Free for All Lesbians: Lesbian Cultural Production and Consumption in the United States during the 1970s

Gay men's identity attempt pathway and its implication on consumption

“…Consistent with the perceptions of Western researchers, one of the reasons underlying this imbalance is that advertisers consider lesbians to be less visible in society and harder to reach (Freitas, Kaiser, & Hammidi, 1996), leading to a predominant focus on gay men in the homosexual marketing initiatives of the West (Hunt & Zacharias, 2008). In addition, there are two key obstacles in collecting data from Taiwanese lesbians (Boellstorff, 1993; Murray, 2007; Weston, 1993). First, the social identity of Taiwanese lesbians is unlike that of their Western counterparts, as they struggle with gender repositioning and traditional social orders such as male dominance, gender roles, and family values (Lim, 2002; Sang, 2003; Yuen & Lim, 1992).…”

“All are welcome here?”: Navigating race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, and disability in American feminist coffeehouses of the 1970s and 1980s

“…Owning and operating a feminist business in a permanent location required a large capital investment in order to rent space, buy supplies, and pay workers. Women's, and especially lesbians', social positioning due to discriminatory gender, racial, and sexual orientation laws affected whether or not being able to own a restaurant or store was even possible (Murray, 2007; Rousseau, 2015). Coffeehouses provided an alternative means through which to organize feminist communities around food and drink, with lower initial capital required than restaurants.…”

Fatally flawed? Discursive evidence from the movement to establish Lesbian Studies programs

“…When Lesbian feminists began creating cultural spaces in U.S. American and Canadian cities including San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington in earnest in the early 1970 s, 'lesbian' was still a highly stigmatized term and living as a lesbian was dangerous. Their work resulted in such varied achievements as lesbian collectives, women's music festivals, the Olivia record label, the Naiad Press (Murray, 2007), and grassroots Lesbian Studies courses conducted outside academia (Cruikshank, 1982). When Lesbian Studies courses were first developed within universities, often within fledgling Women's Studies programs, homophobia and sexism were still so strong in academic culture that the women involved have rightly been described as courageous (Gammon, 1992).…”