Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers (68 page)

5
.  List of groups, journals, and bookstores published in
Amazon Quarterly
(1973), 1(4) 61–67.

6
.  Nancy Groschwitz, “Practical Economics for a Women’s Community,” in Karla Jay and Allen Young, eds.,
Lavender Culture
(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1978), pp. 477–83.

7
.  Charlotte Bunch and Rita Mae Brown, “What Every Lesbian Should Know,”
Motive
(1972), 32(1) 4–8. Lee Schwing and Helaine Harris, “Building Feminist Institutions,”
Furies
(May/June 1973), 2(3) 2–3: 7.

8
.  Willie Tyson, “Lima Bean: Take One,”
Off Our Backs
(August/ September 1974), 4(9): 4–5.

9
.  Alix Dobkin, “Talking Lesbian,”
Lavender Jane Loves Women
(New York: Women’s Music Network, 1974).

10
. Meg Christian quoted in “The Muse of Olivia: Our Own Economy, Our Own Song,”
Off Our Backs
(August/ September 1974), 4(9). Cris Williamson complained that she had received little response from the festival audience in Champagne: “Perhaps they thought I was too ‘slick.’ I got the feeling if I had made more mistakes, put myself down more, been more tentative, maybe I would have gotten more feedback. Maybe women aren’t ready yet to identify with a strong woman image”: Interview,
Lesbian Tide
July 1974, p. 19. Professionalism discussed in editorial statement,
The Rock
(Northampton, Mass.: Magaera Press, 1977).

11
. Many of the women’s music companies could not survive long financially, but others cropped up to take their places when they went under. Companies such as Icebergg, Rosetta, Labyris, and Windham Hill were started in the 1980s. Ladyslipper, Pleiades, and Holly Near’s Redwood Records have held on since the mid- 1970s. For discussions of financial difficulties in women’s music see “Financial Letter from the Women of the ‘We Want the Music’ Collective,”
Pearl Diver,
Fall 1977, and Lynn D. Shapiro, “The Growing Business Behind Women’s Music,” in Jay and Young, p. 197. Women’s music audience responses described in Astrib Bergle, “Women Concerts Reviewed,”
So’s Your Old Lady: A Lesbian Feminist Journal
May 1977, pp. 16–17. Personal interview with Deb, age 36, Fresno, April 29, 1987.

12
. History of Olivia from Judy Dlugacz, “If It Weren’t for the Music: Fifteen Years of Olivia Records,”
Hot Wire
(July 1988), 4(3): p. 28–35; Grahn, pp. 190–91; Shapiro, pp. 195–200; Judy Nixon and Ginny Berson, “Women’s Music,” in
Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978), pp. 252–55; “The Muse of Olivia,” pp. 2–3 +. Ginny Berson quoted in “The Muse of Olivia.”

13
. “A Man is a Man,”
Pearl Diver,
May 1977, p. 19; Dlugacz.

14
. Bonnie Zimmerman, “Exiting from the Patriarchy: The Lesbian Novel of Development,” in Elizabeth Abel et al., eds.,
The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development
(Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1983), pp. 244–57. Elana Nachman,
Riverfinger Woman
(Plainfield, VT.: Daughters, 1975). See also my discussion in
Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present
(New York: William Morrow, 1981), pp. 405–10.

15
. “Creating a Women’s World,”
New York Times,
January 2, 1977.

16
. Lesbian Food Conspiracy in
Furies
(March/ April 1972), 1(3). Women’s credit unions discussed in
Pearl Diver,
May 1977. Lesbian Clinic reference in
Lesbian Tide,
June 1974, p. 18. Workshop on what lesbians should do to protect personal and property rights, Women in the Law Conference, Wisconsin, 1977, discussed in
Pearl Diver,
May 1977.

17
. Riki, “Aging,” in Karla Jay and Allen Young, eds.,
After You’re Out: Personal Experiences of Gay Men and Lesbian Women
(1975; reprint, New York: Pyramid Books, 1977), pp. 216–17.

18
. Barbara Love and Elizabeth Shanklin, “The Answer Is Matriarchy,”
Our Right To Love,
pp. 183–87. Toni McNaron, “Political and Palliative Implications of Women’s Spirituality,”
So’s Your Old Lady
(May 1977), 17:7–8. Shannon, “A Non-Linear Conversation on Spirituality and Politics,”
WomanSpirit
(Summer 1978), 4(16):5–9. Not all lesbian-feminists accepted such views. See, e.g., Sally Binford’s attempt to explode what she regarded as “the New Feminist Fundamentalism” and the myth of matriarchy in “Myths and Matriarchies,”
WomanSpirit
(Fall 1979), 6(21). “Building the Lesbian Nation,” Bloomington, Ind. conference discussed in
Lesbian Connections
(March 1976), 2(1).

19
. Elizabeth Gould Davis,
The First Sex
(New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971).

20
. Max Xarai, “A Witch Dream Presentation,”
Matriarchal Comix
(Oakland, Calif.: Women’s Press Collective, 1974). The Matriarchists are discussed in Charovla, “Matriarchists, Queens and the Star System,”
Tribad: A Lesbian Separatist Newsjournal
(September/ October 1978), 2(3): 1–4. Merlin Stone,
When God Was a Woman
(London: Virago, 1976). Stone’s proposal for a new system of time reckoning was made at the Great Goddess Re-Emerging conference, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1978.

21
. Personal interview with Z. Budapest, age 48, Oakland, Calif, August 1, 1988.

22
. Jane Chambers,
Burning
(New York: JH Press, 1978). Z. Budapest,
The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows
(Venice, Calif.: Susan B. Anthony Coven #1, 1975). Personal interview with Z. Budapest, cited above. Oak, “The Vision of a Coven,”
Womanspirit
(Fall 1976), 3(9).

23
. Personal interview with Nan, age 36, Syracuse, N.Y., June 2, 1987 (in Fresno). Women’s spirituality remained a vital topic in the 1980s: see Charlene Spretnak, ed.,
The Politics of Women’s Spirituality: Essays on the Rise of Spiritual Power Within the Feminist Movement
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982) and women’s spirituality magazines (often implicitly or explicitly lesbian), e.g.,
Sage Woman: A Quarterly Magazine of Women’s Spirituality
(Santa Cruz, Calif.);
Of a Like Mind: An International Newspaper and Network for Spiritual Women
(Madison, Wis.);
Spiritual Women Times: Women Learning from Women
(Seattle, Wash.);
Women of Power
(Cambridge, Mass.).

24
. Rita Mae Brown complained about the phenomenon in her speech “The Crab that Got Away,” quoted in
Lesbian Tide
(September/ October 1976), 6(2). Charoula, “Matriarchies, Queens, and the Star System,” op. cit.

25
. Laurel Galana, “Distinctions: The Circle Game,”
Amazon Quarterly
(February 1973), 1(2): 26–33.

26
. Personal interview with Nan, cited above.

27
. Barbara Lipschutz, “Nobody Needs to Get Fucked,”
Lesbian Voices
(September 1975), 1(4): 57. See also Nina Sabaroff, “Lesbian Sexuality: An Unfinished Saga,” in Karla Jay and Allen Young, eds.,
After You’re Out: Personal Experiences of Gay Men and Lesbian Women
(1975; reprint, New York: Pyramid Books, 1977). Boston Women’s Health Course Collective,
Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Course by and for Women
(Boston: New England Free Press, 1971), p. 20.

28
. Susan Helenius, “Returning the Dykes to the Dutch,”
Every woman
(July 9, 1971), 2(10). But see also Evan Paxton, “Notes on Lesbianism, Individualism, and Other Forbidden Practices.” Paxton presents the butch as a culture hero—a critical forerunner to Stonewall and lesbian-feminism. “Shit games” quotation in interview with Charlene and Linda,
Sisters
(January 1972), 3(1): 6–11.

29
. Rosalie Nichols, letter to the editor,
Albatross,
Spring 1976, p. 34.

30
. Julie Lee, “Some Thoughts on Monogamy,” in Jay and Young,
After You’re Out,
pp. 46–47; Ginny Berson, “Freest Fancy,”
Furies
(June/July 1972), 1(5): 9; Martha Shelley, “On Marriage,” in
The Lavender Herring: Essays from the Ladder,
Barbara Grier and Coletta Reid, eds. (Baltimore: Diana Press, 1976); Donna Martin, “The Lesbian Love Ethic,” in Covina and Garland, pp. 41–42. In smaller cities the fashion for non-monogamy seldom caught on. One lesbian-feminist who had been in women’s communities in Oklahoma, North Texas, and Missouri throughout the 1970s claims never to have seen a “smash monogamy” button: “Monogamy remained the culture of those geographical areas even then,” she says. “Even the radical women couldn’t escape it if they stayed here. It was a goal to find one person and settle down;” personal interview with Frederika, age 37, Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 14, 1988.

31
. Sheila’s lover quoted in Jeri Dilno, “Monogamy and Alternate Life-Styles,”
Our Right to Love,
p. 59. Personal interview with Beverly, age 36, San Francisco, August 14, 1987. See also poem by Jean Fowler, “Outside the One to One,”
The Rock,
and song by Marilyn Gayle on the complications of non-monogamy, “Let’s Do a Three Way,”
Dyke Music
(Portland, Ore.: Godiva Records, 1977).

32
. Jill Johnston,
Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), p. 179. Loretta Ulmschneider, “Bisexuality,” in Nancy Myron and Charlotte Bunch, eds.,
Lesbianism and the Women’s Movement
(Baltimore: Diana Press, 1975), pp. 85–88. Debbie Willis, “Bisexuality: A Personal View/’
Women: A Journal of Liberation
(Winter 1974), 14(1):10–11. Sally Gearhart, “A Kiss Does Not a Revolution Make,”
Lesbian Tide,
July 1974, pp. 10–11 +.

33
. Rita Mae Brown,
A Plain Brown Rapper
(Oakland, Calif: Diana Press, 1976), pp. 16–17.

34
. For examples of minority complaints and factions within the community see
Sinister Wisdom
(issue on aging) (1979) 10; on fat oppression, Letter from Marisa,
WomanSpirit
(March 1975) 1(3): 62, and “Fat as a Lesbian-Feminist Issue,”
Albatross,
Fall 1978; on teenage lesbian oppression, Shelley Ettinger, “The Bottom Rung: Ageism in the Gay Movement,”
Growing Up Gay: A Youth Liberation Pamphlet
(Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1978) and Lee Schwing and Helaine Harris, “I Was a Teenage Lesbian,”
Furies
(August 1972), 1 (6).2–4; on the socialist versus nonsocialist issue see Marilyn Gayle, “Sacred Bull,”
Pearl Diver,
Fall 1977, pp. 34–39, and Beth Elliott, Book Review essay,
Sisters
(November 1971), 2(11): 20; for complaints from working-class lesbians, lesbians of color, and lesbian separatists see notes below. Los Angeles Gay Women’s Intergroup Council discussed in
Lesbian Tide,
December 1971.

35
. Class issues discussed in Rita Mae Brown, “The Last Straw,”
Motive
(1972) 32(1); Charlotte Bunch and Coletta Reid, “Revolution Begins at Home,”
Furies
(May 1972), 1(4): 2–4; Dolores Bargowski and Coletta Reid, “Garbage Among the Trash,”
Furies
(August 1972), 1(6): 8–9; Ginny Berson, “Class Revisited: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back,”
Furies
(May/June 1973), 2(3): 8–9.