If an essay could be an anthem, this piece by Mara Wilson would be one for the times.
“We’re Bikini Kill, and we want revolution, girl-style, NOW!”
I was ten years old, tagging along with my brothers and their friends on a car ride, and the driver had put on a cassette that was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. It was unabashedly angry: brash guitar and furious drums, and above it all, someone singing—or yelling, really. I knew lots of songs by angry men, but this was a girl’s voice.
“You’re playing Bikini Kill?” I heard someone laugh. “You’re going to warp Mara’s mind.”
It was too late. Years too late.
“You were such a sweet little girl,” grown-ups always told me. Sweet, and sensitive: I cried at the evening news and worried about anyone less fortunate. But when I was eight, my mother died, and that lit the fire. I was perpetually angry, raging when I was sad or scared, at every injustice, big or small. Adults seemed shocked at this sea change, boys at school called me “crazy,” and the other girls had no idea what to do with me.