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[Welcome To Riot Grrrl Online] Tobi Vail Quotes "For girls to pick up guitars and scream their heads off in a totally oppressive, fucked up, male dominated culture is to seize power. We recognize this as a political act."---Tobi Vail "I understand why some women/girls/ladies don't want to be women-identified 'cuz it totally complicates your band identity and no one seems to pay much attention to the music or what you're doing. We have chosen to be girl-identified (although Billy isn't a girl!), because we want to encourage other women/girls to play music. When I was growing up, I found it discouraging to have all these women in bands not wanting to address the issue of gender...we're interested in what women are doing."---Tobi Vail "Me and Billy don't really talk a lot during our shows. Kathleen is putting herself out on the line a lot more than we are. We give her a lot of freedom even though we might not agree with everything she says, in fact we hardly ever do... Well no, it's true, we give her a lot of freedom because she is putting herself in a position where she could get beat up at any moment. She can have full control of the stage while she's on it. It's just a matter of trust. We're a lot more shy. That's probably why she's singer."---Tobi Vail "That’s what we mean by girl culture. There’s a whole girl culture that exists when you’re little. There girls have their own scene. And it always gets totally fucked up when girls start dating boys. Like two of them like the same guy. Or they just start dating guys and that becomes their life. Then they get married and that’s traditionally how women get into these situations where they are totally separated from each other in these domestic spheres. What we want to say is, 'no, that’s not happening to us. This is girl culture and these are our rituals'."---Tobi Vail "A lot of cool girls won’t say a word to each other just because they’ve dated the same boy. We’re just saying that’s fuckin’ bullshit. In fact, by saying that, it’s totally affected people that we’ve met. "---Tobi Vail "If girls are ever going to start to be in bands as the norm rather than as the exception. They need to see people up there that have just started playing. That’s something that had gotten lost. I think that’s why there are so many great girl punk rock bands now. It’s like you have to make up your own rules because the old rules don’t apply. You just have to start with what you have."---Tobi Vail "There aren’t enough girl drummers."---Tobi Vail "We’re for violent revolution."---Tobi Vail back! xo