PHOTO CREDIT https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-live-reviews/bikini-kill-reunion-show-los-angeles-review-827695/
Women have been fighting for their human rights for so long. Fighting to be recognised as a person and having autonomy over our lives and decisions; reproductive rights; what we wear; who we can marry; financial autonomy; where we can work; our names and our pronouns; how loud and how long we can talk for, and how much education we can access.
The fight to be heard, to be seen, and to be taken seriously continues. If you think we’ve smashed through the glass ceiling, if you think we have equal pay, equal rights and equal access to any of the things mentioned, and feminism has “done it’s job”, then you are badly mistaken. You need to scrape away your filters of privilege that obscure reality because most women are nowhere near the ceiling.
As a lifelong feminist, it’s easy to feel the fight wearing thin and become exhausted; however, sometimes, things invigorate and inspire me.
This week was one of those times I was excited to see such an eclectic group of so many older women, young women and young girls, some as young as 6, with their mums, aunties and sisters, celebrating feminism, unashamedly screaming with delight, yelling loud and standing proud, and engaging in feminist politics.
Bikini Kill-an anarchofeminist all-girl band that came onto the punk scene in 1990 in America were on stage. Young girls, children under 11, were not just adorning themselves with the newest fad; they were engaging in the dialogue, singing word for word to the songs. They had fierceness in their attitude, vigour in their voices and strength in their fists that they thrust into the air to the beat of the collective tenet of feminism.
Their fight is not over. Their fight is just beginning. There is so much more work to do, and I saw on that night the capable, committed, eager and strong hands that will carry us forward, fighting for a just and equal world where people aren’t disadvantaged because of their gender or their marital status or their race or their age or their religion.
“When she walks, the revolution’s coming;
In her hips, there’s a revolution;
When she talks, I hear the revolution.
That girl, she holds her head up so high,
Rebel girl, you are the queen of my world” - Bikini Kill