Kathleen Hanna Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Kathleen Hanna.
Famous Quotes By 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. But I don't do that anymore. I just want to be off the cuff and honest. — 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
Defining art is huge; I feel like it's such a subjective thing. It's more like what's not art. You know what I mean? I think there can be an art in the way people live their lives, and art can be a gift someone gives to somebody. — Kathleen Hanna
That's the great thing about music. You can find some '60s pop record and feel completely invigorated by it, even though it's so old. — 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
It takes your mind off things when there's a cat in your lip and he's purring while you're petting him. — Kathleen Hanna
I felt it was really, really important, not just in the vein of feminist erasure or whatever but also just as an artist that I honored my work. — Kathleen Hanna
You learn that the only way to get rock-star power as a girl is to be a groupie and bare your breasts and get chosen for the night. We learn that the only way to get anywhere is through men. And it's a lie. — Kathleen Hanna
I'm a big proponent of open adoption, 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." Not just the parents who are raising you on a day-to-day basis, but also to have contact with your birth mother and hopefully your birth father. So that you can be like, "Oh, they love me too, and they love me so much that they knew they couldn't take care of me but they're still in my life to some extent." — 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
Certain people are like 'Oh, here come the Feminazis!' You end up acting 10 times nicer than you even need to be, to be the opposite of the stereotype like 'You're the man haters!' We're always bending over backwards being extra nice. And I don't know if being nice is my legacy. — Kathleen Hanna
I think my biggest fear is dying. Although sometimes my biggest fear is not dying. But yeah, I think health stuff for me is more what I'm afraid of. — Kathleen Hanna
I talked a lot early on in my career about intersectionality and how racism and classism and sexism and homophobia and capitalism are all connected with each other, and they're these crazy systems that are feeding on each other and are also damaging. I can't even go into the whole spectrum of it. But I feel like kids today are so much more savvy about that conversation. And I'm so thrilled when I get to meet younger people who are doing that so much better than I did. — 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
Jason Mraz, and the new James Blunt song is the worst thing that has ever been created on the face of the earth. — 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
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
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 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'm a very binary person in a bad way where it's like everything is either totally great or totally awful. — Kathleen Hanna
There are so many great artists that are doing interesting things, that I don't want to focus on boring people. — Kathleen Hanna
In terms of men being feminist allies, it's just important to speak from your own place. I'd love to hear men singing about masculinity and the damage it does to them. — 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
Feminism rotates between backlash and interest. And the cool thing about the Internet is that it's allowing women more access to their own history. Part of the problem before the Internet was that we didn't know which books to read. Someone had to tell you. — 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? — 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
I was lucky enough to go to college for four years. At what was supposedly a hippie school with no tests and no grades, blah blah blah, I wasn't learning that. I was taking photography classes. That stuff just wasn't talked about. It was like, "Does this picture have the right about of grey in it?" It wasn't even an art school. It was a state-run school. — 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 wanted to make something that I wanted to hear that I wasn't hearing. — 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
I feel like what I'm best at is being a musician and a performer. I want to use that to help people who are good at starting nonprofits. — Kathleen Hanna
Facing sexism and racism and classism and transphobia, there are ways to choose to act in those situations, and there shouldn't be a prescriptive list of things that you have to say. — Kathleen Hanna
I'm not going to sit around and be peace and love with somebody's boot on my neck. — Kathleen Hanna
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
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
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
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
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
I'm really annoyed by the wave of country music that's just a list of stuff. It almost sounds like L.A. people writing country music, because it's just a list of stuff: 'My pickup truck and my cowboy boots and my Levi's jeans and my girlfriend with the short shorts.' It's so boring! — Kathleen Hanna
Gay marriage! That's a huge change and a huge win-win for feminism. — 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
I was in a band in the '90s called Bikini Kill, and we were so freaked out about documentation then, and there was the whole thing, not just about the male gaze, but that people were going to misrepresent you ... a kind fear of the mainstream that a lot of us had. — Kathleen Hanna
I'm totally into Taylor Swift. I think she has super-clever lyrics, and I love that she writes her own music. Some of the themes she writes about are stuff I wish was there for me when I was in high school, and I'm so happy she really cares about her female fans. She's not catering to a male audience and is writing music for other girls. — Kathleen Hanna
I'm in a really lucky position where people will be interested in whatever I do, but what I do is sing. — Kathleen Hanna
Popularity is totally overrated. — Kathleen Hanna
I wanna be a legend; I wanna be a cult hero. I do! — Kathleen Hanna
I have no clue. I just know I would want to play the least amount of shows that the most people would be able to come to. — Kathleen Hanna
I go to lectures and girls are finding out about Bikini Kill or Le Tigre for the first time and are like,' This is my jam!' It still feels fresh to them. — 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 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
I'm living in a world where there are LGBTQ straight alliances at high schools. I feel pretty psyched on that. — 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. — Kathleen Hanna
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
It's now taken for granted that women are in bands and you can say feminist things in your songs. But back in the early '90s, there was a lot of violence at Bikini Kill shows that people don't realize happened. — Kathleen Hanna
I like art with a sense of humor. I don't have a huge art education to understand everything. I don't think that means that art has to be watered down to the lowest common denominator, though. I don't think you have to go to college to be able appreciate great art, but I like art that doesn't take itself too seriously. — Kathleen Hanna
I have chronic - well, I like to call it late-stage Lyme disease and not chronic, because I like to think someday I'll be all the way cured. It took me a really long time to get diagnosed, and I was misdiagnosed for a long, long time. I was very ill during the end of Le Tigre, which was kind of why that ended, amongst other things. — Kathleen Hanna
I realized that I really enjoy writing comedy, and how important comedy is when you feel like total crap. — Kathleen Hanna
Just because you're wearing a goofy hat doesn't make it performance art. — Kathleen Hanna
Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I'm the same as every other female singer. — Kathleen Hanna
What usually happens with me [is that] I start with one idea in mind and then something else happens. — Kathleen Hanna
I think one things that's really important in the boy community or whatever, or the boy things, is like, to realize that oppression is a two-way street. You know what I mean? That it's like, white men are really missing out - I don't wanna say white men are oppressed but ... — 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've always thought that "punk" wasn't really a genre. My band started in Olympia where K Records was and K Records put out music that didn't sound super loud and aggressive. And yet they were punk because they were creating culture in their own community instead of taking their cue from MTV about what was real music and what was cool. It wasn't about a certain fashion. It was about your ideology, it was about creating a community and doing it on your own and not having to rely on, kinda, "The Man" to brand you and say that you were okay. — Kathleen Hanna
Internalized sexism that makes us feel like we can't show ourselves not being perfect. — Kathleen Hanna
I wanted to say to myself as much as anyone else that we made art. — Kathleen Hanna
People have always had these weird things about how you have to be really good looking to be a singer. — 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 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
When I watch myself on camera, in any capacity - being interviewed, performing, 20 years ago or yesterday - there's a part of me that really doesn't grasp that it's me. — Kathleen Hanna
I really like to talk about my work in a way that is complicated. — 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
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
The only thing I collect is art. I collect it because I like looking at it. A lot of it is really personal stuff that my friends have made, paintings that my husband's mother made, and things that I bought. I buy abstract art on eBay, and I buy some outsider art on eBay, or what is called folk art, I buy a lot of. I have a lot of professional art work as well as more stuff my friends' kids make. To have a wall of art to look at, I feel really surrounded by love, because so much of the work is related to my friendships. — Kathleen Hanna
People can be in a prison of their own mind. [There are] people who don't have their hearts open to other people's ideas, and can't listen to other people's ideas without feeling like they're being slapped in the face. Those people are more in a prison. — 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
You guys are seriously missing out unless you all start listening to girls. — 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
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
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 would much rather be the obnoxious feminist girl than be complicit in my own dehumanization. — Kathleen Hanna
I always thought that putting tons of reverb on my voice was kind of the equivalent of airbrushing. And I wanted other girls and women to hear a real female voice that wasn't completely manipulated. — Kathleen Hanna
I am such a bossy producer and such a control freak that there's a part of me that really longs to be bossed around. — Kathleen Hanna
It's really funny - when I'm depressed or I'm having a hard time, I'll write really fun stuff. And then when I'm really happy, I write really depressing stuff. — 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
As I've gotten older, I've realized that things are a lot more permeable. It's not so black and white: not every journalist is a jerk. — 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
If people are like, 'Oh, you're an icon,' then whatever. But who thinks of themselves like that? It's not like I have posters of myself on the wall. — 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
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
I'm not that interested in female superheroes. — 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
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 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
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
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
My mom wasn't, like, she was reading all these historical romance novels the majority of the time. She read a feminist book and then my dad would sit down and explain it to her like she was an idiot. — 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
See who else is interested and join other people's projects that have already started that you like. You don't always have to reinvent the wheel and start your own thing. — 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
I have late-stage Lyme disease. I was misdiagnosed for many, many years and told I had lupus, MS, Crohn's disease, even degenerative arthritis. And finally in 2010, I got the correct diagnosis, because on the last Le Tigre tour, I was having several seizures a day and at times not being able to brush my own teeth. — Kathleen Hanna