The Punk Singer

Before watching The Punk Singer, I didn't know all that much about Kathleen Hanna. I knew she helped to form the Riot Grrrl Movement. After listening to her story, I gained so much respect for her, and the mission she had. I'm not one to listen to punk music, but I actually was really interested in listening to Kathleen's story, regardless of her genre.

Many things from the movie really stood out to me. One of these things was when her friend was raped, and pushed and shoved her around by a man. Kathleen create a fashion show in the library at her school. One of the pieces they wore had "He dragged me up the stairs by my neck" written on it. Having a fashion show in the school library is kind of ballsy regardless, but to write that across the dress is bold and very brave. After Kathleen and her friends created their band, Bikini Kill, they decided that they didn't care if they made money, they just wanted people to hear them and their message. They sang about feminism and how men objectify women. The song White Boy that we listened to in class, actually made me disgusted. The boy claimed that girls "ask for it" by the way they act and the way they dress. It's horrible. There's this huge double standard that girls are sluts when they have sex with guys, but guys are literally praised by the number of girls they can bang. It's not right. I'm obviously not suggesting that every girl should go have sex with a huge number of guys, I'm simply saying that the double standard shouldn't exist. Especially guys calling other girls sluts.

Kathleen was straightforward, and it showed in her music. She knew she would get some backlash, but she was telling the truth. Something the media was so hush hush about. They tried to hid the fact that it wasn't a real problem, but Kathleen wanted people to know that it was, it was so real, but so very overlooked. She stated in the documentary how she was hesitant to broadcast everything she went through. First, she didn't want to play the poor me card, because she knew people had it a lot worse than she did. But she also thought that if she came out and told everyone all these terrible things that has happened to her, that no one would believe her. "Who would believe me?" She stated in the video. "Other women." 

I wish more people/ celebrities today had the same attitude about loving your self image that she does. It's so inspiring how she wasn't going to let a man get in her way. She brought so many important topics to the surface that people ordinarily don't think about, and good for her for not caring what people thought about it.