Riot Grrrl and design as a way of communication

Bikini Kill #2 example of a Grrrl zine

Riot grrrl is a movement that is located mostly within the punk scene of the 90's and during the third wave of feminism, it's a movement that used art and music to show their ideas to the world, and a way of communicating with each other from one woman to another. The movement started in Olympia, Washington when a few women formed bands and held women-only meetings in which girls could discuss the ways sexism controlled their everyday lives. A large part of the movement was the DIY (do-it-yourself) philosophy, in music as well as in art and design. One of the best examples is there way of using zines as their way of communicating.

What is a zine? Zines are do-it-yourself (DIY) magazines, but not necessarily how you think of magazines.  They are independently published little booklets, often created by a single person or by contributions by people without he same opinion. These booklets are often put together by gluing together words and pictures onto pages that are then photocopied, folded and stapled. They're a quick and easy, not to mention cheap, way of publishing and getting your idea out there.

Riot Grrrls used zines as their way of fighting back against the mainstream media that wasn't portraying females in a very positive light at that moment in time, telling rape victims it was their own fault, objectifying women left, right and centre, and those who didn't have the 'normal' appearance, like the riot grrrls, were portrayed as a negative influence for women and girls all over the world.

“BECAUSE we girls want to create mediums that speak to US. We are tired of boy band after boy band, boy zine after boy zine, boy punk after boy punk after boy… BECAUSE we need to talk to each other. Communication/inclusion is the key. We will never know if we don’t break the code of silence…BECAUSE in every form of media we see us/myself slapped, decapitated, laughed at, objectified, raped, trivialized, pushed, ignored, stereotyped, kicked, scorned, molested, silenced, invalidated, knifed, shot, choked and killed. BECAUSE a safe space needs to be created for girls where we can open our eyes and reach out to each other without being threatened by this sexist society and our day to day bullshit” Erika Reinstean, Riot Grrrl NYC#2

for more info please visit http://grrrlzines.net/about.htm#zines