The Women Who Made Me A Feminist by Matt Killeen

Donita Sparks of the band L7 It’s easy to remember the alternative scene of the early nineties as some golden age of equality, before Britpop’s swaggering blokeishness and lad’s-mag anti-intellectualism pushed into the room, followed by its girlfriend carrying all the shopping bags. Certainly there was sensitivity and compassion amongst the grungy angst and it wasn’t socially acceptable to be sexist or racist in public (remember that?) but the journey to enlightenment was just beginning. It was all a work in progress.

In that spirit, I wish to be forgiven in advance for celebrating a possibly juvenile piece of insouciant, revengeful oneupwomanship, because I always felt it was a statement of intent from the women of that community – that discriminatory behaviour based on sex or gender would be dealt with in kind.

L7 were an excellent all-female grunge outfit who, along with The Breeders and others, had one foot in the nascent riot grrrl movement and one in the charts. They were an embodiment of the idea that a woman’s place was onstage and in the mosh pit. They hit the main stage at the ’92 Reading Festival, which was turning out to be a riotous celebration of grunge supremacy, decked out in striped war paint.

At this point the power to all their instruments vanished.

The audience reacted angrily and pelted the stage with mud.

The Reading Festival audience has been traditionally belligerent, from driving Meatloaf from the country in the ’70s to its rejection of Daphne & Celeste as the superior ironic comedy pop that they were in 2000, so it’s possible that an all-