I realized that I really enjoy writing comedy, and how important comedy is when you feel like total crap.

Kathleen Hanna

Categorized in : Writing Important Comedy

So many women have experienced horrific forms of male violence throughout their lives, and why isn't there a song about how you get depressed because of it? And you don't know what to do, and you don't know how to talk to your friends and how weird it is to be a feminist in that situation, where there's sort of the expectation that you're super-strong superwoman but you're just, like, eating pizza in your house avoiding talking about it.

strong song talking

My vision of punk rock was these dudes who were spitting on the audience and moshing. That's why I kind of left that scene. Then I see all these people around my same age or between 17 and 25 that were making music themselves in their own town. They weren't just singing, but creating. I see them putting out this music where there are tons of women involved in the scene and involved in the bands.

creating rocks people

I've always been like, "Look, you're going to die and it's not going to matter after you die that you got out onstage and bombed."

dies matter looks

Don't get down on yourself that you can't run a 4K or dance all night long at a fun club. Give yourself a break.

running fun night

While sexism hurts women most intimately, it also damages men sev... by Kathleen Hanna

While sexism hurts women most intimately, it also damages men severely.

damage hurt men

I always get ‘What’s wrong?’ or ‘Lighten up.’ Half the time, when guys tell me to smile, I’m not even frowning, I’m thinking! Then I’m like, Oh! Some men don’t want women to think! Do they all have walkie-talkies? Are they all in this together? Like, ‘OK, she’s thinking, someone say something. She’s reading, go distract her.’ It starts feeling like that sometimes, doesn’t it?

reading men thinking

I talked a lot early on in my career about intersectionality and how racism and classism and sexism and homophobia and capitalism are all connected with each other, and they're these crazy systems that are feeding on each other and are also damaging. I can't even go into the whole spectrum of it. But I feel like kids today are so much more savvy about that conversation. And I'm so thrilled when I get to meet younger people who are doing that so much better than I did.

crazy careers kids

I am not Lyme disease, that's not who I am, I'm still a feminist artist, but this is a part of my story too, and I'm not going to keep it out to look cooler.

feminist who-i-am artist

I watch videos on YouTube of bands that I've heard of that I want to check out. And sometimes I don't even finish the video. And that's really sad, because maybe I'd like that song. I think that we don't give stuff a chance to really sink in.

song giving thinking

I do sometimes think what outfit will make me happy. It's one of those self-care things. If I don't have time to do yoga in the morning, then I have a certain sweater/shirt combination that makes me feel put together.

yoga morning thinking

I was never trying to be the voice for anybody else. I was just trying to sing about what I was going through, and was singing about those things specifically because I knew there was an audience not being served.

singing voice trying

Me and my friends in high school were the only girls who went to hardcore shows. It was three of us, and the rest of the audience was male. We didn't really think about it. We weren't thinking we were alienated or whatever, but eventually, as there started to be violence in the scene we were in during high school, we started to be turned off by the violence.

girl school thinking

Find something that makes you happy, like looking at beautiful pictures, or, if you're able, listening to beautiful music, or sitting by the window and looking outside - small things like that can be absolutely huge.

sitting listening beautiful

In 1985, I was living with my sister in Virginia, and since I was still in high school, I worked at McDonald's to save money to get an abortion. It sounds really terrible, but it was the best decision I ever made. It was the first time I took responsibility for my actions. I messed up, had sex without contraception, and got pregnant at 15.

responsibility sex school

When you're a musician and you go out onstage, and you're someone who loves attention, you are going to become a role model to some extent.

role-models musician roles

I've always thought that "punk" wasn't really a genre. My band started in Olympia where K Records was and K Records put out music that didn't sound super loud and aggressive. And yet they were punk because they were creating culture in their own community instead of taking their cue from MTV about what was real music and what was cool. It wasn't about a certain fashion. It was about your ideology, it was about creating a community and doing it on your own and not having to rely on, kinda, "The Man" to brand you and say that you were okay.

fashion real men

I'm just working and having a good time and seeing what develops, which is so awesome, because you don't know what's going to happen, and I'm letting myself do that a lot more than I ever have.

having-a-good-time good-times knows

Younger feminists actually care about stuff that came before them, the same way that I totally cared about and loved and felt so lucky to have access to the feminism that came before me. To have younger people take what me and my friends have done, and to say 'We have access to that, but we're going to put that through our own Internet generation filter and we're going to make it into something that speaks to us and is a lot smarter.'

feminism feminist people

Feminism rotates between backlash and interest. And the cool thing about the Internet is that it's allowing women more access to their own history. Part of the problem before the Internet was that we didn't know which books to read. Someone had to tell you.

feminism internet book

Every time I get sexually harassed, I'm supposed to turn around and yell at the person, but there are safety issues. Sometimes the best thing you can do it just walk right past that person and have a great day. But sometimes you feel like you really need to say something.

issues safety past