My Introduction to Feminism

Before I get into what feminism means to me and how I apply it to my daily life, I'd like to talk about how I discovered feminism. Ironically enough, it was because of a man. This man, to be exact:


Dr. John Alberti taught an Honors class titled "Feminist Punk Rock and Women's Protest Music" that I was lucky enough to take my sophomore year of college. It remains my favorite class I took at NKU and honestly changed my life.

Before Punk Rock, I'd only heard of feminism in the vaguest terms. I'm ashamed to say that I thought feminism was only something used for women's suffrage, and then it disappeared. Fortunately, I learned that feminism gained steam during women's suffrage, but boy, it wasn't done by a long shot after we got the vote.

Our class focused on the Riot Grrrl movement of the early 90s. Riot Grrrl, in a nutshell, was a bunch of girls and women deciding they were tired of the music scene being dominated by boys and men and storming the stages for themselves. This musical movement was in conjunction with a literary movement that saw a flood of "zines" being created by girls all over the country in an effort to connect with other girls and start raising awareness about issues such as body image, sexual abuse, depression, and much more.

Riot Grrrl inspired me so much that I decided to write a novella for my Honors Capstone about the subject. During my research, I discovered The Riot Grrrl Collection.


This book is a collection of zines from the period and proved itself invaluable time and again throughout my writing. It allows the reader to see for themselves what made the movement so special by reading the texts, rather than hearing analyses of the texts. Plus, it's just a gorgeous book to own with its glossy, full-color pages.

For class we read Girls to the Front, another book I highly recommend.


It tells the story of the bands, how the movement got its start and gathered steam, and even its eventual fizzling out. It's a great read, and a good primer for budding young feminists.

Besides the literature I was exposed to in class -- which will probably have its own post, because there has been a lot -- I heard a ton of great music. Bands like Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Letters to Cleo, and The Donnas have played their way into my heart since the first moments I heard them. To this day I find myself turning to their music whenever I need a hit of grrrl power, and experiencing them has changed the way I listen to music. If you want to listen to some of it, I've created a playlist on Spotify that I welcome you to check out (just search my name, you'll know which playlist it is).

I hope you'll check out some of the resources I've shared and discover a side of feminism that I never knew existed and will forever have a place of honor in my heart because it introduced me to the movement as a whole.