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Eden Built by Eves: The Culture of Women's Music Festivals
Women's music festivals have long been an integral part of lesbian culture, the shaping of millions of women's lives, and the emergence of women as a musical force to be reckoned with. Now Dr. Bonnie J. Morris takes readers on an breathtaking insider's journey through 25 years of this cultural phenomenon. From Michigan to Mississippi, Eden Built by Eves is a splendidly full archive of festival herstory: conflicts, scandals, new music, rain, sun work, family, joy. What does festival culture mean to the audiences, artists, and activists who loyally return each year? A vibrant and soaring tribute to the work of thousands of women, this volume brims with candid backstage interview with festival performers and produces, moving testimony, and often hilarious anecdotes from "festiegoers." A plethora of photographs, articles, comic strips, illustrations, and excerpts from festival literature provide a thorough explanation of the music, relationships, and issues that have shaped an entire generation of lesbian memories in America. With affection, intensive research, and the experience of a lifetime attending festivals, Morris has created a stunning and important contribution to both musical and women's history.
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First published March 1, 1999
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About the author
Bonnie J. Morris
19 books39 followersBonnie J. Morris grew up in Los Angeles and North Carolina. She earned a B.A. in Jewish history from American University, the first student there to minor in women’s studies. She completed her Ph.D. in women’s history at Binghamton University in New York in 1989.
Dr. Morris taught at both George Washington University and Georgetown for almost 25 years, becoming professor emeritus and Professor of the Year at GWU and Vicennial Medalist at Georgetown. In 2017 she joined the history faculty at the University of California-Berkeley, earning a nomination for its Excellence in Teaching Prize.
She is the author of 16 books, including three Lambda Literary Finalists, two national first-prize chapbooks, and the critical feminist texts Women’s History for Beginners, The Disappearing L, and The Feminist Revolution. She may be found lecturing on C-Span, Olivia Cruises, Semester at Sea, the National Women’s Music Festival, and on Pacifica Radio KPFK.
Dr. Morris taught at both George Washington University and Georgetown for almost 25 years, becoming professor emeritus and Professor of the Year at GWU and Vicennial Medalist at Georgetown. In 2017 she joined the history faculty at the University of California-Berkeley, earning a nomination for its Excellence in Teaching Prize.
She is the author of 16 books, including three Lambda Literary Finalists, two national first-prize chapbooks, and the critical feminist texts Women’s History for Beginners, The Disappearing L, and The Feminist Revolution. She may be found lecturing on C-Span, Olivia Cruises, Semester at Sea, the National Women’s Music Festival, and on Pacifica Radio KPFK.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 24, 2019
Essential piece of lesbian and women's herstory!!! Read it!!!!!
March 16, 2019
Very nice to read, it’s so cool to see lesbian culture taken seriously. I haven’t been to any actual festivals, just smaller events organized by women modeling values after michfest, but as far as I can tell she really seems to capture what everyone always seems to be describing in talking about it all. Really glad she was there writing all this down!!
July 19, 2025
A MARVELOUS SURVEY AND HISTORY OF ‘WOMEN’S MUSIC’
Author Bonnie Morris has taught Women’s Studies at institutions such as Georgetown University, UC Berkeley, and more. She wrote in the Preface to this 1999 book, “I grew up in the 1960s, listening to women’s folk music recordings… By the time I reached puberty, I also knew I loved women… I found academic feminism at age 12… I learned about lesbian culture through Ms. magazine and novels, but… I found few popular songs expressing my feelings for other girls… Then one day in 1975… I heard a radio advertisement for the new Deadly Nightshade album… Within three years I discovered Cris Williamson’s album ‘The Changer and the Changed,’ and when I finally came out at age 18, I plunged into the burgeoning culture of lesbian music albums, concerts, and festivals. In August of 1981, I attended my first women’s music festival… Now, 17-plus years later, I have collected a full archive of festival herstory through my working tools: journal, camera, tape recorder…” (Pg xi-xii)
She notes, “Despite the mainstream music industry’s growing awareness of a large lesbian consumer audience, music with a specifically lesbian message is still denied a place in commercial airtime. Lesbian musicians such as k.d. lang are tolerated as long as their music I apolitical, and nonthreatening.” (Pg. 4)
She reports, “Some in the lesbian community scoff at these idealistic summer pilgrimages, cynically noting the infamous ‘festival controversies’---should boy children be allowed? Transsexual women? S/M activists?---that crop up every season. Evidence of misunderstandings and hostilities can detract from the utopia festigoers expect to experience.” (Pg. 10)
She explains that “Sue Fink… reminds us of the importance of music events as cultural alternatives to the bar scene, which until the mid 70s was often the only environment where lesbians might meet. Women-only spaces that did not revolve around alcohol were… a blessing for women in recovery, straight feminists, young lesbians under legal bar age, and anyone else uncomfortable with the frequently smoky and depressing urban watering holes reserved for ‘our kind’… woman-loving affirmation rather than degradation.” (Pg. 14-15)
Comedian Robin Tyler recounts in a chapter, “in 1980 I produced the first West Coast Women’s Music and Comedy Festival…. However, at the beginning of [the second year festival] a small group of women of color … said that I had to give one-third of the festival to women of color, as I was a rich Jew, Jews were responsible for slavery… I immediately said that I was from Canada, but they said that it didn’t matter… They told me I had to give them one third of the business or they would organize a march against the festival… That night, 200 women marched on me while I was on the main stage… I had a nervous breakdown… for the next 12 years … I also became a periodic alcoholic… I did not write another line of comedy for 12 years… I performed very little for the next five years. The laughter had left my life.” (Pg. 40-41)
Morris recounts, “Jean Fineberg speaks for many women in her tribute to the exuberant sense of safety at Michigan [the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival]. An entire city run by and for lesbian feminists. Utopia revealed. An Eden—built by Eves. Yet some women find the matriarchal separatism stifling at best. For every festigoer who sighs, ‘If only the real world were like this!’ there is usually a critic who replies, ‘God forbid!’” (Pg. 60)
She points out, “Almost no women… earn their yearly living from festival work alone… There simply isn’t enough of a year-round festival economy to support more than a handful of producers… Not surprisingly, many festival workers (and festigoers) are teachers---a traditionally female occupation.’ (Pg. 73)
Margie Adam wrote, “I am a product of the festival open-mike show. The very first time I ever sang in public was at Kate Millet’s women’s music festival at Sacramento State University in 1973. I just walked up to her in this small music room… and waited for my turn… That’s really the story of my career---being surrounded by women who lifted me up so I could feel, ‘I can do this.’ That is the message of the women’s liberation movement, the message of feminism, the best message of the women’s music movement.” (Pg 101)
She continues, “I felt uneasy about the shift in focus away from the woman identification in the music and some artists… I felt it was absolutely essential that the focus on women’s lives and concerns not be lost, even as we addressed other progressive issues. The balance changed. The audience began to say, ‘Is this a lefty event or a women’s event?’ An audience that had been absolutely loyal and essential to women’s music began to complain: ‘She hardly talked about women’s stuff at all—the whole show!’ Around this time, audience support for women’s music began to decline.” (Pg. 103)
She states, “Finally, there is today’s hot issue: transgendered festigoers. During the 1990s, two key activists pushed for change in Michigan’s women-born-women-only policy… Their desire for a greater understanding of transgender politics led to the unofficial establishment of a ‘Camp Trans’ outside the Michigan festival gate in summer 1994. This peaceful demonstration encampment, offering daily workshops, surprised some festigoers by its low-key presence… At Michigan, transsexual rights ACTIVISTS are discouraged from distributing literature critical of festival policy. There are, no doubt, trans gendered men quietly attending women-only festivals every year; their presence becomes controversial only when they ‘come out.’ (Several young women I met… knew of two gay men who had attended a past Michigan festival, passing as lesbians.)” (Pg. 171, 173)
Leah Zicari wrote a one-woman play, ‘White Girl with Guitar,’ in she speaks with ‘Annie Orientation’: “ANNIE: We have a lot of specialized tents. There’s the 12-step tent, the lesbian moms tent, the disability tent, the political tent, the singles tent, the Latinas tent, the Womyn of Color tent, the goddess worship tent… LEAH: But these tents are all separate. How does that promote unity? ANNIE: By allowing us to explore our differences. LEAH: So I can go to the Latinas or Womyn of Color tent to learn about other women’s cultures. ANNIE: You can’t go into those tents! … Because you’re not a womyn of color. It’s a place for them to go and be with their own sisters. LEAH: Isn’t that segregation? ANNIE: Not at a womyn’s music festival.” (Pg. 209)
She laments that in 1994, “Toni Armstrong Jr. quietly released the final issue of HOT WIRE, concluding ten years as its editor and almost two decades of artistic and cultural journalism in service to the festival community. No other journal rose up to take HOT WIRE’s place, and a significant vacuum developed in women’s music journalism… the replacement of many grassroots publications with online computer discussion, altered forevermore the working definition of lesbian culture." (Pg. 257)
This fascinating and enlightening book will be absolute “must reading” for anyone interested in women’s music, or related topics.
Author Bonnie Morris has taught Women’s Studies at institutions such as Georgetown University, UC Berkeley, and more. She wrote in the Preface to this 1999 book, “I grew up in the 1960s, listening to women’s folk music recordings… By the time I reached puberty, I also knew I loved women… I found academic feminism at age 12… I learned about lesbian culture through Ms. magazine and novels, but… I found few popular songs expressing my feelings for other girls… Then one day in 1975… I heard a radio advertisement for the new Deadly Nightshade album… Within three years I discovered Cris Williamson’s album ‘The Changer and the Changed,’ and when I finally came out at age 18, I plunged into the burgeoning culture of lesbian music albums, concerts, and festivals. In August of 1981, I attended my first women’s music festival… Now, 17-plus years later, I have collected a full archive of festival herstory through my working tools: journal, camera, tape recorder…” (Pg xi-xii)
She notes, “Despite the mainstream music industry’s growing awareness of a large lesbian consumer audience, music with a specifically lesbian message is still denied a place in commercial airtime. Lesbian musicians such as k.d. lang are tolerated as long as their music I apolitical, and nonthreatening.” (Pg. 4)
She reports, “Some in the lesbian community scoff at these idealistic summer pilgrimages, cynically noting the infamous ‘festival controversies’---should boy children be allowed? Transsexual women? S/M activists?---that crop up every season. Evidence of misunderstandings and hostilities can detract from the utopia festigoers expect to experience.” (Pg. 10)
She explains that “Sue Fink… reminds us of the importance of music events as cultural alternatives to the bar scene, which until the mid 70s was often the only environment where lesbians might meet. Women-only spaces that did not revolve around alcohol were… a blessing for women in recovery, straight feminists, young lesbians under legal bar age, and anyone else uncomfortable with the frequently smoky and depressing urban watering holes reserved for ‘our kind’… woman-loving affirmation rather than degradation.” (Pg. 14-15)
Comedian Robin Tyler recounts in a chapter, “in 1980 I produced the first West Coast Women’s Music and Comedy Festival…. However, at the beginning of [the second year festival] a small group of women of color … said that I had to give one-third of the festival to women of color, as I was a rich Jew, Jews were responsible for slavery… I immediately said that I was from Canada, but they said that it didn’t matter… They told me I had to give them one third of the business or they would organize a march against the festival… That night, 200 women marched on me while I was on the main stage… I had a nervous breakdown… for the next 12 years … I also became a periodic alcoholic… I did not write another line of comedy for 12 years… I performed very little for the next five years. The laughter had left my life.” (Pg. 40-41)
Morris recounts, “Jean Fineberg speaks for many women in her tribute to the exuberant sense of safety at Michigan [the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival]. An entire city run by and for lesbian feminists. Utopia revealed. An Eden—built by Eves. Yet some women find the matriarchal separatism stifling at best. For every festigoer who sighs, ‘If only the real world were like this!’ there is usually a critic who replies, ‘God forbid!’” (Pg. 60)
She points out, “Almost no women… earn their yearly living from festival work alone… There simply isn’t enough of a year-round festival economy to support more than a handful of producers… Not surprisingly, many festival workers (and festigoers) are teachers---a traditionally female occupation.’ (Pg. 73)
Margie Adam wrote, “I am a product of the festival open-mike show. The very first time I ever sang in public was at Kate Millet’s women’s music festival at Sacramento State University in 1973. I just walked up to her in this small music room… and waited for my turn… That’s really the story of my career---being surrounded by women who lifted me up so I could feel, ‘I can do this.’ That is the message of the women’s liberation movement, the message of feminism, the best message of the women’s music movement.” (Pg 101)
She continues, “I felt uneasy about the shift in focus away from the woman identification in the music and some artists… I felt it was absolutely essential that the focus on women’s lives and concerns not be lost, even as we addressed other progressive issues. The balance changed. The audience began to say, ‘Is this a lefty event or a women’s event?’ An audience that had been absolutely loyal and essential to women’s music began to complain: ‘She hardly talked about women’s stuff at all—the whole show!’ Around this time, audience support for women’s music began to decline.” (Pg. 103)
She states, “Finally, there is today’s hot issue: transgendered festigoers. During the 1990s, two key activists pushed for change in Michigan’s women-born-women-only policy… Their desire for a greater understanding of transgender politics led to the unofficial establishment of a ‘Camp Trans’ outside the Michigan festival gate in summer 1994. This peaceful demonstration encampment, offering daily workshops, surprised some festigoers by its low-key presence… At Michigan, transsexual rights ACTIVISTS are discouraged from distributing literature critical of festival policy. There are, no doubt, trans gendered men quietly attending women-only festivals every year; their presence becomes controversial only when they ‘come out.’ (Several young women I met… knew of two gay men who had attended a past Michigan festival, passing as lesbians.)” (Pg. 171, 173)
Leah Zicari wrote a one-woman play, ‘White Girl with Guitar,’ in she speaks with ‘Annie Orientation’: “ANNIE: We have a lot of specialized tents. There’s the 12-step tent, the lesbian moms tent, the disability tent, the political tent, the singles tent, the Latinas tent, the Womyn of Color tent, the goddess worship tent… LEAH: But these tents are all separate. How does that promote unity? ANNIE: By allowing us to explore our differences. LEAH: So I can go to the Latinas or Womyn of Color tent to learn about other women’s cultures. ANNIE: You can’t go into those tents! … Because you’re not a womyn of color. It’s a place for them to go and be with their own sisters. LEAH: Isn’t that segregation? ANNIE: Not at a womyn’s music festival.” (Pg. 209)
She laments that in 1994, “Toni Armstrong Jr. quietly released the final issue of HOT WIRE, concluding ten years as its editor and almost two decades of artistic and cultural journalism in service to the festival community. No other journal rose up to take HOT WIRE’s place, and a significant vacuum developed in women’s music journalism… the replacement of many grassroots publications with online computer discussion, altered forevermore the working definition of lesbian culture." (Pg. 257)
This fascinating and enlightening book will be absolute “must reading” for anyone interested in women’s music, or related topics.
July 16, 2008
I first met Bonnie at Camp Sister Spirit in 1999, when I was teaching workshops and she was signing copies of her new book ... this excellent, fun-to-read, near-ethnography describing some of my favorite places.
The book's as grand as the memories it evokes.
The book's as grand as the memories it evokes.
Read
July 4, 2016I'm not going to rate this one because I have some mixed feelings about it and am not sure I can be fair to the intent of the book. There are so few historical books about lesbian-feminist organizing and organizations from the standpoint of the participants and this is one of the better ones, so I would recommend for anyone interested in a cultural analysis from that perspective. Morris captures a lot of the triumphs, some of the failings and a lot of the political culture of women's music festivals. And while there's certainly plenty of ongoing controversy about some of them, Michigan in particular, it's worth noting that she's right in saying that there was nothing on a large scale before the first festivals in the 1970s to promote lesbian voices, music and culture.
On the other hand, I'm a cofounder of a small women's music festival and I attended several of the fests that she discusses and her descriptions and analysis periodically made me want to reach into the book and shake her. Bisexuality requires scare quotes to ensure that we know she doesn't believe in it? Thinks it's a phase? ("bisexuality"). Any women or female-identified person attending a festival must either be a lesbian or just hadn't realized it yet. Her overview of conflicts involves a fair amount of cherry-picking, which is necessary for length to some degree, but is mostly geared around making fest culture look more accepting and welcoming than any event of any kind that I've ever attended.
So, yeah. No rating. Giving my copy to the local LGBTQ library though, because I do think it provides some value.
On the other hand, I'm a cofounder of a small women's music festival and I attended several of the fests that she discusses and her descriptions and analysis periodically made me want to reach into the book and shake her. Bisexuality requires scare quotes to ensure that we know she doesn't believe in it? Thinks it's a phase? ("bisexuality"). Any women or female-identified person attending a festival must either be a lesbian or just hadn't realized it yet. Her overview of conflicts involves a fair amount of cherry-picking, which is necessary for length to some degree, but is mostly geared around making fest culture look more accepting and welcoming than any event of any kind that I've ever attended.
So, yeah. No rating. Giving my copy to the local LGBTQ library though, because I do think it provides some value.
June 18, 2009
Wonderful overview of the phenomenon and culture of Womyn's Music Festivals across the U.S.
July 11, 2009
As someone who has participated in and who has set up many a festival over the past decade, this has been an amazing and informative read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews