[Cover photo credit to Jason Frank Rothenberg]
Trailblazing feminist, musician, and women’s rights activist, Kathleen Hanna (Le Tigre, The Julie Ruin, Bikini Kill) has announced her new book Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk due out May 14, 2024 with Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins.
The new memoir traces Hanna’s life from her tumultuous childhood home to her formative college years in Olympia, Washington, and on to her first years on tour. Hanna makes clear that surviving as a singer who courted controversy took determination as she and her bandmates faced “male violence and antagonism at every turn.”
Hanna’s book explores her lifelong connections with bandmates, including Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Johanna Fateman, her friendships with Kurt Cobain and Ian MacKaye, and her introduction to Joan Jett. Hanna talks about her relationship with Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys, her battle with Lyme disease, and her musical growth in her bands, Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin.
She also writes candidly about the Riot Grrrl movement, “documenting with love its grassroots origins but critiquing its later exclusivity.”
Hanna’s outreach affected the Punk scene of the 90s and beyond and her band, Bikini Kill, still reflects her ethos through songs like “Rebel Girl” and “Double Dare Ya”. Hanna is also the subject of the award-winning documentary The Punk Singer.
