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- Riot Grrrl Manifesto 1991 -
BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US
that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways.
BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other's
work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other.
BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create
our own moanings.
BECAUSE viewing our work as being connected to our
girlfriends-politics-real lives is
essential if we are gonna figure out how we are doing impacts,
reflects, perpetuates,
or DISRUPTS the status quo.
BECAUSE we recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as
impractical lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming
our dreams AND THUS seek to create revolution in our own lives every
single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit
christian capitalist way of doing things.
BECAUSE we want and need to encourage and be encouraged in the face of
all our own insecurities, in the face of beergutboyrock that tells us
we can't play our instruments, in the face of
“authorities” who say our bands/zines/etc are the worst in the US and
BECAUSE we don't wanna assimilate to someone else's (boy) standards of
what is or isn't.
BECAUSE we are unwilling to falter under claims that we are
reactionary “reverse sexists”
AND NOT THE TRUEPUNKROCKSOULCRUSADERS THAT WE KNOW we really are.
BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are
patently aware that the punk rock “you can do anything” idea is
crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save
the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere,
according to their own terms, not ours.
BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being
AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication +
understanding, instead of competition +
good/bad categorizations.
BECAUSE doing/reading/seeing/heari
ng cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the
strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out
how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism,
thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and
heterosexism figures in our own lives.
BECAUSE we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists
of all kinds as integral to this process.
BECAUSE we hate capitalism in all its forms and see our main goal as
sharing information and staying alive, instead of making profits of
being cool according to traditional standards.
BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl =
Bad, Girl = Weak.
BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused
and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as
witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype
behaviors.
BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a
revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.
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