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!!!

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".

While working with Le Tigre, Fateman started her own solo project called "Swim with the Dolphins", named after a self-help book by the same title with the subtitle "How Women Can Succeed in Corporate America on Their Own Terms".

She made a five-song cassette entitled "the struggle for the full exercise of woman's equality" during the winter of 1999, which she describes as "sample-based, dj/dance-floor inspired music for the feminist rave in my head".

Fateman wrote about the experience on the Le Tigre blog: "Together we tailored themes and specific references to her personality and image but found a ton of common ground in our aim to make upbeat danceable tracks celebrating female friendship, strength, and of course, PARTYING.

And while the giant sound of her stacked vocals and the pop sheen she lends to the tracks might seem at odds with Le Tigre's aesthetic roots, it really works.

[2] Surething (a regular collaborator with performance artist K8 Hardy) and Fateman were featured in a short documentary on Current TV.