Danielle “Uni” Simms was just a baby when the infamous Riot Grrrl revolution exploded in 1991, but the do-it-yourself, fuck-you-I’m-a-girl values from this era have distended from her heart and mind like a bright, sparkly, ultra-feminist appendage. Now 21 years old, Uni is busy preparing for her Nov. 3 event It’s a Grrrl, heavily influenced by her riotous 90s counterparts.It’s a Grrrl is “a girl power party smashing patriarchy, spreading feminist thought and celebrating our womanhood,” according to hot pink flyers, reminiscent of handmade feminist zines, adorned with feminine floral designs and the faces of women like Frida Kahlo and Courtney Love. Uni looks like none of these women. She is rocking a curly blonde bush, septum piercing, and round, green-tinged sunshades. Her matte red lips match the demureness of her loose knit sweater—she doesn’t look like a feminist. That, according to the ideals of the third wave of feminism, is because there is no way to describe how a feminist looks. They are all different in both image and in ideology: third wavers have no centralized goal to achieve for “women” as a sweeping nomenclature.
Uni is a part of this wave that has come to understand the importance of incorporating socioeconomic, racial, and other defining factors into their understanding of women’s issues. Feminism can take on different meanings according to people’s different experiences, qualities, and ideas. For Uni, being a feminist involves three main things: doing, creating, and educating. She is a ‘feminactivist,’ a hybrid of two obvious and self-perpetuated titles.
An artist and part-time nanny, Uni considers her ultimate job title to be “creator.” Her passion to create has permeated all aspects of her life. “If I don’t do it, I feel like I’m not making something of myself,” she said. This resistance to complacency bolstered her ambition to create a free event that would promote awareness of women’s issues in a fun, comfortable, misogyny-free environment.
Instead of a coat check, It’s a Grrrl will feature a “bra check.” Everything will be handmade, according to Uni, who herself is creating a wreath made of Barbie dolls, among other peculiar and meaningful art-installation pieces. She is encouraging others to submit their own posters, poems, letters, and artwork for the event. “If you’re familiar with the Riot Grrrl scene, everything was self-created,” Uni said. “So that’s how the aesthetic [of It’s a Grrrl] is going to be: sparkly, girly, but at the same time very raw. Like ‘fuck you if you don’t like it’ type of shit.”
In as much as words can hold clout without action, a feminist cannot truly retain such a role without also being an activist—putting those beliefs to work tangibly. A complacent feminist is not a feminist at all; she is a fly on the wall at a patriarchy convention, complicit with the metes and bounds she has been assigned as a woman via inaction. Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress, once said that “emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: It’s a girl.” This pervasive system of gender bias is something Uni acknowledges, and aims to upset through educational events like the one named after the tail end of Chisholm’s famous quote.
Wistfully gazing out into the graying September sky through the bar’s window, Uni offers her opinion on everything from raunchy video vixens to the role of social media in spreading a message. The overarching emphasis seeming to simply be on awareness, Uni insists that “we all just need to know what’s fucking going on”—something It’s a Grrrl aims to assist with.
“Our generation has so much information and so many resources, but how are we going to use them?” Uni asks, her drink barely halfway gone. “[We have] so much knowledge…[because] everyone’s learning at faster and easier pace, but what are we going to do with what we have?”
If Uni’s event were a cocktail, it’d be one part Chisholm, one part Riot Grrrl, and a splash of her godmother, who raised her to enforce rigid standards in the respect she both imparted on and expected from others. “She respected herself so much,” Uni said. “That’s the basis of how I feel I should be treated, and it expanded to other women as well. What also inspired me is that I know so many great women, [and my godmother made me feel like respect] should just be a given.”
Discussing respect, Uni arrives to the topic of a video she recently viewed online of a Sept. 15 performance at N.Y.’s Tammany Hall, in which two ballerinas perform to Juicy J’s “Bands A Make Her Dance.”
“Our generation has so much information and so many resources, but how are we going to use them?” Uni asks, her drink barely halfway gone. “[We have] so much knowledge…[because] everyone’s learning at faster and easier pace, but what are we going to do with what we have?”
If Uni’s event were a cocktail, it’d be one part Chisholm, one part Riot Grrrl, and a splash of her godmother, who raised her to enforce rigid standards in the respect she both imparted on and expected from others. “She respected herself so much,” Uni said. “That’s the basis of how I feel I should be treated, and it expanded to other women as well. What also inspired me is that I know so many great women, [and my godmother made me feel like respect] should just be a given.”
Discussing respect, Uni arrives to the topic of a video she recently viewed online of a Sept. 15 performance at N.Y.’s Tammany Hall, in which two ballerinas perform to Juicy J’s “Bands A Make Her Dance.”
“These are professionally trained ballerinas dancing to a song that objectifies women,” Uni said. “You’re tying the culture of hip hop to ballet, I get what you’re trying to do. If you’re trying to uplift a culture, don’t use a song…[that’s] about giving girls money to strip and dance. [The ballerinas] think they’re just dancing and showing their ballet skills, but there’s so much more to it.”
And that’s what It’s a Grrrl will explore: the less prominent nuances of misogyny, and equally as important, how women are themselves exacerbating an undesirable situation.
“There are a million ways to express and empower yourself, to be sexy and be confident,” Uni said. “Sex sells and that’s cool, but it’s a battle between doing a split and pointing at your pussy, or you know, smoking a cigarette in a beautiful fucking outfit, or wearing a bikini [on the beach] somewhere reading a book. That’s sexy, too.“
It’s A Grrrl will take place on the first Saturday of November from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Mova Lounge, a nightclub venue that’s been responsible for hosting a number of LGBT-oriented nights. This location was of special importance to Uni, since she is extending invitations to those both born and identifying as women. “I really want it to be somewhere where they’re going to be accepting of that,” she said. She is also looking forward to the possibility of making this event the first of many, depending on the success of the pilot party next month.
Uni is also cognizant of the potential criticism she may receive for catering this event to just half of the gender spectrum.
“I knew there’d be people who would think it’s sexist to not invite guys,” she said. “A lot of people think feminists hate men, and we don’t want them around, but it’s not that. In terms if being practical and getting the message across [with this event], it only makes sense to have women there that can understand what I’m talking about. If this thing goes well, I want it to be an ongoing thing, then I can think of how I can implement men. I want the women to be comfortable, so it’s strictly an empowering event for women. In the future, we’ll worry about the guys. But for now, women first.”
Each wave of feminism has drenched its generation’s participants in notions of equality, ability, and freedom—but the fundamentals of feminism remain for the most part in our society, eluded. Some say the feminist revolution has acquiesced into a cesspool of generally satisfied women. Besides, something that isn’t broken, according to the old axiom, does not warrant a fix.
American women today can certainly enjoy many liberties that they previously could not, but institutionalized misogyny still keeps many women at bay from their full potential, perhaps with their unknowing consent.
“We’ve come to a place where we feel like we’re good,” Uni said. “We can work, we can vote, we can wear whatever we want. From the outside it looks cool, but when you get to the underlying things, you start to see how it’s not. We have to get inside people’s minds, and understand how they think about women, and the unconscious things they do.”
Finally polishing off the last sips of her drink, Uni dishes out her sentiments on the attention paid to women’s rights and feminism amongst her peers, saying that enthusiasm seems to be “decreasing, but hasn’t lost hope.”
“It’s simple,” Uni said. “Once women know [about the issues and what they can do], they’re like, ‘Oh shit, I’m game.’ It’s like telling someone there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They’ll go get it, but if they don’t know about it, they won’t.”
Her philosophies are ahead of her time, and more humanist than divisive, despite her current, more narrow focus on celebrating and uplifting women. When asked about her long-term goals, Uni smiles, and suddenly she’s less of a holy figure for feminism and more of just a free-spirited 21-year-old still searching for the ultimate life path that encompasses art, philanthropy, feminism, and activism. “I’m a normal young woman, and my answer is: I don’t know.”
“I know that every time I do something, something else comes from that. So once this event happens, I know something will come from it, and I'll go from there."
And that’s what It’s a Grrrl will explore: the less prominent nuances of misogyny, and equally as important, how women are themselves exacerbating an undesirable situation.
“There are a million ways to express and empower yourself, to be sexy and be confident,” Uni said. “Sex sells and that’s cool, but it’s a battle between doing a split and pointing at your pussy, or you know, smoking a cigarette in a beautiful fucking outfit, or wearing a bikini [on the beach] somewhere reading a book. That’s sexy, too.“
It’s A Grrrl will take place on the first Saturday of November from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Mova Lounge, a nightclub venue that’s been responsible for hosting a number of LGBT-oriented nights. This location was of special importance to Uni, since she is extending invitations to those both born and identifying as women. “I really want it to be somewhere where they’re going to be accepting of that,” she said. She is also looking forward to the possibility of making this event the first of many, depending on the success of the pilot party next month.
Uni is also cognizant of the potential criticism she may receive for catering this event to just half of the gender spectrum.
“I knew there’d be people who would think it’s sexist to not invite guys,” she said. “A lot of people think feminists hate men, and we don’t want them around, but it’s not that. In terms if being practical and getting the message across [with this event], it only makes sense to have women there that can understand what I’m talking about. If this thing goes well, I want it to be an ongoing thing, then I can think of how I can implement men. I want the women to be comfortable, so it’s strictly an empowering event for women. In the future, we’ll worry about the guys. But for now, women first.”
Each wave of feminism has drenched its generation’s participants in notions of equality, ability, and freedom—but the fundamentals of feminism remain for the most part in our society, eluded. Some say the feminist revolution has acquiesced into a cesspool of generally satisfied women. Besides, something that isn’t broken, according to the old axiom, does not warrant a fix.
American women today can certainly enjoy many liberties that they previously could not, but institutionalized misogyny still keeps many women at bay from their full potential, perhaps with their unknowing consent.
“We’ve come to a place where we feel like we’re good,” Uni said. “We can work, we can vote, we can wear whatever we want. From the outside it looks cool, but when you get to the underlying things, you start to see how it’s not. We have to get inside people’s minds, and understand how they think about women, and the unconscious things they do.”
Finally polishing off the last sips of her drink, Uni dishes out her sentiments on the attention paid to women’s rights and feminism amongst her peers, saying that enthusiasm seems to be “decreasing, but hasn’t lost hope.”
“It’s simple,” Uni said. “Once women know [about the issues and what they can do], they’re like, ‘Oh shit, I’m game.’ It’s like telling someone there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They’ll go get it, but if they don’t know about it, they won’t.”
Her philosophies are ahead of her time, and more humanist than divisive, despite her current, more narrow focus on celebrating and uplifting women. When asked about her long-term goals, Uni smiles, and suddenly she’s less of a holy figure for feminism and more of just a free-spirited 21-year-old still searching for the ultimate life path that encompasses art, philanthropy, feminism, and activism. “I’m a normal young woman, and my answer is: I don’t know.”
“I know that every time I do something, something else comes from that. So once this event happens, I know something will come from it, and I'll go from there."
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