Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna is an American musician, feminist activist, and punk zine writer. In the early-to mid-1990s she was the lead singer of feminist punk band Bikini Kill, before fronting Le Tigre in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 1998, Hanna released a lo-fi solo album under the name Julie Ruin and since 2010 has been working on a project called The Julie Ruin...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth12 November 1968
CityPortland, OR
CountryUnited States of America
I'm not a goddess, for crying out loud. I'm a regular person who took feminism - which I have a deep connection to - and mixed it with music, which I really love to do.
I felt like going out on the road and mixing it with music - which is something young people are always really interested in - would be a good way to proselytize. It was like feminist evangelism.
I realized that calling yourself a feminist or not calling yourself a feminist, just by being in a band of all girls, it's all you talk about.
I have no clue. I just know I would want to play the least amount of shows that the most people would be able to come to.
Sometimes, being a feminist artist, there are times where I'm in a position where I just want to feel like I'm saying all the right things politically, or I feel like I have to mention my own project over other people's projects.
I need to see my friends or I'm gonna go crazy. I'm not gonna stay home and work.
I kind of decided that doing music is enough because I'm already running a couple small businesses. I'm a part of Bikini Kill Records, Le Tigre Records, and Digitally Ruined Records. In dealing with my health and everything, my ability to do that? I wouldn't be good at it.
If you really hate me, you should at least have the courtesy to take out a piece of paper and write it down and mail it to me. If you're a worthy nemesis, I want to see your handwriting. I want to see your name and your address, and if you don't have the guts to give me those, then you're not a worthy nemesis.
There are more people who are not straight, white males going to shows.
People are actually having conversations about "Is this sexist?"
The more people, as you know, are able to be on whatever spectrum of femininity and masculinity they are on at that moment, that opens the door for women to not have to be the opposite of what the supposed traditional male is.
I'm living in a world where there are LGBTQ straight alliances at high schools. I feel pretty psyched on that.
I didn't even know what the word lesbian meant until I was called one... and then I had to look it up in the dictionary.
It's really cool that Miley Cyrus said she's the biggest feminist ever. I was like, 'That's the sound of 200,000 eight-year-olds Googling the word "feminist!