It's now taken for granted that women are in bands and you can

Hear the testimony of Kathleen Hanna, warrior of song and voice of rebellion, who declared: “It’s now taken for granted that women are in bands and you can say feminist things in your songs. But back in the early ’90s, there was a lot of violence at Bikini Kill shows that people don’t realize happened.” In these words lies both triumph and sorrow: triumph, that what was once forbidden has now become common, and sorrow, that this victory was born through the fires of hostility.

For in the days of the early ’90s, when Hanna and her sisters of Bikini Kill took the stage, they did more than perform—they defied. They raised their voices against a world that wished to keep women silent, to banish them from the holy ground of music, where only men had long been enthroned. They sang of feminism, of rage, of liberation, and in their cries they gave shape to the Riot Grrrl movement. Yet their courage was met not with open arms but with fists, jeers, and violence, as if the very act of a woman claiming the stage was a threat to the order of the world.

Such resistance is not new in the tale of humanity. Recall the story of Rosa Parks, who in 1955 refused to surrender her seat on a segregated bus. Her action was not grand in appearance, but it shook an empire of injustice. She endured insult, scorn, and the weight of danger, yet her defiance became a torch for the civil rights movement. So too with Hanna: her standing upon the stage, guitar in hand, was an act of revolt, a declaration that women’s voices would no longer be drowned.

Now, in the present age, it seems natural that women form bands, sing freely of their truth, and voice feminist fire without fear. But Hanna reminds us that such freedom was not given—it was won. It was carved out by those who endured hatred, who stood their ground when the crowd turned hostile, and who bore the burden of violence so that future daughters might sing without trembling.

Therefore, let this wisdom endure: never take lightly the victories of the present, for they were purchased with the struggles of the past. To witness women on the stage today is to see the fruit of defiance, the harvest of courage. The words of Hanna call us to remember, to honor, and to continue the work, lest the silence of old return once more. For every freedom we now call ordinary was once an act of extraordinary bravery.