All of this became a lot more difficult to articulate after the protests of 1992. School masses started to emphasize pro-life causes, and I got a lot of questions about being pro-choice. I basically clammed up about my own beliefs on the matter, though I did not succumb to all the peer pressure to join the pro-life club. I found other outlets for my politics, such as arguing with my teachers about social justice issues like poverty and racism. (Which explains why I went to a Jesuit college for undergrad, and also why I will never be voted alumni of the year at St. Michael the Archangel—formerly Bishop Sullivan High School—even without considering the publication of Rebel Girls.)
Though I remember the palpable tension around that time, there were many other things that I didn’t remember. It took a whole lot of research to flesh out the details of the setting in this story, from the timeline of the protests, to where various cool shops were located around LSU, to what music Athena would be listening to (and when), and where to drop subtle Ross Perot references, because...the 1992 election was super weird, y’all.
I tried to bring in other issues that were important in Baton Rouge in 1992, as well. Although this story largely focuses on girl friendships, bullying, and abortion stigma, anyone going to school at the time was doing so in a mostly segregated school system. Baton Rouge had one of the longest continuously running school desegregation cases in the United States (1956–2003), which would have covered all the years Athena was in school. As desegregation plans were put into place in the 1980s, white parents took their kids out of public schools and placed them into the private system, and the public schools were starved of funding. No new public schools were built between 1974 and 2002, as the white student population dwindled, and by 2000, 74 percent of white students attended private schools. This simultaneous defunding of public schools and growth of private schools has gotten worse with each generation, and it illustrates how structural racism is enforced. Even white parents who didn’t identify with the goal of segregation wouldn’t send their kids to public school, because the schools were so poorly funded. This created a cycle where school segregation was largely preserved, though ostensibly none of the private schools were themselves whites only. And while Sean’s story doesn’t take center stage in Rebel Girls, I hope enough of it is there for readers to understand that structural racism is never absent.
In the process of preserving as much historical accuracy as possible, I relied on numerous sources, both present-day and archival. Baton Rouge’s most prominent newspaper, the Advocate, covered the protests, as did the New York Times. Celia Farber’s coverage of the Wichita protests in the December 1991 issue of Spin magazine gave insight into how Athena, as someone heavily invested in popular culture, might have read about the debate. NYU’s Riot Grrrl Collection, as well as interviews I did back in my days as a researcher, provided valuable context of how girls at the time shared their ideas through letters and zines. References to Sassy and even Sean’s issues of Spider-Man were double-checked against releases at the time, and the one time I tried to get away with something (letting Athena go see A League of Their Own in September, over two months after it was released in theaters), my editor caught me red-handed.
That being said, there were times (okay, one time) that I did intentionally bend history to my will. Alas, Eddie Vedder’s essay about taking his girlfriend for an abortion when they were teenagers appeared in the November 1992 issue of Spin, not October, as shown here in Rebel Girls. But it is a real essay, which you can read in the Spin archive on Google Books for free, and it’s something that Athena would definitely toss at Helen. Beyond that one exception, there were other times that I wanted to “break” history to include a particular album or movie within the framework of the novel, but I had to resist, because Rebel Girls isn’t a nostalgic remix like The Goldbergs, and I’m committed to accuracy.
Despite that commitment, there are some additional things I have changed, such as the names of neighborhoods and schools, in order to protect the innocent. More important, no one at St. Ann’s is a “real” person, and none of the events that take place at the school in this book ever happened in real life. So if you attended Bishop Sullivan or taught there in the 1990s, and you think something in this story is based on you...then I’m very sorry to tell you that you’re wrong, and that all these people live only in my head. Except Mrs. Linda Snyder, who was my English teacher junior year, and who gets a very brief nod in this book for having assigned The Scarlet Letter. Mrs. Snyder was not at all boring (even if teenage me thought Hawthorne was). She was a wonderful, generous woman, and the first person to encourage me to write fiction. I’m sorry she’s not alive to see the publication of Rebel Girls.
Finally, a bit about the other inspiration for Rebel Girls—the feminist music of the 1990s, including everything riot grrrl. The research I was already doing for my academic book (never to be published, alas!) became super useful, and also inspiring—especially the letters from fans and friends of various more famous riot grrrls found in the Riot Grrrl Collection at NYU. Curvy script and bouncy, typewritten and serious, cut-up and put in zines in ways that created new meaning...all the writing had one thing in common—it grappled with what it was like to be a teen girl, and to feel all the contradictions of knowing you have something to say, but being stuck in a culture that often disregards you. Those voices would never come across in a book written for an academic audience, and yet they were the most important, treasured thing I found in the archive. None of their stories were at all like what I’ve written in Rebel Girls, but I hope I’ve channeled some of the enthusiasm and engagement in that archive through Athena’s voice.
To be very clear, Athena is a very early adopter of riot grrrl. She’s basically listening to one obscure demo cassette and a few compilation albums and reading a bunch of zines. Even the song from which this book takes its title—Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl”—hadn’t yet been released. She’s already in love with the feminism of riot grrrl, even before she has all the music in her hands. And that’s generally how riot grrrl made its way into pop culture, through ideas as much as the music itself. Riot grrrl itself wasn’t a large movement, but it had a slow burn that continues to influence feminist pop culture. Like this book.
If you want to learn more about riot grrrl, I highly recommend Sara Marcus’s Girls to the Front (2010). It is a wonderfully written introduction to riot grrrl as a movement, with lots of info about Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Excuse 17, Heavens to Betsy, and a bunch of other folks who were involved in creating zines and organizing riot grrrl chapters. But because this was a big point in my academic research, I’ll make it again here: while riot grrrl is part of the punk rock/alternative rock feminism of the 1990s, it’s by no means the majority of it. Despite the slogan, not every girl was a riot grrrl, and there’s a huge swath of awesome women in ’90s music who aren’t riot grrrls. In no particular order: L7, Hole, PJ Harvey, Belly, Throwing Muses, Seven Year Bitch, Babes in Toyland, Liz Phair, Björk, Juliana Hatfield, Gwen Stefani/No Doubt, Shirley Manson/Garbage, the Breeders, Luscious Jackson, Elastica, Sleater-Kinney, and many more women were part of either the alternative or indie rock music scene. Beyond that, the decade was pretty amazing for singer-songwriters like Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, Fiona Apple, Alanis Morissette, Tracy Chapman, and Melissa Etheridge; for R & B and hip-hop artists like Salt-n-Pepa, Queen Latifah, TLC, En Vogue, and Missy Elliott; and, at the tail end of the decade, all the pop you could ever want with the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Destiny’s Child.
So, if you read this book, then run to Spotify to listen to riot grrrl bands, and find they’re not for you, remember: there’s more than one way to be a girl, and there’s more than one kind of music to power you to your goals. What you listen to will never be as important as what you do.
Acknowledgments
A book is never a solo project, even if it’s just one name on the cover. So many people have helped to shape Rebel Girls o
ver the years, providing valuable feedback, access to research materials, or just the kind of general support and enthusiasm that every author needs to keep the spark of their book going during the long road to publication.
First of all, a huge thanks to my editor, Lauren Smulski, for taking a risk on a book featuring a hot-button topic that a lot of people wouldn’t touch. You’ve helped transform this book into the best version of itself, even if that meant adding more boys. And second, to Eric Smith, the agent who refused to give up on Rebel Girls. We might have parted ways, but I will always appreciate the work you did for my debut.
Rebel Girls would not have been possible without access to the materials in the Riot Grrrl Collection at the Fales Library at New York University. As mentioned in the historical note, letters and zines from the archive served as inspiration for Athena’s “voice” and informed the politics of the story. Lisa Darms, the archivist who built the collection and provided access to me as a researcher, has become a friend and colleague (we even wrote an academic article together, which is a level of commitment above and beyond ordinary friendship), but I’m forever grateful to her for giving me access to the archive back when she didn’t know me at all. Her archive is not at all dusty, by the way.
So many people have read this book and given feedback at various stages of its existence. I owe my sister, Juli Keenan, and my BFF, Meghann Wilhoite, a mountain of thanks for reading this book so many times. Like, a lot of times. More times than anyone probably should. Both of you are extraordinarily generous, and I appreciate it more than you could ever know.
Thanks also to Alex Segura and Eva Stein Segura for valuable feedback and friendship, as well as for Alex’s super helpful advice on all things publishing-related. Many thanks to Andrea Baroco Lam and Sarah Dockery Sparks, who suffered through my early efforts to write fiction back in college, and who encouraged me to get back to it after an embarrassingly long absence. To my early critique partners, aka The Club, I owe you a huge debt for pointing out to me where this story really started, and why I should cut a bunch of stuff: Laura Lee Anderson, Desiree Roosa, Patricia Miller, and Erin Brady Pike. Thanks to Stephanie Kuehnert for all the advice and encouragement—it definitely helped me along the way—and to Tara Kelly for suggesting a restructuring that greatly helped the pacing. Thanks to Sangu Mandanna, Lizzie Cooke, and Mike Chen for reading drafts of Rebel Girls, and to Kati Gardner and Samira Ahmed for being good sounding boards.
To my cousin Anita Yesho, for being the first feminist activist I knew, for being the first clinic escort I knew, and for making me mixtapes of obscure bands when I was young and impressionable. And to my cousin Donna Yesho Anglemyer, for showing me around Pittsburgh (Warhol Museum! Randyland! Mattress Factory!) as I took a break from my Amtrak writing retreat during the final push of my revisions for publication.
Many, many thanks to my parents, Michael and Monica Keenan. Dad taught me to write logical sentences, and Mom taught me creativity (and also how to do good voices when reading aloud to children). Both of you ignited a love for reading in me. I wouldn’t be a well-rounded writer (or the same person) without both of you.
The biggest thanks of all go to my husband, Ryan Penagos, without whom this book would not have existed. You have encouraged me at every step of the way, from when I said that maybe I wanted to write fiction again? (Read that in Wisteria’s voice), to when I wanted to go to my first writers’ conference, to when I started thinking about maybe getting an agent, to when I shelved two novels before doing a complete rewrite of Rebel Girls. You’ve been by my side for every mile of the journey, and I can’t imagine how I would have gotten here without you. Thank you for being the best person in my world. I love you.
And finally, my readers. You didn’t think I was going to forget you, did you? You make this all worthwhile. So, thank you for reading!
Endnotes
1 https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
2 https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2016/01/last-five-years-account-more-one-quarter-all-abortion-restrictions-enacted-roe
3 For more on Louisiana’s history of anti-abortion laws, consult historian Caroline Hymel’s article “Louisiana’s Abortion Wars: Periodizing the Anti-Abortion Movement’s Assault on Women’s Reproductive Rights, 1973–2016” in Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, vol. 59, no. 1 (Winter 2018), pp. 67–105.
ISBN-13: 9781488038877
Rebel Girls
Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Keenan
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