Kathleen Hanna on life as a 'Rebel Girl,' and the joy of expressing anger in public

"When I first started being in Bikini Kill, I thought of myself as a feminist performance artist who was in a punk band," Kathleen Hanna says., she pioneered the"riot grrrl" movement in the 1990s, challenging the misogyny of both the punk scene and society at large.

And so she did. Along with Tobi Vail, Billy Karren and Kathi Wilcox, Hanna formed the feminist punk band Bikini Kill. The band urged women and girls in the audience to move up to the front of the stage, write political zines and talk openly about sexual violence. Emboldened by the music, fans would come to Hanna to talk about their own experiences.On tour, Hanna and her bandmates faced abuse and disrespect from male fans and club workers.

Since her diagnosis and treatment, Hanna's back to to performing again with Bikini Kill and her other bands, Le Tigre and"The songs really go from joy to sadness to rage very quickly. And I'm finding nuances in them that I didn't know were there," she says."It feels joyous to explore our anger in public.

I took out a Sharpie marker, and I just wrote like,"Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit" because me and Tobi had been at a grocery store and seen this new deodorant "Smells like teen spirit," and we were like, that's hilarious. What does teen spirit smell like? ... Sharpie marker and poster board? It smells like Mod Podge? What does it smell like? So we were just goofing on that. So was in my head.

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