THE FEMINIST BOOKSTORE MOVEMENT: LESBIAN ANTIRACISM AND FEMINIST ACCOUNTABILITY launching with author KRISTEN HOGAN at Another Story (315 Roncesvalles), Thursday (June 9), 7 pm. Free. 416-462-1104, anotherstory.ca. See listing.
On its face – and via its title – this release about women’s bookstores looks like it’s the ultimate niche product, guaranteed to attract a limited audience.
But don’t be fooled. Anyone interested in publishing will find a lot of valuable information in this story of the rise of bookstores run by feminists, the later demise of their indie bookstores and how book-women almost triumphed over the chains.
It also has a Toronto connection. Usually these surveys of anything connected to second-wave feminism (especially when published by an American press, in this case Duke University’s) make the U.S. the centre of the universe and give the impression that feminists existed nowhere else.
Fortunately, author Kristen Hogan did a hefty stint at the Toronto Women’s Bookstore and values and recounts its past. Though she appreciates Americans’ essential contributions to the movement, she also looks to Europe and beyond.
At its peak in the 80s, the feminist bookstore movement boasted over 130 stores in North America alone. They were mostly founded by radicals as community spaces run collectively. (Toronto’s, at first, was an exception to the rule, information Hogan deals with in detail.)
In spite of the stores’ modest beginnings – and, thanks especially to the genius of Carol Seajay, who founded the Feminist Book Network (FBN) newsletter, which became an essential voice for the stores – book-women developed astonishing influence.
By dishing out the numbers and demonstrating their market clout, they were often able to convince mainstream publishers to bring major female authors back into print, from Joanna Russ’s The Female Man to books by May Sarton.
They also refused to bend to the time-honoured rule of the publishers’ “returns” system for unsold books, often discounting them, sure, but refusing to just send books back to die. The shelves of these stores, ironically, had more diverse titles than many much larger retailers.
Speaking of diversity, as is obvious from the title, Hogan pays a lot of attention to the ways bookstores and racialized women worked together to build inventories for more than just white readers, thus expanding their reach and influence.
It was the FBN, representing women’s bookstores, who fought hardest against the egregious and discriminatory discounts publishers were giving to the chains, helping to advance the American Booksellers Association’s lawsuit against them.
And women’s stores also led the charge against Amazon, which emerged as an even larger threat to the indies, when they supported the suit Minneapolis’s Amazon Bookstore Cooperative launched against the online behemoth. Amazon intimidated the small store owners so relentlessly – mainly by engaging in some intense lesbian-bating – that the owners had to settle.
Yes, only a handful of women’s bookstores are left – including one in Thunder Bay (!). But Hogan’s history, though it gets off to a slow start and doesn’t have an entirely happy ending, is an inspiring one.
susanc@nowtoronto.com | @susangcole
