Women Working

The Anarchist Cookbook (1971). Sinister Wisdom. Whole Earth Catalog (1969). “The S.C.U.M. Manifesto” (1968). The Foxfire Book (1972). Our Bodies, Ourselves (1973). Silent Spring (1962). Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right (1974). Diet For a Small Planet (1976). The Dialectics of Sex (1970). The Giving Tree (1964). Hidden From History (1973). “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968).

I’m pretty sure that you, too, Dear Reader, could easily name a dozen printed works that meant something to you during your formative years. My new friend, Ms Carmen Goodyear, published a bellwether essay, “Fifty-four years of living on the land,” in the Journal of Lesbian Studies (published on-line on November 17, 2024). “Those early years of the 70’s,” she writes, “were times of exploration. We learned how to live in harmony with each other and with the natural world around us. We learned about our oppression as women, as lesbians, and tried to convey these lessons to others through our national magazine ‘Country Woman’.” For two years she studied in the “ivy-covered halls of Vassar.” Then she volunteered with V.I.S.T.A. and was seconded to a Navaho reservation before being sent to work with the Chippewa tribe in Michigan. Not yet “out” but having already soured on academia and on the “boomerang” nature of U.S. aid programs, she was orphaned when her parents were killed in a car crash in the Summer of 1966 and had to grow up fast.

Carmen bummed around and ended up on a small farm. Faced with muddy conditions and recalcitrant goats, she and various partners and lovers congealed near an artist retreat near Mendocino, California and founded “what became known as the Albion Nation.” Faced with a not-yet-vetted water system and a caving-in barn, they commenced to build lives as women, as out lesbians, as farmers, as human beings. “We were twenty-four years old with no real farming experience but a lot of enthusiasm and love of animals.” Absent talk-radio, the Internet and social media, they began to live lives of “good hearty outdoor work every day, all day.”

Unsurprisingly, (straight) men directed and did the work, even grabbing tools right out of the hands of the “old ladies” or “chicks.” Persistent struggles around land, bodies, hierarchy, sexuality, speech and behavior led Carmen and Jeanne and Sherry et al. to discover their physical and organizing strengths. They eventually founded the Country Woman magazine in the Fall of 1972. It began as a 24-page, anonymously-written, collective wisdom-sharing effort akin to the Foxfire books. They did their own illustrations, set their own type, and slogged them to and from their printing in the big city. Country Woman became a beacon of lesbian-centered, feminist wisdom. The final of 33 issues was published in 1979.

Maybe you don’t often dip into the Journal of Lesbian Studies for inspiration. Maybe you should. Maybe you don’t often thank a dyke. Maybe you should.

Write to me at [email protected]. Find me at http://www.svafinebooks.com.