bikini kill

FEMEN & Bikini Kill (Craftivism Hits the Ukraine!)

| Betsy

The photo above changed my life. No, really. It was the beginning of my discovery of Riot Grrrl and DIY ethics. This picture made me realize that it was okay to be angry and confused and frustrated and loud as a teenage girl. It made me not feel so alone at 16 when I was angry at all the world’s problems and violence to women. Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna (the women in the photo above) had a scream that enveloped many of us in the early 90s.

Seeing these photos below made that 16 year old in me smile and wish nothing but happiness and strength to these women. I may not be wearing the same stomping shit-kicking boots and holding the same angst, but the part of me that knows what it’s like to be set free and not be scared to speak out feels like it’s just like 1991.

Ok, so technically it’s craftivism. FEMEN’s fighting back against the sex-trade industry. The sign above says “Ukraine is not a Brothel” and the bikinis below are not bikinis, they’re H1N1 masks sewn into bikinis as a statement against the H1N1 hysteria in their country. From their website:

WE ARE THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT:
*We unite young women basing on the principles of social awareness and activism, intellectual and cultural development.
*We recognise the European values of freedom, equality and comprehensive development of a person irrespective of the gender.
*We build up a national image of feminity, maternity and beauty based on the Euro-Atlantic Women’s Movements experience.
*We set up brand new standards of the civil movement in Ukraine.
*We have worked out our own unique form of a civil self-expression based on courage, creativity, efficiency and shock.
*We demonstrate that the civil movements can influence the public opinion and lobby the interests of a target group.
*We plan to become the biggest and the most influential feminist movement in Europe.

Want more? Go check out this interview with FEMEN’s leader, Anna Gutsol. And read more about FEMEN here.

Flow.

| Betsy

I have this photo of Bikini Kill on my desktop right now.

It’s been a nice reminder back to the days of singing along to 7″s up in my room, when it seemed like music could really, honestly change the world.

Lately, as part of talking about the book, I’ve been mentioning more and more about what inspired me when I was younger. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when I discovered bands like Bikini Kill and record labels like Dischord and K Records, I was beginning to think independently of my peers, my family, the media. Not that I was necessarily disagreeing with them, just that I was beginning to form my own opinions and theories and ideas. I was beginning to understand that there were options and different routes to take and adventures to be had.

Tonight, I had an event at the lovely Quail Ridge Books and was reminded of all the energy and possibilities I felt were possible way back in those early days. It was a delightful experience with what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow” where the conversation and questions were organic and people were telling me about the most incredible fiber and creative work they have been doing.

It was a moment I couldn’t have ever imagined jumping around in my bedroom shouting along with Huggy Bear’s “Her Jazz,” undoubtedly my favorite song of that era. During those moments of discovering that it’s okay to question and dream and journey, I wondered if I would ever meet anyone else would feel the same way. I mean, I knew they were out there, I just didn’t know how to find them.

Somehow, I guess I got lucky, because all of these amazingly awesome smart, crafty and interesting people keep coming into and enriching my life for the past few years with their conversations, far flung knowledge, skills and ideosyncrasies. Each and every one of them makes me glad I kept singing loud and questioning and asking and dreaming and wondering all those days alone and didn’t stop, because now it’s not just me and my 7″s. I just never would have guessed I needed all those years of fighting and yelling and questioning and feeling alone in order to find them.

Speaking of lovely people, if you missed my interview with KPFK earlier this evening, you can find the podcast for the December 10 show here! There are 3 great interviews on before me, and then I’m on around 40 minutes in! Thanks so much, Feminist Magazine!

here comes the rain again.

| Betsy

This summer marks the 14 year anniversary of my first independent music purchase, Yoyo Recordings comp, Throw:

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The fact that I am actually reminiscing about the passage of time makes me break out into a cold sweat. Suddenly, my mind conjures images of my dad’s friends cornering me during holiday parties telling me about how they weren’t quite sure how they ended up an accountant or stockbroker instead of a ship captain or national Scrabble champion.

Then I turn on the television and am bombarded with diet ads and Bob Greene telling me it’s “never too late!” What if you wanted to circumvent the party from the beginning? Not because you wanted to be unruly or angsty, but because you had a better party to attend? Everytime I hear that it is “never too late,” my brain reassembles it to scream, “why did you give up in the first place?”

I feel like we have come full-circle from 15 years ago when I was loving my green Chuck Taylors and swathed in flannel and rabbiting on about new releases on this great new label called Kill Rock Stars. I hadn’t start to care about politics yet (outside of every 7th graders devotion to Greenpeace), but was loving the repercussions of a Republican-era, the rebellion of art and music.

When Dubya was ‘elected’ in 2000, there was talk of taking solace in the fact that whenever our country is under a conservative regime, creativity flourishes. There were some spits and starts, but nothing really like what I saw taking place in the early 90s. In a fit of summertime remembrance and nostalgia brought on by boredom, I have pulled out my old Nirvana and Bikini Kill and Hole albums and have begun to remember that sense of hope that I had when I was 15.

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I have tacked old skate photos on my home office wall and shutout all the bad memories of jaded people wearing ill-suited clothes babbling about ill-suited careers. (The above photo of Sam Cunningham (who is still skating!) is from the August 1988 issue of Transworld. Even though I was horrible at skating myself, skating has never ceased to inspire me.) Because as I scream out lyrics from my teenage years in the solitude of my home, I’m not trying to relive high school. I’m trying to revive some semblance of faith that there is a creative bounty on the horizon.