Girls to the Front

Resumen del libro

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Senate didn't believe Anita Hill, Rush Limbaugh compared feminists to Nazis, and a study found that girls tended to start hating themselves during adolescence. It was a hard time to be a young woman, to be growing up on promises of equal rights that didn't square with reality. Sexual assault rates reached record highs; harassment was rife in the schools; and, boys still would be boys, and girls still had to watch what they wore and where they walked.

It was enough to make a girl want to scream. Riot Grrrl roared into the spotlight in 1991: an uncompromising movement of pissed-off girls who had no patience for sexism, no stomach for double standards, and no intention of keeping quiet. Incendiary punk bands - like Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, and above all Bikini Kill, fronted by the magnetic, prophetic Kathleen Hanna - spread the word.

Thousands of riot grrrls published handmade magazines, founded local groups, and organised conventions. The movement spread from its birthplaces of Washington, D.C. and Olympia, Washington, to the Midwest, Canada, Europe, and beyond.

"Girls to the Front", the first-ever history of Riot Grrrl, is a gripping narrative with a sound track: a lyrical, punk-infused chronicle of a group of extraordinary young women coming of age angrily, collectively, and publicly. It's the story of a time when America thought feminism was dead, and feminism seemed to buy into the slacker myths of Generation X, but a generation of noisy girls rose up to prove everybody wrong. Above all, it's a story about looking for your place in the world - and finally creating it yourself.

Biografía del autor

Sara Marcus es profesora de inglés en la universidad de Notre Dame, Indiana, donde también está afiliada al Programa de Estudios de Género y a la Iniciativa sobre Raza y Resiliencia. "Las chicas al frente", publicado originalmente en 2010, fue su primer libro. Su último trabajo es "Political Disappointment: A Cultural History from Reconstruction to the AIDS Crisis", que muestra cómo artistas, intelectuales y activistas norteamericanos convirtieron el desencanto político en la base de un movimiento solidario. Marcus ha publicado ensayos y críticas en el terreno de la música, el sonido, la literatura y el arte en medios como Artforum, Dissent, LA Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, Bookforum, New Republic, Public Books o Texte zur Kunst.