Kathleen Hanna Is Still a Riot

Kathleen Hanna’s legend precedes itself. As a punk musician for more than 30 years in Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, and the Julie Ruin, and as one of the progenitors of the riot grrrl movement in the 1990s, Hanna’s become a figurehead for a certain underground strain of feminist righteousness, emphasizing the collectivity that’s crucial for making any movement successful. But she’s an artist first, and the past few years have been fruitful.

She's been on tour with Bikini Kill practically non-stop since 2019, and this May, Hanna released her first memoir, Rebel Girl, which chronicles her journey as a punk singer and political symbol. It’s a profoundly frank, open chronicle of one woman’s experiences in the sexist, bro-coded punk music landscape of the ’90s and 2000s. Viewed holistically, it’s also the humanistic document of being a certain kind of woman star who is nearly canonized as a figurehead. Reading it for the second time before we spoke, I thought about Chappell Roan and the parasocial relationships fans who so desperately need an outlet can create, sometimes to the point of destruction. For decades, Hanna has been able to scream where a lot of young women felt like they couldn’t.

Bikini Kill wrapped up another round of touring in September, and Hanna is settling into further projects, including new music, working on her charity T-shirt line Tees 4 Togo, and finishing a documentary she’s making about her cousin, Darcelle XV, the world’s oldest performing drag queen when she died last year at 93. (Darcelle was also the purveyor and namesake of the legendary drag cabaret in Portland, Oregon.) Hanna and I spoke about her book, rejoining Bikini Kill, and the “elasticity of time,” as she put it.

For what it’s worth, my favorite Bikini Kill song has been “Strawberry Julius” since 1998.