The Feminist Bookstore Movement: Lesbian Antiracism and Feminist Accountability

by Kristen Hogan

From the 1970s through the 1990s more than one hundred feminist bookstores built a transnational network that helped shape some of feminism's most complex conversations. Kristen Hogan traces the feminist bookstore movement's rise and eventual fall, restoring its radical work to public feminist memory. The bookwomen at the heart of this story—mostly lesbians and including women of color—measured their success not by profit, but by developing theories and practices of lesbian antiracism and feminist accountability. At bookstores like BookWoman in Austin, the Toronto Women’s Bookstore, and Old Wives’ Tales in San Francisco, and in the essential Feminist Bookstore News, bookwomen changed people’s lives and the world. In retelling their stories, Hogan not only shares the movement's tools with contemporary queer antiracist feminist activists and theorists, she gives us a vocabulary, strategy, and legacy for thinking through today's feminisms.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, History, Queer, LGBT, Race, Lesbian

328 pages, Paperback

First published April 8, 2016

Reviews

[Susanna Sturgis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very disappointing treatment of an important subject that deserves much better. The choice of title and subtitle reveals its inadequacies. The feminist bookstore network was part of the feminist Women in Print movement, which included not only bookstores but feminist publishers, periodicals, and women in the print trades. In taking it out of context, Hogan completely misses the movement's main point: to make women's writing, especially the writing that mainstream publishers didn't believe was important or potentially profitable enough, more widely available. While doing this, feminist bookstores also became community centers and links in the national and international feminist grapevine. Antiracist organizing was catalyzed by the Women in Print movement, but so were many other kinds of activism. If Hogan wanted to write about antiracist organizing by lesbians, she could have cast her net wider: she would have found plenty of material, including the work of "women in print." My longer review of this book will appear in a future issue of the Women's Review of Books.

[jac · Rating 4 out of 5]

"there is no other work but the work of creating and re-creating ourselves within the context of community."

[Jeanne Thornton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Totally inspiring. As with most books I Basically Like, I wanted it to be way longer, to trace more of the specific stories of individual bookstores, and to give a fuller (albeit sadder) account of the specific decline of some spaces in chapter 5--the Amazon lawsuit case is fascinating (and infuriating) but seems a little atypical, and I wanted a little bit of detail about exactly how the need to close a bookstore came about & how the closure happened.

(Also, um, more stuff about trans people would have been nice, though there's Some.)

But these are minor gripes--like Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Businesses Represent Everything You Want To Fight For From Free Speech To Buying Local To Building Communities, I end up coming away from this with way more things I Want To Do than things I have time to, plus a huge reading list of other books to look into, both of which are maybe all you can want from a book.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was filled with so much information that it was hard to read. I almost want to buy a copy and be able to annotate and come back to things. I will be picking this back up later.

[K Kriesel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so grateful this book exists! Women's bookstores have been deeply influential to me since I first discovered them the summer between high school and college, 2004. I'd been worried about their demise, as well as the demise of their stories and herstories (I had to). I saw this book on the shelf of BookWoman in Austin, TX and jumped on it!

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is that it's slow and dense. I'd read what felt like a lot, only to discover it was just 2 pages! Having so much information packed into this book is both its strength and its weakness.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be braced for a new approach to history - one that doesn't pretend that being uninvolved is a source of authority - and be prepared for a fascinating ride through the history of the women's bookstores that blossomed (against all odds) at the end of the 20th century - and that put real work towards antiracism and accountability. That subtitle is no joke. And be prepared for some real thoughtfulness about how independent bookstores (especially when they collaborate) are the key to keeping our reading options open.

[Hailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

this isn’t going to be for everyone because it is a bit dry and academic, but I found this history of feminist (and lesbian) bookstores to be soooo interesting! I have so much love for feminist bookstores and never knew how impactful they were for the book industry. On the other hand, I have so much more hate for Amazon AND b&n now because wow their evil knows no bounds.

[Haley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this super dense and super difficult to get through (it still reads very much like an academic dissertation to me), but creates an amazing historical record of the feminist bookstore movement, including its lasting successes and the factors that eventually brought it down.

[Josie Rushin · Rating 3 out of 5]

non-fiction text about the importance of the Feminist Bookstore movement in spreading information and how to access resources. it also provided a great insight into the publishing industry and its complicated relationship with bookstores, especially independent bookstores. the text felt quite dense, but was content heavy and provided a lot of new information. equally it provided information on particular figures and texts which shaped the movement. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the importance of texts as well as how information is distributed in times of trouble eg. during the abortion ban.

[slowtime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Purchased at Women and Children First bookstore in the summer of 2016, during the period when I was most seriously exploring the possibility of opening my own feminist bookstore. That option fell off the table shortly thereafter, dropping this book to the bottom of my t0-read pile as a result, but I'm glad I finally got around to it. It's context worth having, a history worth knowing.

This book gave me a lot to think about. I've always lived in cities with feminist bookstores, so I understood them as community centers, but I hadn't considered their role in disrupting capitalism, or the extent of their advocacy in the publishing industry. I hadn't thought about how fighting for survival against the chains and Amazon might necessitate a shift in identity from activist to entrepreneur, and what that would do to a store's soul, or how that might have contributed to the movement's collapse.

This book also made me want to go through my home library and think about what sections I could make from the books I already own, and what sections I think belong on my feminist shelf, but would sit empty as things are now.

Which also means, I think, that I'm overdue for a trip back to Women and Children First.

[SueB · Rating 4 out of 5]

So excited to be reading this! Sure is bringing back some memories. She needed a bit stronger editor. She says the exact same thing...i mean exact phrasing several times within in a few pp!

I'm so glad I read this. Proud of the work that we did. Ready for more of the energy and action that I felt during my time in the FBmovement.

[Mills College Library]

381.45002 H7145 2016

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well-written, impressively researched, important book.