Johanna Fateman

Johanna Rachel Fateman (born May 16, 1974) is an American writer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. She is a member of the electropunk band Le Tigre and founded the band MEN with Le Tigre bandmate JD Samson.

Fateman grew up in Berkeley, California, where her father, computer scientist Richard Fateman is a professor at UC Berkeley. On the official Le Tigre website, Fateman refers to filmmaker Miranda July as being her "best friend from high school"; July is also from Berkeley. At the age of seventeen, Fateman moved to Portland, Oregon, to attend Reed College, which she later left for art school in New York City.

Fateman began her writing career producing zines including My Need To Speak on the Subject of Jackson Pollock; ArtaudMania!!! The Diary of a Fan; The Opposite, Part I; and SNARLA, which she co-wrote with Miranda July. It was through her zines that Fateman first met bandmate Kathleen Hanna. At a performance of Hanna's band Bikini Kill, Fateman gave Hanna a copy of one of her zines. As Hanna has related in interviews, she was impressed and inspired by Fateman's writing, and the two kept in touch.

She donated her early zines and correspondence to New York University, where they are kept in the Riot Grrrl Collection at the Fales Library.

Beginning in 2016, Fateman became a columnist for The New Yorker, regularly contributing to the magazine's "Goings On About Town" section. Fateman has also written critically about art and pop culture for Bookforum, Artforum, and 4Columns.

When Bikini Kill was on hiatus, Kathleen Hanna moved to Portland, where she and Fateman lived with several other women in an off-campus Reed College house known as "The Curse." Radio Sloan, who also lived at The Curse, taught Fateman how to play her first songs on a $60 bass guitar. Around this time, Hanna and Fateman formed their first band together, the Troublemakers, named after the film of the same name by G.B. Jones. The band played at house parties in Portland but broke up when Fateman moved to New York.

Hanna soon followed her to the East Coast, and the two women joined forces with filmmaker Sadie Benning to form Le Tigre. After their first album, Benning left the band to return to filmmaking. JD Samson joined the line-up for Feminist Sweepstakes, their next release. The band's most recent album is This Island and in January 2007, they went on hiatus.

In June 2011, a documentary film about Le Tigre's final year of touring was released by Oscilloscope Laboratories. Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour, directed by Kerthy Fix, documents the band's live show and features interview footage of the band members reflecting on their experiences.