Bostonians can party against the patriarchy today. The city has declared 9 April to be Riot Grrrl Day, in honour of Kathleen Hanna.

The former Bikini Kill singer, who now fronts the Julie Ruin, is being honoured on the occasion of her visit to Boston to speak at the city’s Wilbur theatre on “art, music, writing, trends, women and more”.

The proclamation of Riot Grrrl Day states, among other things: “Because: Our young women can’t be what they can’t see. Girls need to see other girls picking up drumsticks, basses and microphones. They need to see other girls picking up paintbrushes and pens, and telling their stories loudly. Because: the next Kathleen Hanna may be a young girl in a Boston bedroom creating feminist art by herself, fearful that she has no community to belong to.” It added that the day should “inspire grrrls everywhere to shake up the status quo and create”.

The proclamation was signed by the mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh, and was guided into being by the city’s chief of policy, Joyce Linehan. “Kathleen was all about the collective, and it was a real team effort putting this together. There are a lot of riot grrrls in the building [at city hall],” Linehan told the AV Club.

Linehan is arguably the most rock’n’roll-friendly policy wonk in the world right now. She led the campaign – inspired by a Guardian article – to have Roadrunner by the Modern Lovers enshrined as the official rock song of Massachusetts, urging Walsh – who was then a state representative – to introduce a bill to that effect. That effort failed earlier this year, when bill H.3573 fell.