Sisterwrite was Britain's first feminist bookshop. [1] The bookshop, which opened in 1978, was run as a collective. [2] [3] [4] Sisterwrite was located at 190 Upper Street, in the Islington district of north London. [4] [5] Mary Coghill and Kay Stirling invited Lynn Alderson to join them in opening a women's bookshop. [6] The three of them became the founders of Sisterwrite. Money was tight at the beginning, however, Mary was able to give $5,000 towards its opening and her sister gave $3,000. [6] They began fundraising and sent a letter around to different organizations and women to sign, showing their support. Once they reached $11,000, they began to work on opening the shop. [6] The opening was a difficult process as all three women lived in squats and relied on welfare benefits while they paid off debts and worked until Sisterwrite became economically viable. [7] The squatting community became a feminist, urban phenomenon as women were able to discuss the Women's Liberation movement in a safe space. [8] Sisterwrite was commended for its knowledgeable workers led by Coghill, Stirling, and Alderson, and their willingness to discuss women's literature with patrons. [9] The bookshop also contained a cafe, called Sisterbite. [2] [5]
Sisterwrite was notable for having a lesbian book section, and became a hub for the local lesbian community. [5] [10] Sisterwrite displayed the Women's Liberation Movement to wider circles of women and became a safe space for lesbian and queer women to meet and feel they are central to this movement. [7] In specific, Sisterwrite was able to aid the women’s mental health movement by providing a hub for women to discuss and read about shared mental health struggles. [11]
In 1985, Sisterwrite underwent an important transformation from a collective of white activists to a multiracial group. This change catalyzed the expansion of the section which included black literature and called for the incorporation of literature from women worldwide. [12] The Sisterwrite Collective intentionally sought to amplify the voices of Black women, enriching the Bookshop's legacy and adding to the shop's many accomplishments. [13]
Despite their persistent fight to keep their doors open amidst a recession, multiple burglaries, and the inability to park near the store, [12] on August 7th, 1993, Sisterwrite closed for good. [14] However, the closure of Sisterwrite did not signify a decline in interest in women’s writing, the collective workers stated that the demand for female literature tripled since the mid-1980s. [15]
Judy Grahn is an American poet and author.
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism was most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, but began in the late 1960s and arose out of dissatisfaction with the New Left, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, sexism within the gay liberation movement, and homophobia within popular women's movements at the time. Many of the supporters of Lesbianism were actually women involved in gay liberation who were tired of the sexism and centering of gay men within the community and lesbian women in the mainstream women's movement who were tired of the homophobia involved in it.
Feminist separatism is the theory that feminist opposition to patriarchy can be achieved through women's separation from men. Much of the theorizing is based in lesbian feminism.
Lavender Menace was an informal group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and their issues from the feminist movement at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City on May 1, 1970. Members included Karla Jay, Martha Shelley, Rita Mae Brown, Lois Hart, Barbara Love, Ellen Shumsky, Artemis March, Cynthia Funk, Linda Rhodes, Arlene Kushner, Ellen Broidy, and Michela Griffo, and were mostly members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the National Organization for Women (NOW). They later became the Radicalesbians.
Black feminism is a branch of feminism that focuses on the African-American woman's experiences and recognizes the intersectionality of racism and sexism. Black feminism philosophy centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently valuable, that liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because of our need as human persons for autonomy."
Cheryl L. Clarke is an American lesbian poet, essayist, educator, and Black feminist community activist. Her scholarship focuses on African-American women's literature, black lesbian feminism, and the Black Arts Movement in the United States.
Gay's the Word is an independent bookshop in central London, and the oldest LGBT bookshop in the United Kingdom. Inspired by the emergence and growth of lesbian and gay bookstores in the United States, a small group of people from Gay Icebreakers, a gay socialist group, founded the store in 1979. These included Peter Dorey, Ernest Hole and Jonathan Cutbill. Various locations were looked at, including Covent Garden, which was then being regenerated, before they decided to open the store in Marchmont Street in Bloomsbury, an area of the capital with rich academic and literary associations. Initial reluctance from Camden Council to grant a lease was overcome with help from Ken Livingstone, then a local councillor, later Mayor of London. For a period of time, it was the only LGBT bookshop in England.
The Combahee River Collective (CRC) was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1974 to 1980. The Collective argued that both the white feminist movement and the Civil Rights Movement were not addressing their particular needs as Black women and more specifically as Black lesbians. Racism was present in the mainstream feminist movement, while Delaney and Manditch-Prottas argue that much of the Civil Rights Movement had a sexist and homophobic reputation. The Collective was a group that met to discuss the intersections of oppression based on race, gender, heteronormativity, and class and argued for the liberation of Black women on all fronts.
The Oscar Wilde Bookshop was a bookstore located in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood that focused on LGBTQ works. It was founded by Craig Rodwell on November 24, 1967, as the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. Initially located at 291 Mercer Street, it moved in 1973 to 15 Christopher Street, opposite Gay Street.
The Silver Moon Bookshop was a feminist bookstore on Charing Cross Road in London founded in 1984 by Jane Cholmeley, Sue Butterworth, and Jane Anger. They established Silver Moon Bookshop to share intersectional feminist rhetoric with a larger community of readers and encourage open discussion of women’s issues. The shop served both as a safe space for women to participate in literary events and a resource center to learn about local feminist initiatives. The owners of Silver Moon Bookshop eventually expanded into the publishing field through establishing Silver Moon Books, as well as creating the store newsletter Silver Moon Quarterly.
Feminist bookstores sell material relating to women's issues, gender, and sexuality. These stores served as some of the earliest open spaces for feminist community building and organizing.
Feminist businesses are companies established by activists involved in the feminist movement. Examples include feminist bookstores, feminist credit unions, feminist presses, feminist mail-order catalogs, and feminist restaurants. These businesses flourished as part of the second and third-waves of feminism in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Feminist entrepreneurs established organizations such as the Feminist Economic Alliance to advance their cause. Feminist entrepreneurs sought three primary goals: to disseminate their ideology through their businesses, to create public spaces for women and feminists, and to create jobs for women so that they did not have to depend on men financially. While they still exist today, the number of some feminist businesses, particularly women's bookstores, has declined precipitously since 2000.
Librairie L'Androgyne was a gay, lesbian, feminist bookstore in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, active from 1973 to 2002.
Lavender Woman was a lesbian periodical produced in Chicago, Illinois, from 1971 to 1976. The name Lavender Woman comes from the color lavender's prominence as a representation of homosexuality, starting in the 1950s and 1960s. It is believed that the color became a symbol due to it being a product of mixing baby blue and pink. Lavender truly hit the spotlight as a symbol of homosexuality empowerment in 1969 when lavender sashes and armbands were distributed during a "gay power" march in New York.
A Woman's Place was a feminist bookstore in Oakland, California. Opened in 1970, it was one of the first two feminist bookstores in the United States.
Jo Nesbitt is a British illustrator, translator, and cartoonist. Most of her work focuses on women's issues, queer experience, and the intersectionality of both.
News From Nowhere is a bookshop in Liverpool, UK. Founded in 1974, it is a not-for-profit bookstore and since the early 1980s has been run as a women's co-operative. It is named for the 1890 utopian socialist novel by William Morris.
Radical bookshops in the United Kingdom promote radical literature on topics including animal rights, environmentalism, postcolonialism, self-help, and sexual politics.
Mukti magazine, founded in 1983 was a quarterly British Asian magazine written and run primarily in London and Birmingham by a collective of Asian women, the 'Mukti Collective'. Mukti has been contextualised as being part of a second wave of Black British and South Asian feminist periodicals. Although based primarily in London and Birmingham, the magazine had international readership including readers from Amsterdam and India. The title referred to political and spiritual liberation. It was available by subscription, through a distribution agent named "Full Time Distribution" and by direct sales via Mukti's office. They received funding from the Greater London Council and Camden Council. The text was published in six different languages - English, Urdu, Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali and Punjabi - in order to make it accessible to as many readers as possible both to read and contribute to the magazine.
Category:Independent bookshops of the United Kingdom
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