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Making Our Own Kind of Music: The History and Legacy of the Women’s Music Movement

1977 Michigan Women's Music Festival Red Flyer

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Contents of this tag:
1. 1977 Michigan Women’s Music Festival Map
2. Cover of "The Women's Festival Calendar for 1978" with Moon and Sun Signs
3. A Traveling Festival of Women's Music and Poetry Flyer Flyer for A Traveling Festival of Women's Music and Poetry presented by Olivia Records, Minerva Productions, and lesbian and feminist organizations including the Lesbian Mothers' National Defense Fundd, Women on Wheels, and Music Inside/Out. The festival featured well known performers including Linda 'Tui' Tillery, Alberta Jackson, Colleen Stewart, Vicki Randle, Mary Watkins, Teresa Trull, Meg Christian and Black lesbian poet Pat Parker. The photographers for each of their photos are also shown, including Z Wong for 5 performers.

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Festivals Festival culture was particularly significant to the Women’s Music Movement because it allowed marginalized lesbians and feminists to build empowering spaces. Mainstream commentators associated women’s music with lesbian identity, although not all listeners were lesbians. Yet, this perception created significant obstacles to the genre’s success. Performers struggled to find venues, because while movement participants argued women-only concerts created safe spaces, mainstream venues claimed this practice was discriminatory. As a result, the movement built do-it-yourself music festivals which became an integral part of its legacy.

Women’s music festivals became spaces where women, particularly closeted lesbians, could be themselves and meet their peers. The 1974 National Women’s Music Festival was open to men, but largely lesbian, and was the first festival to be covered by mainstream press, from Rolling Stone to Ms. magazine.

Festivals were a safe haven where women could celebrate the music, their womanhood, and their feelings. Sharon Washington of the Washington Sisters argued that the purpose of these festivals and this movement was not to “get rich,” but rather “the connection with women’s energy is what drew us to this industry and continues to fuel us emotionally.” International artists like Canadian singer songwriter Lucie Blue Tremblay debuted in the United States at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival and other events. Her 1986 hit So Lucky was released on Olivia Records.¹

They were also spaces of incredible diversity, where women of numerous racial and ethnic backgrounds, generations, and abilities congregated to play and listen to music. Festivals broke down barriers between women and often radicalized them. These spaces engendered consciousness raising, learning, and even intersectional feminist organizing.²

The festivals were also groundbreaking in setting the standard for accessibility and inclusion. Music festival founders Lisa and Kristy Vogel “didn’t want to exclude any women” and invented the sliding scale for ticket purchases, ensured the inclusion of American Sign Language translators accompanying performers, and provided camping accommodations for the elderly and wheelchair users. They also provided childcare services, culture booths like Shabbat dinners and Women of Color tents, and health care services. ³

However, festivals also faced numerous physical and financial challenges. Landowners often refused to lend their land to festival organizers, citing discrimination against men. Organizers established groups of women sentinels to guard festival perimeters against homophobic and misogynistic local citizens and police..⁴ Festivals are also inherently costly, and women like Robin Tyler singularly invested their entire life savings into festivals, usually barely breaking even or even going into debt despite the event's popularity and recognition by San Francisco's city government.

Despite these obstacles, the determined movement built a prolific legacy of (largely) lesbian festival culture. Festivals were central to the ongoing and enduring success of women’s music. The Midwest Wimmin’s Festival in the Ozarks of Missouri, born in 1975, is still ongoing, and the movement's most famous festival, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, lasted from 1975 to 2015. By 1987, the resource directory Women’s Music Plus listed over 100 venues and producers and 14 women’s music festivals.⁵

[1] Jamie Anderson, An Army of Lovers (Bella Books, 2019). 133. Dresden-Rader, George (1 August 2006), "Lucie Blue Tremblay and the Breast Exam Project", Santa Fe Arts and Culture Magazine,
[2] Bonnie Morris, “Olivia Records: The Production of a Movement,” Journal of Lesbian Studies 19, no. 3 (2015): 302.
[3] Dee Mosbacher, Radical Harmonies, Documentary, 2002; Jamie Anderson, An Army of Lovers (Bella Books, 2019). 116.
[4] Anderson, 122.
[5] Anderson, 85.