A Woman's Place (bookstore)

A Woman's Place (fully ICI, Information Center Incorporate: A Woman's Place)^[1][2] was a feminist bookstore in Oakland, California. Opened in 1970, it was one of the first two feminist bookstores in the United States.

A Woman's Place

Information Center Incorporate: A Woman's Place
Formation	1970
Defunct	1989
Headquarters	5251 Broadway
Location	Oakland, California

History

A Woman's Place was founded in 1970^[1][2][3] by a collective of eight women^[4] who had previously been selling feminist publications on the street.^[5] An outgrowth of the Bay Area Gay Women's Liberation, it was one of the first two feminist bookstores in the United States.^[1] Intended as a community space for women, A Woman's Place stocked nonfiction books by men, but only sold fiction and poetry if it was written by a woman.^[6] Members of the collective also focused on providing books from the perspective of the Third World and the working class.^[5] The Women's Press Collective moved there shortly after the store opened.^[2]

The founders of Old Wives Tales, a feminist bookstore in San Francisco, were former members of the collective at A Woman's Place.^[3][5]

In 1982, the bookstore stocked 10,000 different books.^[4]

In 1982, a disagreement within the collective involving racism as well as lesbianism versus feminism with acceptance of male allies^[3] culminated in two^[7]: 599 or three^[2][3] older and white members locking out the others from the bookstore, leading to arbitration. The four members who were locked out (Darlene Pagano, Elizabeth Summers, Jesse Meredith, and Keiko Kubo) described themselves as "one Italian, one Jewish, one Black, one Asian".^[7]: 599 The store later reopened under new management, and in 1983 an arbitration agreement was reached in 1983 that involved the incorporation of the bookstore.^[2]

A Woman's Place closed in 1989.^[3]

References

1. Hogan, Kristen (2016). The Feminist Bookstore Movement: Lesbian Antiracism and Feminist Accountability. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-6110-7.
2. "A Woman's Place Bookstore records". oac.cdlib.org. Retrieved August 2, 2022. An opening date of January 18, 1972, is given here.
3. Stiefel, Emma (July 5, 2022) [June 25, 2022]. "A San Francisco feminist bookstore wanted to 'take over the world.' Its closure still holds lessons for today". San Francisco Chronicle.
4. Friedman, Mickey (28 Jun 1982). "The ups and downs of the feminist literary community". The San Francisco Examiner. p. 45. Retrieved 13 March 2021 – via newspapers.com.
5. Boucher, Sandy (12 March 1978). "A Gathering Of Women's Voices". The San Francisco Examiner. pp. 26–33. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
6. Roberto, Patricia (3 October 1979). "Bookstore caters to feminists". Escondido Times-Advocate. p. B-3. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
7. Hogan, Kristen (2008-03-01). "Women's Studies in Feminist Bookstores: 'All the Women's Studies women would come in'". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 33 (3): 595–621. doi:10.1086/523707. ISSN 0097-9740. S2CID 144949497.

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