The Riot Grew With Us: Older. Wiser. Louder.
Today I’m celebrating my 50th birthday and reflecting on the women and experiences that have shaped the wise, badass woman I’ve become. And while I came of age as part of Gen X—a generation that witnessed dramatic shifts in possibilities for women and other historically marginalized people—I was born just one year (to the day!) after the Equal Credit Opportunity Act took effect, finally prohibiting creditors from discriminating on the basis of sex or marital status. Just one year. The idea that women were entitled to this basic measure of economic autonomy was still remarkably new when I came into this world.
I was fortunate to be born into a family that rejected the culturally popular notions of femininity which relegated women to a lesser-than status. I was raised with a sense of entitlement for self-determination and the ability to choose my own identity and path in life. So I was struck by cognitive dissonance, in my formative years, faced with a cultural standard where doing anything “like a girl” was considered an insult. I was dumbfounded by the realization that freedom followed power, and embodying feminine qualities, whether biologically female or not, led to the routine surrender of both.
In my college years I rejected femininity, identifying it as a weakness and a liability. I embedded myself in male-dominated action sports and equally male-dominated punk rock music where I could be part of a community of other social deviants who rejected the status quo of political, economic, and racial populism. But in the process, I also rejected a part of myself that I had unwittingly learned to devalue—my qualities and characteristics which were uniquely feminine. I loved my snowboarding and punk rock communities, but I had begun withholding love from the parts of myself I feared were weak, vulnerable, and less-than.
Until, that is, a feminine movement spread like wildfire through the punk rock music world during the 1990s. This force-of-nature became known as the Riot Grrrl movement (that's Riot Grrrl with an angry grrrowl). The name was coined by the legendary female punk band Bikini Kill and their iconic female punk rock cohorts.
I was immediately enamored. For the first time in my relatively-young existence, I had women to look up to who looked and sounded like me; women who provided positive messaging to help guide my developing identity as someone who could embrace all the parts of herself and still go out and play (and compete!) in a man's world.
The Riot Grrrl movement helped fuel the Third Wave of feminism, and contrary to popular criticism, it was not at all designed to bash males. Like me, many Riot Grrrls had male besties. The Riot Grrrl movement's message was about “girls creating sounds, styles, and sexualities for themselves instead of passively accepting the roles and ridicule so often assigned to them.”
This new, young, feminist movement chose a strategy which provided education, awareness, and support to young women and challenged them, and me, to create our own realities.
More than half my life has passed since I adopted the Riot Girrrl Manifesto, and I have lived by it every day since then. I like to believe that growing up—and showing up—as a Riot Grrrl has allowed me to play some small part in carrying progress forward, sometimes loudly and sometimes quietly. As I enter this next chapter, I want to pass the mic and encourage the women of my generation to share the wisdom we’ve gained, inspiring the next generation to speak up, take up space, question the rules, and push back against the forces that would prefer they remain quiet and compliant.
In celebration of the rebellious, yet empowered, spirit that flows through my veins, I created a Riot Grrrl deck of personal inquiry cards, intended to inspire women and girls, mothers and daughters, circles of friends, husbands, brothers, male allies, non-binary, and otherwise marginalized communities to gather together and celebrate the strength and wisdom that comes with experience, regardless of age, and our collective ability to create positive change in the world.
For my birthday, it is my wish that this Riot Grrrl Oracle of Inner Wisdom deck of cards be shared freely and widely, and that it inspire conversations that celebrate personal empowerment.
Riot Grrrls unite!
Instructions to Print Your Own Deck:
Download the PDF and print in color, double-sided, on 8.5 × 11" 65 lb (or heavier) cardstock at Actual Size / 100%. Cut along the guide lines. Then gather your people, shuffle, pull a card, and start talking.
This deck is a gift. Free to download. Free to print. Free to share.
Please don’t sell or reproduce this deck for commercial use.
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