Member-only story
“What do little girls like to do?”: Confronting Sexual Violence and Sexual Assault in Punk
When she started at Evergreen State College, Kathleen Hanna’s roommate Alle had a poster or the Crass’ Eve Libertine on the wall with some lyrics from “Bata Motel” (1981), a song that directly confronts society’s views of women and the stereotypical image that society projects upon women. The song begins with Libertine pointing out that at six or seven young girls gets asked, “What do they like to do?”; however, as they get older, the question gets changed to “What do little girls like to do?” This rewording of the question separates young girls from young boys and begins to instill differing spheres of existence in society.
Hanna, to that point, did not think about women performing in bands like Crass and specifically challenging society’s views on gender and sexuality in such a manner. Hanna writes, “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing — I had no idea female punk singers existed. I definitely didn’t knows bands like Crass had been mixing feminist rage with punk music since 1977.” Her introduction to Crass, other bands, feminist movements, and more, inspired her art and the creation of the Riot Grrrl scene, which, as Lisa Darms writes, served “as a challenge to the punk movement that, in many scenes, had become increasingly conformist.” The Riot Grrrl scene challenged conformist, sexist…
