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Our primary goal is to distribute women's
works not readily available elsewhere, those written, published and/or
printed by women. It is important to us that works by women be allowed
to define their own context by being brought together in one place.
-- from the 1975 mission statement
of the Common Woman Bookstore, now known as BookWoman,
in Austin, Texas
Starting in the 1970's, feminist bookstores
opened in North America in conjunction with
the burgeoning Women in Print movement that
included women's presses, women's publishers,
and women's bookstores - all promoting and
sharing the words of women writers. BookWoman's
1975 mission statement explains the connection
of this work to community: by bringing both
women's words and women themselves “together
in one place,“ we can
define our own context. As more feminist,
lesbian, and women's studies related texts
appear on the shelves of general and chain
bookstores, many people have begun to ask
whether or not we still need feminist bookstores.
To approach this question, I provide here
some history of the feminist bookstore movement
and an abbreviated list of the living activism
generated by and through many North American
feminist bookstores. Since feminist bookstores
are based on the premise that we must understand
where our movement has come from (as chronicled
in stories, songs, images, and books) as
well as where it is going, I will very briefly
trace the state of feminist bookstores from
the founding of the feminist bookstore movement
to the present day. This history includes
the numbers of how many feminist bookstores
we used to have with us and how many have
closed their doors; I intend these numbers
both to make readers aware of the dire situation
of today's feminist (and independent) bookstores,
and to invite readers to newly appreciate
those feminist bookstores which, as we read,
are transforming themselves into community
centres, non-profit institutions, women's
advocacy centres, finding forms that better
enable them to meet the needs of today's
communities.
In 1970, Amazon Bookstore opened in Minneapolis,
Minnesota as the first feminist bookstore
in the U.S. The growing number of feminist
bookstores spread the possibility of such
spaces across the continent, as demonstrated
in this 1975 interview in an Austin, Texas
publication (Women
Acting on Austin) with Nancy Lee
Marquis, one of the founders of Austin’s
feminist bookstore: “We visited Oakland
and other women’s centers and saw
that a store could help overcome isolation
and create a new culture.” In the
1980’s, feminist bookstores continued
to open internationally, including Narigrantha
Prabartana Bookstore and Publishing House
in Bangladesh in 1989, Asmita
Publication House in Nepal in 1988,
and Silver
Moon Women’s Bookshop in London
in 1984 (Silver Moon now lives on one of
the floors in Foyles bookshop in London).
In May of 1992, Judith Rosen reported continued
success for feminist bookstores in a Publisher’s
Weekly article: “In a year
in which many general bookstores reported
sales that were essentially flat, if not
down, women’s bookstores, with little
advertising or promotion, continued to survive
and—in most cases—thrive.”
Rosen interviewed Carol Seajay, co-founder
of the now closed Old Wives Tales in San
Francisco, California and founder of the
now defunct Feminist Bookstore News and
Network, who explained women’s need
for books: “A Canadian bookseller
told me, ‘Our customers pay their
rent, buy their food and buy books—in
that order.’” Sacramento, California’s
Lioness Books reported in their May-June
1993 newsletter, “We have over 150
feminist and lesbian/gay bookstores in Canada
and in the U.S., and we are growing stronger
every year.”
The landscape of feminist publishing and
bookselling has certainly changed. We have
witnessed the closing of nearly three quarters
of the North American feminist bookstores,
and those of us who are lucky enough to
live near a feminist bookstore are now witnessing
the profound changes many of those spaces
are making in order to sustain and encourage
communities of women. In 1998, the year
that Amazon Bookstore filed a trademark
infringement lawsuit against online book
giant amazon.com, there were 70 feminist
bookstores in the U.S. and Canada, down
already from the 150 reported in 1993. Over
30 of the remaining bookstores closed between
1998 and 2000. These days feminist bookstores
remain valuable not only for their book
and sideline stock (much of which may never
be duplicated by the big chains), but also
for their innovative shapes and activism
through which women continue to define our
own context.
Annotated List of Selected Living
Feminist Bookstores
While there remain over 30 active feminist
bookstores in North America, I have chosen
a short list here of those representative
of changes in the movement. Readers will
find reflected here a move to more direct
community involvement in various formats
and the opening of stores in cities where
original feminist bookstores have closed.
Amazon Bookstore.
Minneapolis, Minnesota. www.amazonbookstorecoop.com
Founded in 1970 and still open today, the
cooperative, backed by the American Booksellers’
Association, sued amazon.com in 1998 for
copyright infringement; the court awarded
the feminist bookstore an undisclosed amount
and allowed amazon.com to continue using
the appropriated name even though they are,
clearly, not Amazons. Today, Amazon Bookstore
remains a workers’ co-operative and
lives in a space called the Chrysalis building,
a title which aptly defines the current
state of feminist bookstores: transformation.
Amazon remains a significant community space
by focusing on women’s literacy projects
including hosting a new readers group, stocking
literacy materials, and training volunteers.
Their website explains that this meets the
bookstore’s original “belief
that all women should have access to the
diversity of women’s ideas and to
writings that tell truths about women’s
lives.”
Bluestockings.
New York City, New York. www.bluestockings.com
Opening its doors in New York City in 1999,
Bluestockings is the most recent and only
open feminist bookstore in New York City
(following the closure of Judith's Room
in the late 1990's) and remains the newest
feminist bookstore in North America. Relying,
as have her ancestresses, on volunteers
and community involvement, Bluestockings
hosts a variety of programs and seems determined
to follow and find new paths for feminism.
The store's mission statement describes
its definition of a feminist bookstore:
Bluestockings, an independently-owned
women's bookstore in New York City, promotes
the empowerment of women through words,
art and activism. We work to be an intersection
of dialogue and information exchange, providing
women-focused books and events. Recognizing
the links between oppressions, our goal
is to be open to all sexualities, sizes
and spiritualities, to be intergenerational,
trans-inclusive, and multi-lingual, and
to challenge racism, classism, ablism, sexism,
ageism and sizism. We strive as a bookseller
to be an informational site in the struggle
for social justice. (website)
Charis Books
& More. Atlanta, Georgia.
charis.booksense.com
Several feminist bookstores, like Charis,
have tried to continue to meet community
need by creating non-profit arms as a way
to continue the fundamental services of
a feminist bookstore to its surrounding
communities. Initially founded in 1974,
Charis became Charis Books & More in 1996
when it opened its non-profit arm, Charis
Circle, in connection with the bookstore.
This non-profit arm conducts ongoing events
like their open mic, children's hour, and
feminism 101 workshops as well as groups
like SisterGirls and High School Women Writer's
Group, both geared toward girls and their
lives. The bookstore's “Herstory”
statement explains the name of the non-profit
arm by emphasising the importance of our
stories to social justice: “We are
always celebrating our stories. These stories
are written in poetry, biography, short
stories, plays, essays, songs and novels.
These stories are told in circles-circles
of women, circles of children, circles of
dreamers, circles of men seeking hope, all
making justice” (website).
Greater Cincinnati
Women’s Resource Center.
Cincinnati, Ohio. www.gcwrc.org
Cincinnati’s Crazy Ladies feminist
bookstore, founded in 1979, closed its doors
and reopened as the Greater Cincinnati Women’s
Resource Center and gift shop in 2002. Realizing
that support and advocacy cannot compete
on the market but remains vital to women
everywhere, Crazy Ladies effected their
transformation to stay present in Cincinnati
and to meet community needs.
In Other
Words. Portland, Oregon.
www.inotherwords.org
Also a recent bookstore, In Other Words
opened in 1993 after the closing of A Woman’s
Place in the late 1980’s. The innovative
structure of In Other Words follows recent
movements to bring universities into communities
and community partnerships. As a non-profit
founded in collaboration with the beginning
of the Women’s Community Education
Project at the Portland State University’s
Women’s Studies Program, In Other
Words functions as a community outpost for
the Women’s Studies department and
(like all feminist bookstores) as a Women’s
Studies outpost for the community. (Also
see my description below of Catharine Sameh
and Melissa Kesler Gilbert’s article
“Building Feminist Educational Alliances
in an Urban Community.”)
Annotated List of Selected
Writings about Feminist Bookstores
Important trends that signal the impact
of feminist bookstores on feminist movements
include a growing number of articles and
dissertations about feminist bookstores,
the establishment of feminist bookstores
and presses internationally, and the move
to archive feminist bookstore papers. thirdspace’s
coverage of feminist bookstores and presses
has contributed to the revival of attention
to issues concerning the availability and
production of women’s words, and the
online journal provides a widely accessible
forum through which to compile information
about the largely unrecorded Feminist Bookstore
and Women in Print movements. The following
list reflects some of the central work done
in print on feminist bookstores; this work
may be useful to those of you doing work
on or simply interested in reading more
about both the history and current functions
of feminist bookstores.
Lucille Frey.
“One Woman, One Women's Bookstore:
Case Study and Comments on the Place of
a Women's Bookstore in a Community.”
PhD thesis, The Union for Experimenting
Colleges and Universities, 1985. National
Library of Canada: Mic.F., 1986. T-2608.
Lucille Frey explains that she intends her
dissertation for a Ph.D. in Women's Studies
to serve as “helpful for anyone contemplating
opening a women's bookstore.” As such,
she provides personal narrative of her experiences
as owner of the Alaska Women's Bookstore
in Anchorage, and gives an account of her
observations on her pilgrimage to fifty
feminist bookstores in the U.S. and Canada
(including a list of bookstores open at
the time with asterisks next to those she
visited). Her discussion ranges from that
of the feminist bookstore as a community
service (in Chapter III, “Causes and
Caring in a Woman's Bookstore”) to
that of the feminist bookstore as a business
(in Chapter XI: “The Bookstore as
a Business”). It functions as a how-to
guide as well as a comprehensive discussion
of the functions of feminist bookstores.
Melissa Kesler
Gilbert and Catherine Sameh. “Building
Feminist Educational Alliances in an Urban
Community.” In
Teaching Feminist Activism: Strategies from
the Field.
Ed. Nancy A. Naples and Karen Bojar. New
York: Routledge, 2002. 185-206.
The authors’ alliance of a community
scholar/service-learning consultant (Melissa
Gilbert) and cofounder of a feminist non-profit
umbrella and bookstore (Catherine Sameh)
establishes in print the actual connections
here between the Portland University Women’s
Studies Department and Portland, Oregon’s
newest feminist bookstore, In Other Words.
Founded in 1993 in conjunction with the
Women’s Community Education Project
(WCEP), In Other Words represents a relatively
new direction in feminist bookstores: joining
feminist ‘business’ with service-learning
projects that serve community women. Sameh
explains, “Students from the university
have also been earning practicum credit
at our store since we opened,” and
students also work with women’s health
services, girl’s zines, etc. Significant
for students of women’s history, In
Other Words and the WCEP have focused on
laying the foundation for collective memory.
In 1998 WCEP students generated a five-year
anniversary oral history of the store, and
Kesler and Sameh both emphasise the importance
of memory: “While the history of In
Other Words is a comparatively short one,
calling on its founding circumstances, foremothers,
and lessons learned has been a very meaningful
process for our partnership.”
Rose Norman.
“Support Your Feminist Bookseller:
She Supports You!” NWSAction:
National Women’s Studies Association,
13.1 (Fall 2001): 30-32.
Rose Norman outlines the difficulties independent
bookstores face in the chain-monopolised
market of the United States, and she reports
on her interviews with fourteen U.S. feminist
bookstores. Describing the current climate,
she gives readers a synopsis of the outcome
of the Amazon Bookstore vs. amazon.com lawsuit
and discusses the trend of creating non-profit
arms for feminist bookstores. Norman targets
her audience, academic readers of NWSAction,
by outlining academic feminists’ stake
in the survival of feminist bookstores:
“Now more than ever, those of us in
Women’s Studies need to pay attention
to what is going on in book publishing and
bookselling, and take action. These stores
are in many ways our grassroots, our connection
to the general public, to our own graduates,
and to women and girls who may never go
to college.”
Deborah Yaffe.
“Feminism in Principle and in Practice:
Everywomans Books.” Atlantis:
A Women’s Studies Journal.
Special Issue: Connecting Practices, Doing
Theory. 21.1 (Fall 1996): 154-157.
Deborah Yaffe writes this brief assessment
of the Victoria, BC Everywomans Collective
(purposefully without possessive apostrophe)
as, at the time of her writing, “the
longest-serving member of the Everywomans
Collective.” Since Everywomans exists
as one of the remaining feminist bookstores
still run as a collective, Yaffe’s
insights into the interactions between collective
members, the effects of even slight imbalances
of power, and the problems that come with
a quick turnover rate and loss of collective
memory prove invaluable to those of us studying
the ways feminist bookstores can survive
and how we can best fortify active remembrances
of them. Yaffe explains, “The advantage
[of quick collective turnover] is that we
always have fresh perspectives; the disadvantage
is that we can’t build on the past
and are always having to recreate basic
information and experiences.” Ultimately,
Yaffe celebrates the inclusiveness of this
model: “We say that those who do the
work should make the decisions and do not
consider ourselves necessarily bound by
decisions made by past collectives.”
[Editors' note: Everywomans
Books closed in 1999, but their papers and other
materials (including their wonderful stained
glass sign) are deposited in the Women's Movement
Archive collection at the University of Victoria
Archives, British Columbia, Canada.]
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