Riot Grrrl Feminism And Zines

The Relationship Between Riot Grrrl Feminism and Zines

For much of the 1990s, third-wave feminism was in full force. Stemming from the second-wave feminism movement, third-wave feminism arose despite the antifeminist and postfeminist ideologies that were the result of the previous wave of feminism (Garrison, 2000), which included protests against Roe v. Wade as well as the negative stereotyping of female characters within popular media. The focus of this paper will be the subculture of third-wave feminism known as the Riot Grrrl movement, which was considered to be a much more angry, loud, and honest version of feminism than the preceding eras (Rosenberg & Garofalo, 1998, p. 810). Garrison (2000) states that the riot grrrl movement was a combination

Before zines were adopted by the feminist movement they were often punk themed and produced for male consumption. This lead to female fans of punk feeling excluded and eventually lead to them creating their own zines and in turn helped create and popularize the riot grrrl movement (Rosenberg & Garofalo, 1998). Duncombe stated that riot grrls were attempting to create a new community based on shared dialogue, rather than common understanding (as cited in Ferris, 2001). This community built upon shared dialogue was able to create conversations about difficult topics that were previously deemed inappropriate to discuss, such as sexual violence, mental illness, and domestic violence (Green & Taormino, 1997, xii). As these conversations were happening through zines, several networks of riot grrrls formed and many organized conventions where they could meet with like-minded individuals and discuss hot topics and their favorite zines (Rosenberg & Garofalo, 1998, p. 810). These conventions often hosted bands, most prominently Bikini Kill, and various workshops that individuals could attend (Rosenberg & Garofalo,

This was not the only issue when it came to zines. Most notably was the small sphere of impact that an individual zine would have. Zines were often handed out and traded amongst a small population and this limited the amount of impact that was realistically achievable by them. While it was an effective way to communicate within a community it wasn’t very successful when it came to communicating with large groups of people (Bell, 2002). There was a possibility of zines hitting the mainstream, such as Bitch Magazine, but in order to do so it required the publisher to buy into advertising and switch to more mainstream channels of publishing. The act of switching over to mainstream audiences required what many zinesters rejected and were against, supporting the mainstream means of production, therefore only small number of zines crossed over (Bell, 2002). Zines were also critiqued for being too personal and not providing substantial political activism. Bell (2002) states in her analysis of zines that “Critiquing mainstream cultural images and creating alternatives cannot substitute for political activism that is directly aimed at changing social structures and inequalities on a broader level,” however she also goes on to explain that to ignore the amount of impact that zines ended up having in political activism due to the lack of zines going