Recently, I reposted a clip of Courtney Love to my podcast's Instagram page. She's at a press conference, defending herself against male rock critics accusing her of no longer being "punk" for walking the 1997 Oscars red carpet in Versace. 

"The deal about fashion is that proletariat male rock critics have a real Bruce Springsteen problem with denim boomer issues," Courtney spat. "We as females have thousands and thousands of years of fashion in our DNA. We want to wear nice fucking clothes, it’s part of what we do!" 

Within several days the video had accumulated two million views. In the comments, young women resonated with Courtney's words as if they were spoken yesterday, rallying behind her clothes, her attitude, her values. "Tattooing this speech on my lower back!" They typed. 

If the policing of female musician's attire sounds familiar, it's because we're seeing an almost identical scenario almost 30 years later, with Olivia Rodrigo. She is seen on the cover of her album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, in a short sailor dress. The visual for single "drop dead" sees her shimmy into a baby doll top and bloomers. For her performance at the Spotify Billions Club in Barcelona, she wore something similar — a voluminous, very mini dress and Doc Martens. This mad men especially mad. Since these styles are traditionally associated with young female children, they claimed Olivia was infantilizing herself in a way that was inappropriately sexual. 

“It’s just this rhetoric we’re fed as girls since we’re so little, which is, don’t wear that because then a man is going to sexualize your body and it’s your fault. It’s so weird. I didn’t think I looked sexy in that at all.”

Celebrities rarely address criticism head on, and if they do, they tend to default to apologies — but Olivia was steadfast. The styling, she explained, was inspired by Courtney Love and other punk girls of the 90s who purposefully subverted traditional, hyper-feminine garb. At the time, bands like Bikini Kill and Pussy Riot wore vintage dresses or swimsuits, plaid skirts and lacy underwear with oxford shoes. Courtney took it a step further, donning a vintage baby doll dress with ripped tights and a tiara.

“I was like, ‘This is so cool. I feel like I look like Kathleen Hanna or Courtney Love,” Olivia said of her outfits. “All these people who are my heroes, and I felt cool and comfortable in it.”

Clothes aren’t the only channel through which Olivia is embodying 90s rock girls. Olivia Rodrigo cites Lilith Fair, a touring music festival founded in 1997 by Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLaughlin, as one of her foremost career inspirations. Lilith Fair featured exclusively female solo artists and women-led bands and cumulatively raised more than $10 million for charity. This month, Olivia will host Daisy Chain Fields — a music festival with a women-led line-up that supports non-profits that benefit women and girls (she— like all Daisy Chain Fields performers — is forgoing financial compensation for her festival appearance). For her, this is nothing new. Olivia launched an initiative to support reproductive rights. During the Missouri concert — where abortion is heavily restricted — she allowed the Missouri Abortion Fund to distribute free morning-after pills and condoms.

This kind of defiance is inspiring. While other pop girls refuse to define their political leanings, Olivia sits loudly, proudly on the right side of history — whether the price is losing a few fans or collaborators along the way. Generations from now, we will likely look back on Olivia Rodrigo the same way we do Courtney Love — romanticizing her empowerment. In the meantime, we get to watch a real life Riot Grrrl in real-time, still sticking it to the man in a mini-dress.