs about feminism in mind. I write as an equal with the
expectation to be received as an equal. I don't try to push the feminine factor nor try to be
extra masculine to fit in with the boys.”
• How do you see yourself as an artist?
“I see my self as an evolving artist. A chameleon of sorts with an nostalgic appeal to my
inner child. The kind of artist I am is a perpetual discoverer, one who's always growing
and learning about life ,and writing about how I see it to convey what my heart wants to
say. I've been singing since i was 3yrs old in church and all through my years of school in
various groups like choir,glee club, and in theater. I've been writing since 10yrs old when
I got my first diary. I started writing poems bout the way I felt and the emotions that I was
feeling at the time. The funny thing is at the time I never thought they would turn into
songs. I was a rebel child finding enlightenment in writing. I still feel like a little girl
sometimes.”

10. • Analysis
• These women are shaping their art according to a kind of organic subjective
feminist and/or race theory.
• These women are no where nearly as apathetic as their unwillingness to identify
with any particular community would suggest, but they do not want to
participate in the many kinds of ‘systems’ which they distrust. because of their
system distrust, they no longer wish to identify with a structured community, but
rather loosely identify with the ideology of a new, more nebulous feminism.
• This new feminism reflects an understanding of intersectionality in punk, and
could be a distant cousin of the DIY ethic - DIY feminism - but when
considered in relation to race as well as gender, this DIY ethic still places the
burden of being heard on the marginalized voice.

11. • Analysis
• These women reflect the problematic idea of transcendence.
• I don't see myself as a woman of color or as "white/caucasian". I see myself as the
future...a diverse blend.
• I found that the riot girl groups were highly political and not so much my style. I prefer to
make an impact on my surroundings through my direct actions and influence. I'm not on
a pedestal shouting my beliefs into the ether. Female musicians tend to be more along my
line...mostly the same beliefs as the political feminists but more interested in the
application of their beliefs in their immediate surroundings.
• I feel I have had the most issue with my social background (later described as financial/
cultural capital opportunities) rather than any gender or race issue. However, during one
of my undergraduate critiques, I was told by my all male panel that they wanted my
music to be more "aggressive." I took that as meaning more masculine, but that is open for
debate.
• I try not to allow my gender to directly affect my music as I prefer to be considered a
composer and not a "woman composer." I want to be a strong contender in the majority
and not considered a minority.