When Bikini Kill last toured Australia in the mid 1990s, the world looked very different.
At the Summersault festival of 1996, Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox played hits like Rebel Girl to numbers much smaller than the sell-out crowds who have flocked to see their reunion shows over the past few, COVID-interrupted, years.
As pioneers of the "riot grrrl" movement, the band's legacy would grow for its unapologetic feminism, taking a public stand on issues like abortion rights and the sexual abuse of women, perhaps best exemplified by Hanna's iconic catch-cry "girls to the front".
But while tales of Bikini Kill's heroics are now etched into punk, feminist folklore, Wilcox remembers that their activism on abortion was met with "pushback".
"We were playing 'rock for choice' shows, and marching in DC, and people were like, you don't really need to do that," Wilcox says.
"Yes, certain states in the US were attacking abortion rights, but people thought Roe v Wade was never going to be overturned.
"There was this sense of like, 'women's rights have been taken care of, so what's all the fuss about?'"
The irony of Roe v Wade having been overturned now — 25 years later — is not lost on the trio.
"[Roe v Wade being overturned] is an unfortunate vindication of the fact that every generation has to fight for this stuff," Wilcox says.
Vail calls it an "important historical lesson".
"It really underlines that progress is not linear," she says.
"You can make gains at one point in history, but there's no guarantee that those are going to remain in the future. People always have to be vigilant."
It's 'super depressing'
The band says it's "no coincidence" that they're touring again at a time when the rights of women and gender diverse people seem to be under increasing threat globally.
After playing sold-out shows in New York, Los Angeles and London, Bikini Kill will return to Australia in February and March, starting at MONA FOMA in Tasmania, and ending at the Sydney Opera House, where they will also headline the All About Women festival.
Hanna, Vail and Wilcox first reunited in 2019, during Donald Trump's presidency, when Vail says it was "pretty obvious which direction things were going" in the United States.
That the lyrics to hits like Double Dare Ya seem just as relevant now as they were almost 30 years ago, Hanna says, is "super depressing".
"It feels like we're back to an even worse place than when we started as a band in our 20s," Hanna says.
"It's really surreal and strange, like being in a time machine, Rip Van Winkle style, and waking up and being like, 'what happened?'"
Social media is an 'outrage machine'
Some things, they acknowledge, have clearly changed for the better.
Vail notes that more women are writing and making their own music; a source of pride given Bikini Kill have long argued that having more women in bands would lead to progressive social change.
Wilcox, meanwhile, says greater representation of gender diverse people in mainstream culture is "huge progress".
All agree, however, that the contemporary environment — in particular the prominence of social media — poses unique challenges to feminist activists and musicians.
"If social media was around the way that it is now, when we were a band, I don't think we would have lasted more than three months," Vail says.
"You can't make mistakes, you can't be vulnerable. You can only perform vulnerability, but you can't actually make yourself vulnerable, because if you do, people will just shame you."
"The model is built that way," Wilcox adds.
"Social media is an outrage machine. It's not built for any kind of nuanced conversation."
Hanna agrees. She has been disturbed by a number of incidents she has witnessed online, including the phenomenon of young bands being the target of "pile-ons".
"I'm not talking about bands, who, like someone [in the band] literally raped someone," Hanna says.
"I'm talking about an all-female band who might have played a show with, you know, someone who maybe did something sketchy a few years ago and they didn't even know about it. And then they're being boycotted.
"My fear is that when young bands are experiencing this kind of vicious attack from the outside, they're not going to be able to grow as people and artists together."
'Shaming' was still a part of zine culture
The modern-day challenges of social media fascinate a group who have long been invested in radical forms of conversation and community.
The riot grrrl movement went hand in hand with zine culture, referring to the circulation of DIY, self-published "zines" (short for magazine) as a means of communicating about political topics, and building like-minded networks.
At their best, zines embody the Bikini Kill ethos of encouraging women and gender diverse people to find voice and embrace their creativity — some, indeed, led to the formation of new bands (including Hanna's Le Tigre).
A journalist even put it to Vail that zines may have been a pre-cursor to social media. But while she is interested in the provocation, she offers some caution.
"Zines weren't like public social media accounts, it was more like something you'd send to maybe your 10 pen pals, or like 25 people that you might meet on tour," Vail says.
"Social media is largely controlled by corporations, and as long as that's true, I think zines [by comparison] can be an anti-corporate tool of resistance.
"It may seem antiquated and from another century, but it doesn't have to be."
The band clarify that it's not that zine culture is — or was — free of any of the issues encountered on social media now.
Hanna, for example, remembers the pain of being disparaged by people she admired.
"I had women who I respected writing zines and saying we should sell our musical equipment and give up the band, because I wasn't doing things right," Hanna says.
"Not to get too personal but I'm a rape survivor, a trauma survivor. In my 20s, it was already hard enough to deal with getting death threats in the mail.
"That stuff was really painful … [and] I really credit Kathi and Tobi for giving me the strength to continue."
'We lost the ability to communicate'
In 1997, Bikini Kill finally succumbed to the pressure of relentless criticism.
"As people in a band that was very controversial, I felt attacked from the outside quite a bit," Hanna says.
"We sort of lost the ability to communicate with each other.
"We were so busy just protecting ourselves from people literally throwing stuff at us that we weren't looking at each other as much as we could have, and saying 'how are you doing?'"
She can see the parallels with what's happening to marginalised communities online now, with social media driving ever-larger wedges between generations of feminists.
"I've seen a lot of divisiveness [between feminists], across all issues," she says.
Different generations 'need to give each other a bit of grace'
Hanna makes the point that young people may have had access to education that means they are up-to-date with terminology that older generations may not be as familiar with:
"So [I'd ask], what's a way that we can be excited about learning the new language that's being used, instead of being like, 'I did it this way', and being defensive?"
"And what's a way that people can offer to educate someone, as opposed to enforcing on them what's right?
"I think it's important that generations look at each other contextually, and give each other a bit of grace."
Practising respectful disagreement is especially critical, Hanna argues, given survivors like herself risk re-traumatisation.
"So many abuse survivors quit the internet," Hanna says.
"Some are being physically threatened, and they're like, you know what, it's just not worth it for me to be triggered back to my family abuse, or rape, or whatever happened, to be in this band.
"That's really scary, because it means the only voices we're going to hear from are the people who haven't experienced trauma in their lives."
Differences of opinion can be 'expansive'
Time, and time apart, has taught Hanna, Vail and Wilcox to be gentle with each other, even when they clash on political issues.
"To have viewpoints different to mine feels expansive now, whereas in my 20s it might have felt threatening," Hanna says.
"You get older and you become more self-aware," Vail adds. "You don't take your frustrations out on each other, hopefully."
In 2023, Bikini Kill want to make these stories accessible with the ongoing goal of nourishing the next generations of feminist activists and musicians.
Hanna, for example, has been doing some Zoom sessions with bands she sees being "piled on unproductively".
"I think in at least two cases, it was really helpful, and that made me feel really good, because it was really healing for some of the wounds that I left the '90s with," she says.
"If I was in my 20s, just reading this interview, hearing women talking about being threatened and finding ways to deal with it … that would have been really helpful.
"I think it's helpful to share our experiences with bands who are going through similar things to say, hey, the sun still rose the next day."
And, 25 years later, they're still making music, demanding a revolution, grrl-style, now.
