It can be hard to imagine — now that we are in the era of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé — but in the 90s, the idea of female artists exerting control over their music was subject to "talking dog"-style press coverage. This was especially true of Riot Grrrl, a female-dominated punk scene that flared brightly and burned out quickly, in no small part because the press treated the movement like a circus sideshow. But Kathleen Hanna, the lead singer of Bikini Kill, kept plugging, kicking off the early aughts trend of synth-heavy indie dance music with her band Le Tigre.
Hanna has a new memoir, "Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk," that is at times hilarious and other times incredibly dark. She is unflinching in her descriptions of the staggering amount of male violence women endured in the 80s and 90s. (And sadly, too often still.) It's a well-realized document of the youth of the often-overlooked Generation X, at least the progressive, hipster version that flourished artistically in an era of cheaper rents and thrift store fashion. Hanna spoke to Salon about lingering joys and traumas of the era, and how the lessons resonate in ways good and bad today.
