Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
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MICHIGAN WOMYN’S MUSIC FESTIVAL: PLACE MAKING AND THE QUEER PERSISTENCE OF FEMINISM by Carolyn Joyce Rowe B.A., Acadia University, 1995 M.A., Carleton University, 2001 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Cross Faculty Inquiry in Education) The University of British Columbia (Vancouver) June 2014 © Carolyn Joyce Rowe, 2014 Abstract This dissertation research is designed to advance knowledge concerning contemporary conceptions of sexual citizenship, queer history and the context and performative nature of feminism during a time of “post-feminism” (Faludi, 1991; Fraser, 2009; McRobbie, 2004). I investigate feminism as it is enacted at the Michigan Womyn‘s Music Festival (hereafter referred to as the Festival). The Festival is an event that grew out of the second wave feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s. It has survived decades of liberation movements, identity politics and related political struggles, threats from the religious right, transsexual inclusion/exclusion debates and so on. Unlike many of the feminist events that closed their doors in the 80s and 90s (Case, 1996) over the last 35 years this festival has grown into one of the oldest and largest lesbian feminist gatherings in the world (Cvetkovich and Wahng, 2001; Morris, 1999; Ryan, 1992; Taylor and Rupp, 1993). Since the mid-1980s, discussion about the “end of feminism” and what post- feminism means has increased (Faludi, 1991; Fraser, 2009; Jones, 1994; McRobbie, 2009; Modleski, 1991). Post-feminism sometimes refers to a new kind of anti-feminist sentiment, one that differs from the backlash faced by feminists in the 1970s and 1980s. Post-feminist discourse can imply that equality has been achieved and that feminists can now focus on something else. Within the pages of this dissertation, the avenue of study I engage in investigates the convergence of second-wave feminism (Daly, 1978; Dworkin, 2002; MacKinnon, 1989; Millet, 1970) in a post-feminist time. What does it mean to engage in various feminist identity practices whose time is past? How do the lived embodiments of race, gender difference, sexual alterity, and variations of bodily capacity structure the time and timing of particular collectivities? This project’s major animating question asks, then: How does feminism persist in a time of post-feminism? ii Preface This dissertation is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, C. J. Rowe. Approval for this research was given by the Behavioural Research Ethics Board at the University of British Columbia (H11-00909) on June 20, 2011. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Preface................................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii List of Images .................................................................................................................. viii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ ix Dedication .......................................................................................................................... xi Chapter One. Welcome Home: An Introduction ................................................................ 1 Setting the Stage .......................................................................................................... 2 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 3 1970s (Lesbian) Feminism .......................................................................................... 3 The Festival: From a Collective to Now...................................................................... 7 Research Questions ...................................................................................................... 8 What do you mean by “post”? ................................................................................... 10 History of Feminism/Generational Thinking............................................................. 13 Mother/Daughter: The struggle to grow .................................................................... 15 Ethical Feminism ....................................................................................................... 20 Feminist Promises ...................................................................................................... 23 Utopia in Practice ...................................................................................................... 26 Queering Memory ...................................................................................................... 28 Embodied Memory and Performance ........................................................................ 32 What’s To Come ........................................................................................................ 34 Chapter Two. Processing: The Process of Methodology .................................................. 37 Setting the Stage ........................................................................................................ 38 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 38 From Theory to Practice ............................................................................................ 39 Embodied Knowledge: Critical Feminist Methodological Framework ..................... 39 Autoethnography and My “Place” ............................................................................. 41 Narrative as Performance .......................................................................................... 43 Place, Mobility and Memory Geography .................................................................. 46 iv The Limitations of Narrative and Memory Work ...................................................... 50 The Nitty-Gritty: An Overview of the Process .......................................................... 51 The Land: The Site of Study ................................................................................. 51 The Workers.......................................................................................................... 52 Camp Trans ........................................................................................................... 53 Interviews and Focus Group ................................................................................. 53 Archival Data ........................................................................................................ 58 Voice: Mine, Yours and Ours .................................................................................... 59 Format ....................................................................................................................... 62 Chapter Three. The Land: Making Place, Taking Space .................................................. 65 Setting the Stage ........................................................................................................ 66 Introduction: Place, Space, Gender & the Land ........................................................ 67 Feminist Space Making ............................................................................................. 69 The Lay of the Land .................................................................................................. 71 Feminism, Cultural Practices and Place Making ....................................................... 76 The Use of Signs: Significance.................................................................................. 76 Opening Ceremonies: Music, Place and Memory ..................................................... 81 Closing: Letting Things Go ....................................................................................... 85 Memory, Place and Temporality ............................................................................... 89 The S/M Debates ....................................................................................................... 91 Women of Colour ...................................................................................................... 97 Camp Trans: Pushing Boundaries ........................................................................... 105 Discussion ................................................................................................................ 111 Chapter Four. Embodying the Body: The Making of Queer Worlds ............................. 112 Setting the Stage ...................................................................................................... 113 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 114 Our Bodies Ourselves .............................................................................................. 115 “Safe Space”: Walking in the Woods Alone Late at Night ..................................... 117 Butch Is As Butch Does: The Embodiment of