Mariana Andrade
Feminist Feminist zines Zines Mariana Andrade
Every girl is a Riot Grrrl
Every Girl is a Riot Grrl
AAD Dissertation Studio 2 2020–21
Extracts from Mariana Andrade, Feminist Zines: Every Girl is a Riot Grrrl
Dissertation Studio 2 Feminist Appoaches Tutor: Edwina Attlee
School of Art, Architecture and Design London Metropolitan University 2021
Chapter 4 - Riot Grrrl in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) In Brazil, the band that received the most prominence within Riot Grrrl was the feminist hardcore band called Dominatrix that started in 1995 in São Paulo led by guitarist Elisa Gargiulo. In the video Filosofia do Rock - Mulheres na história do rock (Philosophy of Rock - Women in Rock History) (CCBB SP, 2011), Gargiulo talks about how she became aware of Riot Grrrl. She says that she got involved with feminism at an early age because she decided to play the guitar and realized that she didn’t have many women doing the same thing. She started to question herself. Commenting with her mother about sexism, her mother recommended that she read Simone de Beauvoir to learn about feminism. She continued her search for feminism in theory and art, music, and poetry. She happened to like the band Hole, and one day she came across a story that said Courtney Love beat Kathleen Hanna of the band Bikini Kill from the Riot Grrrl, and that the name Riot Grrrl caught her attention, so she decided to buy the band’s CD Bikini Kill. Gargiulo identified with the ideology Riot Grrrl that came with the band. But for me, Riot Grrrl came through correspondence with girls who had a band and wrote zines. I was part of a band called Toxoplasmose composed by two friends and me from high school, Andreia (drummer), Cristiane (guitarist) and me on bass. The three of us were studying at a Catholic college of nuns. And Cris started dating a boy who had a band, and the three of us went to the rehearsal and decided that we would rent two hours in a studio to do the same. We didn’t have any instruments, but I remember the studio’s guys lent the instruments to us to play. I ended up on the bass without knowing how to play anything. We started putting together three-chord songs because that’s enough to make a punk song. You don’t need to know how to play. Through Cris, we got to know the punk movement in Rio de Janeiro because her boyfriend was part of the punk scene. Our first show was at the Catholic college of nuns that we studied since we were children, called Externato Angelorum. We didn’t play many songs, but I find it interesting that the first show took place at a nuns school, and some punk boys with mohawks were there to watch our show. It was something transgressive at that time. According to a document that I found in my archive, I found that I finished my studies at this school in 1993, which means that we started the band around 1993. Although some online articles say that the band Toxoplasmose began in 1995. The punk scene in Rio de Janeiro in the 90s was very violent, and we were all around 14 and 15 years old when we started to attend the punk scene. Our second show was in a house called Tá na Rua, which is in Lapa - Rio de Janeiro (around 1994). Halfway through the show, the audience disappeared because the skinheads appeared, and the punks and skinheads started fighting on the street. In addition to being a violent scene, it was a segmented scene because groups of punks fought each other for ideological differences. And where were the women in that? There were just a few women who were punks in Rio de Janeiro. And many of them had the role of being observers and not so much participants. I remember a few of them writing zines or another being part of a band, but mixed with boys. In Rio de Janeiro, there weren’t bands formed by just women in the punk scene and much less with feminist ideology. However, one of the differences in Rio de Janeiro’s punk scene is that it never became a middle-class white scene like in the USA or Europe. If you see photos from that time, you will see a racial mixture, like Rio de Janeiro’s whole state. The absence in Brazil’s 2
punk scene has more to do with women not having a role and not having a space in the punk scene to participate. In Rio de Janeiro, there is an absence of bands formed by just women. But in Brazil’s other states, new bands composed of only girls start to appear to change that absence. We can see that when we watch the documentary about women’s 90’s punk scene in Brazil: Viver para lutar - Ep. 1: Punk, Anarquismo e Feminismo - As minas dos anos 90 (Live to fight - Ep. 1: Punk, Anarquism and Feminism - The girls from the 90’s) (Knup, 2019). Some events led me to be a feminist girl in the punk scene. Even though the band was always invited to play in punk shows, there were always guys who made a sexist comment. One of the worst situations was at a festival in Madureira, where we waited from morning until night to play because of some schedule delay. When finally we went on stage, a band of some guys came, took our equipment and kick us off the stage because they could not wait for their turn to play. I got so angry that I jumped off a two-meter stage over the audience. That happened on the 8th of March, International Women’s Day. I also remember being told by one of the punks that they bet among themselves who will be with whom from Toxoplasmose as if we were an object. The punk scene is very complicated, especially in Rio de Janeiro, a place where sexism is vast. Simultaneously, the punk scene was controversial because I made friends who are punks until today who are remarkable people who supported us. Cristiane (guitarist) also introduced us to zines, and the three of us started writing a zine together called CRADEMA. The name was the junction of the initial of our names. In the zines, we talked about feminism and gave visibility to other bands and other women’s zines. We met other bands from other states through zines such as Cosmogonia, Dominatrix, Surface, Flores Indescente, Bulimia, and other bands that also produced zines and spoke of feminism like us. We were all part of the Riot Grrrl movement in Brazil. And it was through the invitation of the band Cosmogonia to play in São Paulo in 1996, in a house called Aeroanta, that I had my first contact with Riot Grrrl because it was there in São Paulo that the Riot Grrrl scene started in Brazil. For the first time, I was at a show with girls’ bands, where girls and women were in front of the stage doing moch pit and not just men. They distributed their zines during the event, and there was a feminist speech between the songs to encourage other girls to do the same. For me, it was as if I found everything that was missing. At the same time, I knew I was part of Riot Grrrl. It was in me. Finally, I didn’t feel so alone anymore. I wanted to continue that in my city. In addition to playing and having zines, the other girls in the band, and I wanted to produce events that could debate women’s health and encourage other girls to play and do the same. Riot Grrrl in Brazil had the same formats that in Washington. We corresponded by letters, wrote zines, we encouraged other girls to have bands and write zines. We held festivals, feminist debates and workshops for other girls. We discussed racism. While still in a Latin country, discrimination also happens a lot. As a band already known in Riot Grrrl in Brazil, we started producing girls’ events to play. It was not easy because we had no money, so we partnered with collectives and institutions for women to make copies of the zines and give space with free entrance to show films with feminist themes and to have debates and play with other bands. In August 1998, we entered into a partnership with the Centro de Direitos da Mulher 3
(Women’s Rights Center) located in the centre of Rio de Janeiro. Then we started to produce an event under the name of Undergrrrl (1998), which is a mixture of the name underground with Grrrl by Riot Grrrl. In this event, the idea was to exhibit zines and bands made by women. But Rio de Janeiro was a complicated city. I never met any band that said they were feminist. It didn’t exist. As I previously mentioned, the Riot Grrrl movement changes according to the location. In 1998 it reached a boom of female bands or that had mostly female members. Precisely why the term Riot Grrrl entered a type of fashion at that time. For example, in Rio de Janeiro, there was a producer of events and bands that took advantage of this moment to organize an event called Motim. And I wonder if there was a kind of demographic distortion as to what Riot Grrrl meant. At the same time that I was happy to participate in those events, it was as if people were afraid of being labelled feminists. Maybe because there are so many feminist lesbians like me? But being a feminist does not mean you are a lesbian and vice versa or even have an aversion or hate men. In the article What You Really Mean When You Say You’re Not a Feminist written by Anya Overmann she quotes phrases she heard about why some women don’t want to call themselves a feminist. “But feminists are so ANGRY. Some of them even actively and outwardly express their hatred for men. I don’t want to be associated with an identity that hates men.” (Overmann, 2019). But feminism has nothing to do with hating men or being a lesbian. It is about the struggle for gender-equal rights. But whoever says that feminism is exclusive to women is forgetting non-binary people. Being a lesbian does not mean being a feminist. I never felt like I hated men. But unfortunately, in another article called Why so many young women don’t call themselves feminist written by Christina Scharff shows that some stereotypes have persisted through time. ‘In the 1920s, feminists were often called spinsters and speculation about their sexual preferences was rife. Almost a century later, these views still hold some sway. Having interviewed a diverse group of young German and British women for my research, I found associations of the term “feminism” with man-hating, lesbianism or lack of femininity was a key factor in rejections of the label “feminist”. The majority said they did not want to call themselves feminist because they feared they would be associated with these traits. This was despite many stressing they were not homophobic and some identifying as lesbian or bisexual.’ (Scharff, 2019). I felt somewhat distant and alone because even with all that was going on, all those bands, events for women and going out in the media, it was as if at that moment something was coming apart, the idea of unification becomes a product to sell a particular band or other. Again a product created by the media. The bands start losing all the value of the DYI culture and the meaning of unification. And they start competing between them. Therefore undoing the idea of community in which we can find in the zines. For example, zines are tools of free expression where the bands advertise each other, empowering them and encouraging the formation of new ones without distorting the reality of them. ‘The sexist maxim that a woman only serves to pilot an oven and a stove will go down the drain tomorrow, in Niterói, when the first festival, “Riot, girls in action” begins. There, women will ride bass, guitar and drums. Despite the name, let’s say, aggressive, the producer Elza Cohen says that the event has no feminist connotation but a feminine one. 4
Whatever the concept may be… The name of the festival is a little bit aggressive. But in a good way. For things to happen, sometimes we need a little aggression - theorizes Elza Cohen. - We are inspired by Riot Grrrls and Rock For Choice. We cannot remain just as groupies - adds the producer, referring to two foreign feminine’s awareness movements and, later, to the name given in English to the women who “accompany” the rock stars. Of the bands that have been selected, only Toxoplasmose (a power trio formed three years ago in Glória) is completely filled by girls.’ (Pereira, 1998). The media and producers manage, in some way, to distort facts and important information, such as using the wave of Riot Grrrl to produce shows with women and girls without mentioning the real roots of the movement Riot Grrrl. This becomes clear when producer Elza Cohen called Riot Grrrl a feminine’s awareness movement, being that Riot Grrrl is genuinely a feminist movement. In current days, Toxoplasmose is a reference to Riot Grrrl’s precursor bands in Brazil in the 90s. And I genuinely believe that I have contributed to the encouragement of the formation of other girl-bands. But from my point of view, Brazil, especially some local 06/03/2021 https://acervo.oglobo.globo.com/?service=printPagina&imagemPrint=https%3A%2F%2Fduyt0k3aayxim.cloudfront.net%2FPDFs_XMLs_paginas%2… scenes, still needs more women helping each other to build a more diverse music scene.
Fig. 20 Page from O Globo newspaper (Pereira, 1998)
https://acervo.oglobo.globo.com/?service=printPagina&imagemPrint=https%3A%2F%2Fduyt0k3aayxim.cloudfront.net%2FPDFs_XMLs_paginas%2Fo_globo%2F1…
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Fig. 21 Toxoplamose gig Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. At this time I was 15 years old (Toxoplasmose, 1994)
Fig. 22 Toxoplamose gig Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. This photo shows how the punk scene in Rio de Janeiro was mixed in terms of race but predomenatly male (Toxoplasmose, 1994)
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Fig. 23. Poster of the 1st Grrrl Festival in São Paulo. The asthetic of the poster is the same of the zines. And the tickets were free for women but men had to pay (1st Grrrl Festival in São Paulo, 1996)
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Fig. 24 Mariana Andrade, Cristiane Ferreira and Andreia Prieto during Toxoplamose’s original run in the 90’s (Toxoplasmose, 1997)
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Fig. 25 Cradema Zine no 4, including interview with band Dominatrix, flyers to promote other bands and zine cover (Andrade, 1997)
Fig. 26 Promotional photo for women’s music show (Show Fundição Progresso Rio de Janeiro, 1998)
Bands included in the compilation: Biggs Bulimia Hitch Lizard Kaos Klitoriano Lava RTL Sandina She’s Skirt Staples Surface Toxoplasmose T.P.M. Witchery Yolk
Fig. 27 Brazil Punk Grrrl Compilation (Up the Grrrl, 2000)
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