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Making a Scene: Lesbians and Community across Canada, 1964-84
In the 1960s, a youthful and ambitious lesbian movement began taking shape in Canada. After decades of being pathologized, disparaged, or erased from public view, lesbians were ready to make a scene - both by calling attention to themselves and by creating places to come together and forge their own culture. Making a Scene documents how this unfolded, visiting the spaces lesbians created across rural and urban Canada, from physical locations, such as bars, bookstores, and members' clubs, to ephemeral sites, such as conferences, festivals, and protest marches. Enriched with interviews, this volume captures the exuberance and challenges of this transformational period.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published December 15, 2015
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October 10, 2023
Millward's book looks at the development of lesbian communities across Canada between 1964 and 1984. She argues that lesbians in this period developed not only physical connections but cultural ones that helped cement a larger lesbian community.
"The efforts by Canadian lesbians to 'make a scene' mattered because spatial struggles are social struggles. As Henri Lefebve suggests, 'any social existence' aspiring or claiming to be 'real,' but failing to produce its own space, would be a strange entity, a very peculiar kind of abstraction, unable to escape from the ideological or even the 'cultural' realm. By the 1860s, Canadian lesbians could already situate themselves in a transnational cultural realm, an 'imagined community' of lesbians." 5
"In their ground-breaking study of the working-class lesbian bar culture of Buffalo, New York, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis argue that 'community is key to the development of twentieth-century lesbian identity and consciousness.' but achieving this sense of community was no easy task." 6
"Lesbians had their version of this type of book. Early examples in the United States were Ann Aldrich's two books We Walk Alone (1955) and We, Too, Must Love (1958), which explored the lesbian subcultures of New York. Later books usually first described the oppressive conditions under which lesbians lived and then examined the possibilities offered by combining the insights of Gay Liberation and Women's Liberation." 7
"The Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW), published in 1970, documented the disparity between men's and women's wages, as well as the low wages women earned in their ghettoized occupation. Lesbians, furthermore, tended to have insecure incomes and therefore had less income than the average woman..." 12
"As Foster and Murray pointed out, changes in the lived experiences of lesbians and gay men were 'not a direct result' of changes to the Criminal Code. Instead, they were a 'spin-off made possible by the psychological climate that followed the adoption of section 158 [of Bill C-150]. Homosexuals are emerging because they feel it is no safe to do so." 19
"The other set of significant changes that influenced women's ability to make a scene came in the realms of transport and communications. Transportation links for many communities became faster with road improvement schemes, such as the Trans-Canada Highway and the 400-network of highways in Ontario, although some places lacked the political clout to be included in these projects and became, in effect, backwaters. The increase in airline travel prompted passenger rail lines and bus companies to become more competitive. The Gestetner copier, the photocopier, and the electric typewriter all sped up and enhanced the ability of groups to communicate. Periodical publications were a key way to connect lesbians across the country, and to keep them updated on what was going on elsewhere,..."20
"A number of scholars have already examined the history of lesbian Canada. The three main books that deal with it are Becki Ross's exploration of lesbian-feminist organizing in Toronto in the 1970s, The House that Jill Built; Cameron Duder's study of middle-class lesbians' discreet worlds prior to the 1960s, Awfully Devoted Women; and Line Chamberland's Memories Lesbiennes, which considers working- and middle-class lesbians' lives in Montreal in the 1950s and 1960s." 22
"Money troubles also wore down many lesbians who were trying to maintain a physical space. For example, the London Lesbian Collective operated a centre during the summer of 1977, but 'financial difficulties forced its closure..." 139
"An example of this is the London Lesbian Collective. On March 12, 1977, a group of women organized the first all-women dance at the University of Western Ontario. 'Because of the overwhelming support of that dance, it became apparent that there was a need for a lesbian oriented organization in London,' and the group formed an umbrella organization called the London Lesbian Collective. The collective was open to all lesbians and was women-only, 'in order to develop the identity of women as lesbians and to foster the growth of leadership qualities in women.' The goal of the collective was to develop a 'strong and active community for gay women,' and to 'promote the social, recreational and political well being of the London lesbian community.' The collective was interested in improving visibility within the community, and to establish connections across the rest of the country. In particular, it wanted to create 'a place where women working and talking together can generate new ideas and give direction to the lesbian community.' In short, the collective members had sensed the potential for lesbian community because they had had a chance to see it in person during one smallish, women-only dance. That experience of a public and visible lesbian space generated enough excitement that the women wanted to see if they could, in effect, replicate it..." 221-222
"The efforts by Canadian lesbians to 'make a scene' mattered because spatial struggles are social struggles. As Henri Lefebve suggests, 'any social existence' aspiring or claiming to be 'real,' but failing to produce its own space, would be a strange entity, a very peculiar kind of abstraction, unable to escape from the ideological or even the 'cultural' realm. By the 1860s, Canadian lesbians could already situate themselves in a transnational cultural realm, an 'imagined community' of lesbians." 5
"In their ground-breaking study of the working-class lesbian bar culture of Buffalo, New York, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis argue that 'community is key to the development of twentieth-century lesbian identity and consciousness.' but achieving this sense of community was no easy task." 6
"Lesbians had their version of this type of book. Early examples in the United States were Ann Aldrich's two books We Walk Alone (1955) and We, Too, Must Love (1958), which explored the lesbian subcultures of New York. Later books usually first described the oppressive conditions under which lesbians lived and then examined the possibilities offered by combining the insights of Gay Liberation and Women's Liberation." 7
"The Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW), published in 1970, documented the disparity between men's and women's wages, as well as the low wages women earned in their ghettoized occupation. Lesbians, furthermore, tended to have insecure incomes and therefore had less income than the average woman..." 12
"As Foster and Murray pointed out, changes in the lived experiences of lesbians and gay men were 'not a direct result' of changes to the Criminal Code. Instead, they were a 'spin-off made possible by the psychological climate that followed the adoption of section 158 [of Bill C-150]. Homosexuals are emerging because they feel it is no safe to do so." 19
"The other set of significant changes that influenced women's ability to make a scene came in the realms of transport and communications. Transportation links for many communities became faster with road improvement schemes, such as the Trans-Canada Highway and the 400-network of highways in Ontario, although some places lacked the political clout to be included in these projects and became, in effect, backwaters. The increase in airline travel prompted passenger rail lines and bus companies to become more competitive. The Gestetner copier, the photocopier, and the electric typewriter all sped up and enhanced the ability of groups to communicate. Periodical publications were a key way to connect lesbians across the country, and to keep them updated on what was going on elsewhere,..."20
"A number of scholars have already examined the history of lesbian Canada. The three main books that deal with it are Becki Ross's exploration of lesbian-feminist organizing in Toronto in the 1970s, The House that Jill Built; Cameron Duder's study of middle-class lesbians' discreet worlds prior to the 1960s, Awfully Devoted Women; and Line Chamberland's Memories Lesbiennes, which considers working- and middle-class lesbians' lives in Montreal in the 1950s and 1960s." 22
"Money troubles also wore down many lesbians who were trying to maintain a physical space. For example, the London Lesbian Collective operated a centre during the summer of 1977, but 'financial difficulties forced its closure..." 139
"An example of this is the London Lesbian Collective. On March 12, 1977, a group of women organized the first all-women dance at the University of Western Ontario. 'Because of the overwhelming support of that dance, it became apparent that there was a need for a lesbian oriented organization in London,' and the group formed an umbrella organization called the London Lesbian Collective. The collective was open to all lesbians and was women-only, 'in order to develop the identity of women as lesbians and to foster the growth of leadership qualities in women.' The goal of the collective was to develop a 'strong and active community for gay women,' and to 'promote the social, recreational and political well being of the London lesbian community.' The collective was interested in improving visibility within the community, and to establish connections across the rest of the country. In particular, it wanted to create 'a place where women working and talking together can generate new ideas and give direction to the lesbian community.' In short, the collective members had sensed the potential for lesbian community because they had had a chance to see it in person during one smallish, women-only dance. That experience of a public and visible lesbian space generated enough excitement that the women wanted to see if they could, in effect, replicate it..." 221-222
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