110+ Kathleen Hanna Quotes On Feminism, Culture And Femininity

Kathleen Hanna was an American musician, feminist activist, and punk singer-songwriter. She rose to prominence in the 1990s as the lead singer of the punk band Bikini Kill, and was also a part of the bands Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin. Her work was influential in the riot grrrl movement, which sought to empower women in the punk music scene. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Kathleen Hanna on love, feminism, culture.

Top 10 Kathleen Hanna Quotes

1. Art revolves around creating something that isn't there.
2. Sexism and racism and homophobia and classism are so naturalized. All these stereotypes make people think it's just normal that straight white men are getting all the breaks.
3. Jason Mraz, and the new James Blunt song is the worst thing that has ever been created on the face of the earth.
4. I feel so lucky that I met the love of my life. You know somebody's in it to win it when...you're having a seizure and they're holding you.
5. 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.
6. Johnny Rotten isn't punk. Maybe that's punk to somebody, but these people are participating and challenging the corporations that are telling us what punk is and what good music is.
7. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I'm the same as every other female singer.
8. It feels amazing and beautiful that music can have such an importance on the way that people form social groups. Music can change people. People can change the world.
9. You guys are seriously missing out unless you all start listening to girls.
10. The cool thing about the Internet is that it's allowing women more access to their own history.

Kathleen Hanna Short Quotes

• It takes falling down a bunch of times before you start running.
• I think this whole Billy Bush thing just pushed women over the edge because it's so visceral.
• I almost wish we would've filmed a whole fake tampon commercial around ["I'm With Her"].
• Just because you're wearing a goofy hat doesn't make it performance art.
• I don't consider myself a divining rod whom God is speaking through or any kind of crap like that.
• People are actually having conversations about "Is this sexist?"
• There are more people who are not straight, white males going to shows.
• Think of something that you can do as opposed to all the things you can't do - and do that.
• Taking care of yourself is the most important thing.
• While sexism hurts women most intimately, it also damages men severely.

Kathleen Hanna Quotes About Love

I think open adoption is a great idea, because it allows a relationship between the birth mother and her child so that the kid isn't like, "Where did I come from?" And to have it be like, "Look, you have a bunch of people who love you." — Kathleen Hanna

I hate the attitude of, 'oh we already have a Lydia Lunch, so we do we need a Bikini Kill.' Well, there's like 2 hundered million all-male bands writting 'baby baby I love you, let me drag you around on my ankle.' Is that enough already? Duh! — Kathleen Hanna

I really love that I'm giving myself the opportunity finally to not have the pressure of every single song you do having to be "political" or whatever. I'm just making what I wanna make. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

I'm not going to sit around and be peace and love with somebody's boot on my neck. — Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna Quotes About Feminism

I don't need to convince men that feminism is important, that just isn't a goal of mine. I can't even have that conversation of whether or not it's important, because if someone asks me that... I don't want to have a conversation with them until they grow up. — Kathleen Hanna

I'm more interested in a feminism that ends discrimination for all people. It's not just about a woman becoming the CEO of a company or something. It's connected to racism and classism and gender issues that go beyond the binary. — Kathleen Hanna

Gay marriage! That's a huge change and a huge win-win for feminism. — Kathleen Hanna

My mom and I had secret from my dad that we didn't think we were stupid, that we didn't think we needed feminism to be explained to us. — Kathleen Hanna

There are people who view their feminism in different ways. I used to beat myself up if I didn't react to things like I was supposed to. — Kathleen Hanna

I think that feminism is in cycle. Feminism rotates between backlash and interest. — Kathleen Hanna

What I've heard from younger women and women my age is that the albums changed their lives or it was the first time they had heard feminism that they could relate to. So that's great. — Kathleen Hanna

My original goal in the '90s, after I found feminism and I was the first generation in my family to go to college, was to spread this information that feminism was still very much alive, and that you can't believe the media telling you that it doesn't need to exist and that it doesn't exist. — Kathleen Hanna

Young girls getting into feminism. — Kathleen Hanna

My political views have definitely changed over the years. Maybe a better way of saying it is that I have grown into my convictions; the values and ideas of radical feminism that I started to articulate in my late teens feel more internalized or "second nature." — Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna Quotes About Punk

I've always talked a lot on stage - I really wanted to communicate my ideas and when you're playing at a lot of shitty punk clubs they don't have good PAs and so no one knows what you're singing about. — Kathleen Hanna

There's comedians who I consider extremely punk rock who I've seen do very political stand up in places where nobody wants to hear that. It's uncomfortable and scary and you realize it's the punkest performance you've ever witnessed. — Kathleen Hanna

Everybody wasn't always wasted. Why is punk rock about getting wasted? Isn't it punk rock to be sober and change the world? I thought it was about challenging capitalism? How are you going to challenge capitalism if you're wasted? — Kathleen Hanna

In the '90s, people wore scrunchies, but it was very uncool in the punk scene. — Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna Quotes About Working

I don't like being in the service industry and having to deal with people yelling at me all the time. McDonald's was the hardest job I ever had - so I have a lot of respect for people who work in the fast food industry. Because it's a hard job. — Kathleen Hanna

Whatever your personality was before, an illness makes it that plus a thousand. I'm a very binary person in a bad way where it's like everything is either totally great or totally awful. I don't understand grey area that well, and I've been working at that. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

It was one of the first things I did on my own; I worked at McDonald's, raised the money and did it. I'm really, really passionate about pro-choice, because I wouldn't be here talking to you right now if I'd had a kid at 15. — Kathleen Hanna

I don't like every other musician's work. The same way that filmmakers don't like every other filmmakers' work. Just because I'm a feminist doesn't mean I'm gonna say that I like every other woman's work, or that I appreciate another statement that another woman publicly made. — Kathleen Hanna

I need to see my friends or I'm gonna go crazy. I'm not gonna stay home and work. — Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna Quotes About Happen

It's not like somewhere along the way I decided to be a total formalist in terms of music and to not care about content; the content is going to be there whether I try to make it be there or not, and I can have fun and see what happens. — Kathleen Hanna

What usually happens with me is that I start with one idea in mind and then something else happens. — Kathleen Hanna

I get emails every day from people saying, "I never heard your music. I don't know anything about you. I just happened to watch this on Netflix. I hope you're feeling better. More power to you." It just shows you, I don't know, how generous and wonderful people can be. — Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna Quotes About Hearing

There's still a lot of misogynist pop music out there, and I think that hearing something that's so explicitly feminist and so angry - when we're still growing up in a culture where girls and women are not supposed to be angry - is a real revelation for young women. — Kathleen Hanna

I wanted to make something that I wanted to hear that I wasn't hearing. — Kathleen Hanna

The exciting thing about getting a label together and doing press for it is that hopefully some 15-year-old girl who is the only feminist in her junior-high class will hear about it and be like, "Oh, cool, I hadn't heard of that, I'm going to check it out." — Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna Famous Quotes And Sayings

When you speak up about any sense of unfairness or injustice, you're told that you're overreacting, you're too angry, too silly-shut up already. It takes a tremendous amount of fortitude to be able to live in this world as a woman, let alone a woman who wants things to change. — Kathleen Hanna

I don't want to waste the precious moments I have, and I've felt that way since I was 17. I have to take risks because why else would you be alive? Put your pirate patch on and go on an adventure because you only have one life to live. — Kathleen Hanna

Well, part of the thing is, like, what's the difference between censorship and social responsibility? I sometimes find that the whole censorship argument is used as a way for people to avoid the fact that they're like. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

If you really hate me, you should at least have the courtesy to take out a piece of paper and write it down and mail it to me. If you're a worthy nemesis, I want to see your handwriting. I want to see your name and your address, and if you don't have the guts to give me those, then you're not a worthy nemesis. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

For whatever reason I just remembered being six years old and my parents leaving the house and trusting me to be alone. I had an older sister, I think she was supposed to babysit me but she immediately ran across the street to her friend's house. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

I always wanted to play music, but my family was more interested in handing me paints and markers. Art was always my favorite subject in school, and I can remember staying up all night drawing as a small child. My expression via art was extremely strong as I grew and hasn't stopped. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

I always tell girls who say they want to start a band but don't have any talent, well, neither do I. I mean, I can carry a tune, but anyone who picks up a bass can figure it out. 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. — Kathleen Hanna

I saw a video on YouTube of a girl who had very similar reactions to late-stage Lyme disease as I did. And I thought it was crazy. And when I saw her basically have a seizure on camera that looked very much like my seizure I felt, "Oh my god. That's me." And so it was really important to me, and I said to Sini, 'We have to find some way to not just talk about Lyme disease, but to show it. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

It's so important for people in political groups to learn the difference between productive criticism and not. When it's about something you can change, it's productive. But if it's just like "You are an evil person", you can't change that. There's no way around that. — Kathleen Hanna

We support Hillary [Clinton]. We're saying that strongly. "I'm with her," I don't think that we can be any less strident. She's the best person for the job. — Kathleen Hanna

Sometimes, being a feminist artist, there are times where I'm in a position where I just want to feel like I'm saying all the right things politically, or I feel like I have to mention my own project over other people's projects. — Kathleen Hanna

It's the idea that we as people can control our own destinies. The government and the corporations, more even than the government, can't dictate what artwork we're supposed to like or what comedy we're supposed to laugh at. — Kathleen Hanna

I feel like there's this weird thing that as a feminist band you get put in this role as ambassadors. — Kathleen Hanna

I'm sure if you see things you wrote when you were 19, you cringe. I saw stuff like angry poetry that I wrote when I was mad at my father, or photos I took where I smeared period blood on myself. It's embarrassing. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

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.' — Kathleen Hanna

Most of my records are never going to be commercial successes, and I don't expect that. It's just all a learning process to me. If something appears as a failure, fine. If there's success, fine. I like the record, and my friends like the record, and that's kind of all I can really care about. — Kathleen Hanna

Clearly, gay marriage is on the top of the agenda right now. It's pretty amazing, considering where stuff was at when I was in high-school, when there were no LGBT Gay-Straight Alliances or any of that stuff. Am I a huge Lady Gaga fan? No, but I think some of the stuff she does that helps LGBT kids is amazing. And it's great that that's mainstream. It's fantastic that there's a pop star who's willing to put herself out in that way. — Kathleen Hanna

I know what a good question would be for an actor. What's your least favorite thing that you've ever heard an actor say about acting? Or about being in a movie? — Kathleen Hanna

I don't think I've ever had a woman yell that at me, but women have yelled mean things at me as well. — Kathleen Hanna

The idea that musicians/artists have a responsibility to be community leaders or "role models" is problematic to me because I really believe that some of the most exciting art is not community-minded at least in any obvious or direct way, which is not to say that it is not ethical or consciousness-changing. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

I think that the Internet is really cool because a lot of young feminists don't feel like they have to reinvent the wheel. — Kathleen Hanna

Later as things progressed and I saw the direct correlation between being able to keep making records and having people know about the music, I became more interested in using popular media as a way to get the word out. — Kathleen Hanna

When you're the person who's kind of in charge of everything a lot of the time, it's sometimes nice to get bossed around. It's sometimes nice to have somebody say, "This is what I want you to do" and to stretch your abilities. — Kathleen Hanna

I won't stop talking. I am a girl you have no control over. There is not a gag big enough to handle this mouth. — Kathleen Hanna

One of the reasons I went back to music even though I was extremely ill was because I started to forget who I was aside from being sick. And when I'm performing, or even lecturing, it's like I'm myself again, and that was a really amazing discovery - that, all of a sudden, I have a get-out-of-jail-free card. — Kathleen Hanna

I think that's such an important message, especially for younger women, to know, 'I don't have to come out of the womb painting like Frida Kahlo. My very first thing that I make isn't going to be an around-the-world sensation.' You have to paint a hundred really ugly, barfy, diarrhea paintings before you come up with that one where you start to really get into your groove. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

I think that it's so powerful for me to go see someone like Bridget Everett at Joe's Pub and watch her weave her songs in and out of these funny, tragic stories - you can talk and sing and it's not this horrible offense, you're going to get thrown in artistic jail. — Kathleen Hanna

I'm a very binary person in a bad way where it's like everything is either totally great or totally awful. — Kathleen Hanna

I'm so language-based and I'm so about communicating, and my art has always been very audience-based, and very about being functional and communicating something, and about feeling like I have to be heard. — Kathleen Hanna

When I first started out I actually was trying to use music to promote feminist ideas and at certain points, anti-violence against women and girls-type causes I was involved in. — Kathleen Hanna

I know that's really horrible, but that's how I do it in my head. I'm going to die. It doesn't matter. I don't matter. I'm a grain of sand. As a grain of sand, I may as well go out and relate to people and enjoy my short time on this planet that I have. Who knows what's coming next? — Kathleen Hanna

If I were a supervillain, I would end capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia... but I guess that's a little too obvious and not villain-y enough. Because that's actually being a superhero. I would break down poverty with my machete; I would end world hunger. — Kathleen Hanna

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? — Kathleen Hanna

It's so crazy because kids that wrote to me when they were 14 years old are still in my life. A lot have gone on to become musicians and artists in their own right who inspire me now. — Kathleen Hanna

Part of being in a band, being a painter, or starting a nonprofit is that you're going to make horrible mistakes and look like a total idiot, but you're never going to create that thing that really connects with people if you don't fail over and over and over again. — Kathleen Hanna

I'm really going off of watching John Waters speak one time and I remember he just kind of talked and it was totally interesting. I wanted to hear about his life and how he got started and when did he think he made it, stupid stuff like that. And what his relationship with the mainstream is because he's so far out there, but then he became part of the mainstream in this weird way. He was really funny, though. Yeah, I have to work on my jokes. — Kathleen Hanna

I realized that calling yourself a feminist or not calling yourself a feminist, just by being in a band of all girls, it's all you talk about. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

Feminism is something you do. It's a verb. It's what you are. It's an activity; it's something you're actively engaged in. — Kathleen Hanna

I think the [fan] access is complicated, because it brings wonderful things into my life, and it brings really negative things into my life. I just try to keep the negative stuff at arm's length. Laugh at it and walk away. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

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." — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

It's really cool that Miley Cyrus said she's the biggest feminist ever. I was like, 'That's the sound of 200,000 eight-year-olds Googling the word "feminist! — Kathleen Hanna

I search the phrase "Kellyanne Conway fails," and I'm just watching that Scottie [Nell Hughes] woman smirk all the time. — Kathleen Hanna

What (some) bands do is go, 'It's not important that I'm a girl, it's just important that I want to rock.' And that's cool. But that's more of an assimilationist thing. It's like they just want to be allowed to join the world as it is; whereas I'm more into revolution and radicalism and changing the whole structure. What I'm into is making the world different for me to live in. — Kathleen Hanna

I made the decision that my contribution needed to be more musical than political. My music was enough, politically. Art matters. Art was enough. My music was enough to say what I had to say. — Kathleen Hanna

Internalized sexism that makes us feel like we can't show ourselves not being perfect. — Kathleen Hanna

A lot of artists are just really stupid about money, and it's really hard to find somebody who kind of thinks of shuffling money around and doing business as an art. — Kathleen Hanna

I stood in the bay window at our house and I sang Away In A Manger. It was my first time on stage, but there was nobody watching. I just remember it was so natural and it was such a secret - like masturbating. I felt like I had to wait until everybody was gone. So I guess six years old would be my most important age, 'cause in that moment, I just knew what I wanted to do. — Kathleen Hanna

No one's female and male, we all have so many different traits. It's just a lie that these certain traits are male and these certain traits are female. — Kathleen Hanna

I kind of decided that doing music is enough because I'm already running a couple small businesses. I'm a part of Bikini Kill Records, Le Tigre Records, and Digitally Ruined Records. In dealing with my health and everything, my ability to do that? I wouldn't be good at it. — Kathleen Hanna

Women didn't want to be on the stage with other women because they didn't want their bodies to be compared. They didn't want another female act opening for them because of this weird competitive and tokenistic attitude. — Kathleen Hanna

I didn't even know what the word lesbian meant until I was called one... and then I had to look it up in the dictionary. — Kathleen Hanna

I felt like going out on the road and mixing it with music - which is something young people are always really interested in - would be a good way to proselytize. It was like feminist evangelism. — Kathleen Hanna

People need to stand up, women need to stand up for each other and say, "No you can't kick this person like they're a dog. You can disagree with someone politically, you can have arguments, definitely privilege needs to be discussed in real productive and valid ways. But it's not real criticism if it's just like, "you're a disgusting bad person." — Kathleen Hanna

I never thought that someone would be teaching one of my fanzines. I never thought I'd be off to lecture at a college. It's still shocking to me. — Kathleen Hanna

I always knew she was being funny, but when I tell my therapist that my mom played the trust game with me and let me fall on the ground, my therapist does not find that funny. She's like, "That's the reason for everything! That's why you have such a hard time with trust!" And I'm like, "I don't really have a hard time with trust. I thought it was funny." — Kathleen Hanna

I'm not sure Riot Grrrl would have been as big a deal if the Internet had existed back then. Because there's so much stuff on the Internet. People could have been like, oh, whatever, I'm going to go look at pictures of Barbie vaginas, you know what I mean? There's so many different things on the Internet, you read one article and then you read something linked off that article and you go down the rabbit hole. — Kathleen Hanna

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. — Kathleen Hanna

Life Lessons by Kathleen Hanna

1. Kathleen Hanna has taught us to be unapologetically ourselves and to never let anyone else define who we are. She has also reminded us to use our voice and platform to stand up for what we believe in and to fight for justice. Lastly, she has shown us that it is possible to be successful and still stay true to our values.