Girls to the Front
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Review
"Marcus has done a commendable job of telling the little-known history of an important social and cultural movement. . . . A compelling history."--"Booklist" (starred review)
Product Description
At the beginning of the 1990s, the Senate didn't believe Anita Hill, Rush Limbaugh compared feminists to Nazis, and a study found that girls tended to start hating themselves during adolescence. It was a hard time to be a young woman, to be growing up on promises of equal rights that didn't square with reality. Sexual assault rates reached record highs; harassment was rife in the schools; and, boys still would be boys, and girls still had to watch what they wore and where they walked. It was enough to make a girl want to scream. Riot Grrrl roared into the spotlight in 1991: an uncompromising movement of pissed-off girls who had no patience for sexism, no stomach for double standards, and no intention of keeping quiet. Incendiary punk bands - like Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, and above all Bikini Kill, fronted by the magnetic, prophetic Kathleen Hanna - spread the word. Thousands of riot grrrls published handmade magazines, founded local groups, and organised conventions. The movement spread from its birthplaces of Washington, D.C. and Olympia, Washington, to the Midwest, Canada, Europe, and beyond. "Girls to the Front", the first-ever history of Riot Grrrl, is a gripping narrative with a sound track: a lyrical, punk-infused chronicle of a group of extraordinary young women coming of age angrily, collectively, and publicly. It's the story of a time when America thought feminism was dead, and feminism seemed to buy into the slacker myths of Generation X, but a generation of noisy girls rose up to prove everybody wrong. Above all, it's a story about looking for your place in the world - and finally creating it yourself.
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7 reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
A revolution I knew but didn't REALLY know
4 Oct 2010
Format:Paperback
Wow! Just finished the book and many thoughts are taking over my brain. This book explains a lot of things that I always wondered about: Things such as who were the people involved in Riot Grrrl besides the famous faces we always see?, did other girls really act evil with one another besides Ms. Love? and most of all what were the good parts of the movement that I never knew. It's easy to understand why riot grrrl started/ why it fell apart, but it takes a book like this to understand the in between parts none of us knew. The latter is the best part of this book. The author does not try to kiss anyone's ass nor is she burning bridges. She's diplomatic with a healthy dose of truth and skepticism. Also, the other book with the seemingly same subject matter "Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now!" is a totally different book because its focus is on the music/style than the nuts and bolts of riot grrrl as a grassroots movement. This one is for the people who care about what exactly happened in the history of this feminist movement while the other book is more for music and pictures. Buy both and get schooled the fun way.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Politics to the Back
20 Dec 2010
Format:Paperback
Just finished this book and did not feel quite as enthusiastic about it as a number of my friends. It was very well-written, and especially captivating towards the beginning, but it follows a decidedly negative narrative trajectory towards the second half, basically suggesting that Riot Grrrl was always already over (the old "punk is dead" refrain) before it even began. The second half, in particular, traces a disintegration of feminism, sisterhood, and collaborative activism and privileges the voices of dissent and disillusion. This seems unfortunate to me, since Marcus is clearly aware of this trajectory and apologizes for her own perspective often, while also attempting to remind us-- in an uninspired, even pedantic sort of fashion-- that the feminist struggle continues. To me, a broader look at the organic outcroppings of Riot Grrrl around the country and a more diffuse perspective (even a longer time frame) would have enabled a more grassroots sort of movement to emerge and indicate its many permutations rather than the focus on leaders that Marcus decided to take. Perhaps a marketing decision here? My feeling is that this could have been avoided with a basic, structural shift of focus from bands to the broader movement (which included self-defense workshops, house parties, puppet shows, movie making, political protests for a wide range of issues, zines, etc.). Marcus does mention these, but her central focus (and the narrative) is music, and really just the big three bands, which I feel inherently skews the story in a direction of decline. If this "revolution" is symbolized by the concept that "a band is any song you have ever played with anybody even if only once" then perhaps evolution, growth, commitment, and sustainability are foreclosed from the start. Thoughts?
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
An Excellent Look at the Convergence of Punk Rock, Feminism, Teens, Zines and Media
5 Oct 2010
Format:Paperback
Girls to the Front is an excellent history of a very specific time period that gets covers punk rock, feminism, media, politics and teenage girls and where they intersected to form Riot Grrrl. I only heard about Riot Grrrl and the associated bands long after they were over, and so often in the context of how it fell apart. Sara Marcus takes readers into the story from both a very personal perspective, letting us get to know not only the band members but the girls who got involved on a very intimate level, as well as the political scene at the time, to give context to the organizing she's covering.
Marcus writes almost breathlessly, but still with a reporter's eye, about the way riot grrrl unfolded, in Washington, DC and Olympia first, and then how it spread. She also captures the beginnings of bands such as Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and Heavens to Betsy and shows the close personal connections that helped encourage the women who joined these bands to get onstage and what each of their agendas were, and weren't. The chapter about the media blackout, Jessica Hopper and Newsweek, which is referred back to several times later on, is especially intense, and shows that this is as much a story about pre-internet community and media as it is about feminism and connection. Marcus doesn't try to take sides, but offers up a vivid portrayal of zine culture, punk rock and feminism as they combined.
The book does end at ostensibly the end of riot grrrl, but anyone affected by the movement, whether during or after the fact, would be hard pressed not to feel a similar sense of urgency or to see echoes of the aims and actions of riot grrrl reflected back in modern pop culture, whether a woman writing on her fingers in an ad for a TV show about eating disorders or the latest girl rockers. This is a breathtaking book that speaks to a host of issues around modern feminism and what it means in lived, not academic, terms, in and outside of punk rock. Highly recommended.
Marcus writes almost breathlessly, but still with a reporter's eye, about the way riot grrrl unfolded, in Washington, DC and Olympia first, and then how it spread. She also captures the beginnings of bands such as Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and Heavens to Betsy and shows the close personal connections that helped encourage the women who joined these bands to get onstage and what each of their agendas were, and weren't. The chapter about the media blackout, Jessica Hopper and Newsweek, which is referred back to several times later on, is especially intense, and shows that this is as much a story about pre-internet community and media as it is about feminism and connection. Marcus doesn't try to take sides, but offers up a vivid portrayal of zine culture, punk rock and feminism as they combined.
The book does end at ostensibly the end of riot grrrl, but anyone affected by the movement, whether during or after the fact, would be hard pressed not to feel a similar sense of urgency or to see echoes of the aims and actions of riot grrrl reflected back in modern pop culture, whether a woman writing on her fingers in an ad for a TV show about eating disorders or the latest girl rockers. This is a breathtaking book that speaks to a host of issues around modern feminism and what it means in lived, not academic, terms, in and outside of punk rock. Highly recommended.
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