Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna is an American musician, feminist activist, and punk zine writer. In the early-to mid-1990s she was the lead singer of feminist punk band Bikini Kill, before fronting Le Tigre in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 1998, Hanna released a lo-fi solo album under the name Julie Ruin and since 2010 has been working on a project called The Julie Ruin...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth12 November 1968
CityPortland, OR
CountryUnited States of America
I almost wish we would've filmed a whole fake tampon commercial around ["I'm With Her"].
I'm not a goddess, for crying out loud. I'm a regular person who took feminism - which I have a deep connection to - and mixed it with music, which I really love to do.
I was like, "Oh my god, I hope you're secretly grossed out about everything that [Donald] Trump has been doing." But why is it such a shock to anybody? He's said so many things that show who he is and how ignorant he is from the beginning.
Obviously, we're really upset about the state of the election. It's horrifying, as everybody knows, that we could have a totally fascist president.
I search the phrase "Kellyanne Conway fails," and I'm just watching that Scottie [Nell Hughes] woman smirk all the time.
You have these Stepford wives who are negating other women. But that's their job. [Donald] Trump is the one who is to blame, no matter how much I enjoy watching his surrogates fail massively.
When I get stressed out my de-stress default is - not cat videos - but I just watch his surrogates. They're so entertaining. It's like escapees from the Nordstrom cosmetics counter.
I got hit up for a tampon commercial and so I asked [JD and Jo] if they had anything. Jo sent that over and I was like, "I love this track. Oh my god. It's so upbeat. It's so positive. It would be so great for a tampon commercial." That commercial never came through, so then I just had it. I was like, "That would be great for a Hillary [Clinton] song." I think it's so funny that it could be a tampon commercial.
When I watch myself on camera, in any capacity - being interviewed, performing, 20 years ago or yesterday - there's a part of me that really doesn't grasp that it's me.
I have late-stage Lyme disease. I was misdiagnosed for many, many years and told I had lupus, MS, Crohn's disease, even degenerative arthritis. And finally in 2010, I got the correct diagnosis, because on the last Le Tigre tour, I was having several seizures a day and at times not being able to brush my own teeth.
To make riot grrrl move into the future in a new way with a bunch of new names and a bunch of new energy, younger people have to learn about it and apply it to their own lives and own modern conversation. And they are.
Facing sexism and racism and classism and transphobia, there are ways to choose to act in those situations, and there shouldn't be a prescriptive list of things that you have to say.
I go to lectures and girls are finding out about Bikini Kill or Le Tigre for the first time and are like,' This is my jam!' It still feels fresh to them.
You don't have to have magic unicorn powers. You work at it, and you get better. It's like anything: You sit there and do it every day, and eventually you get good at it.