i must get this out of me now. no longer can i keep everything inside. i am too good at keeping secrets too good. i am so alone that when i go out i forget how to relate to others this is just here. just to share what one girl is going through. maybe you know how she feels.
Christina, age 17
Amherst, Massachusetts* * *
There are a lot of girls who know exactly how she feels -- alone in their bedrooms, isolated at their schools, outcasts in their own towns and cities. And they're angry about it too.
But thanks to the Riot Grrrls, they're finding out something vital: That it's okay to be mad (the grrr in grrrls,) and they no longer have to do it alone. Many girls have turned to each other for support and understanding and have come together in a common cause:
"REVOLUTION GIRL-STYLE NOW!"
"so there's this revolution happening all across the country and all across other countries and it's the revolution girl style and as a girl revolutionary i want to say something about it...
...this revolution is so real and so deep for me, it is something i have been waiting for my whole life, something that i think is imperative to my survival, or at least my sanity. this revolution is in my heart and my soul, and it's in the heart and souls of a lot of other girls/women i know, and fuck you it's valid, and fuck you it's for real...."* * *
Dawn, age nineteen, from Seattle, Washington, writes in her zine, FUNCTION:
"...R.G. is meant to be empowering for grrls, having a safe comfortable space to speak openly about anything. It's about standing up for our rights and about knowing we have them. Wimmin are degraded every single day of our lifes, it's everywhere we look, t.v., magazines, streets, work, movies, speech it's everywhere......We are taught to value make-up and diets and fashion models and high heel shoes, thats what grrrls grow up to feel, think, be, understand. Riot Grrrl is helping to break down all that the patriarchy has created. R.G. is standing up for your rights, my rights as a humyn. Riot Grrrl is showing me that I matter. I count, my opinion has worth, I don't have to sit and be talked over or pushed aside or just simply be so-and-so's 'girlfriend.' I'm me and can take a stand for my rights and not have to tip-toe. The ones I've been denied, you've been denied because we don't fit the patriarchy. I'm not bitter, I don't hate, I'm angry. Would you be? Don't tell me to 'calm down,' 'don't take things so seriously' how can I not when wimmin are being raped, battered and denied their equal rights, harassed on the streets......I'm dying inside and I'm angry wimmin are dying inside and no one sees this. Riot grrrl is about emotions, feelings, not fashion, or hating boys, it's about us, grrrls. It's real and a threat because it goes against the patriarchy as anything is a threat that goes against the patriarchy. Don't make one sided judgements about riot grrrl because of one person's opinion, see for yourselves, feel for yourself. There are no rules. It's to break the imprisonment that grrrls are forced to live in."* * *
"RIOT GRRRL IS...
BECAUSE we need to talk to each other. Communication/ inclusion is key. We will never know if we don't break the code of silence.
BECAUSE every time we pick up a pen, or an instrument, or communicate with each other, we are creating the revolution. We ARE the revolution."
* * *
In Naomi Wolf's "Beauty Myth," she cites studies which show that 53% of high school girls are unhappy with their bodies by age 13; 78% are unhappy with their bodies by age 18.
16-year-old Marcie Wyrostek shares some of the emotion that goes with low self-esteem:
"I cannot stop crying. Why won't the tears stop flowing? When I was little I'd just think of something happy and then I'd be ok, but no happy thoughts pop into my mind at the moment. Crying is pointless. It gives me a headache, makes my eyes burn, makes my nose run and causes people to ask 'What's the matter?' What do you expect me to say? Where would I begin?
How could I possibly explain how awful I feel about myself; how I can't remember the last time I was actually proud of myself; how I can't stand any of the people I used to call my 'friends'; how I feel guilty about everything I do; how I hate being fat but wish I were thin; how I wish boys would like me even though I'm fat so I'd be happy with myself; how I wish I didn't depend on boys to raise my self-esteem; how I hate boys but want them anyway; how I know you don't really care what's the matter with me. Nobody cares. Maybe that's why I'm crying. Would you understand this? No, because you're self-confident, popular, and thin!
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE SO INFERIOR TO EVERYONE AROUND YOU! SO SHUT THE FUCK UP, WALK AWAY FROM ME, AND LET ME CRY IN PEACE!"
* * *
As a "nerd," a "fat" girl, an "ugly" girl, a girl walking alone down the street, a girl who says no to a boy's advances -- these are all girls who are coming together in recognizing and reclaiming their personal power:
"...We are loving each other and ditching stupid hurtful ideas of competition. We are laughing screaming working breaking down writing singing trashing our bedrooms playing dress up holding hands making our own rules and then breaking them crying dancing playing patty cake strapping on dildos and fucking boys with them sticking up for each other making a spectacle of ourselves working hard staying up all night having sex with each other jumping on the bed kicking the walls in... what this is is so big we can't even see it but we can feel it, it's coming. it's here."
