ABSTRACT
In keeping with Angela McRobbie and J. Garber’s concerns about an absence of female voices in the field of youth culture research, contemporary scholars argue that women’s experiences continue to be conspicuously absent from research into club cultures. The purpose of this chapter is to fill in some of these gaps by offering insights into the negotiation processes undertaken by ten women as they shift further away from active participation within Toronto’s rave scene. Notwithstanding research participants’ tendencies to describe themselves as no longer ‘pretty enough’ to attend rave events, many of them constructed their past rave participation as mediating their current positive self-image. Riot Grrrl’s experiences further substantiate this challenge to readings of rave participation as having little significance beyond fleeting expressions of and resistance to social norms.
