Women bookstore
A women's bookstore is a bookstore , mostly founded and run by feminists , that sells books to women . In the past, such bookstores were only allowed to be entered by women, as they were also considered safe rooms for women. Many shops are also open to men today.
history
The first women's bookstore in the wake of the second women's movement in Europe founded a feminist collective around the psychoanalyst Antoinette Fouque in Paris in 1974, the Librairie des Femmes . In Germany, the first women's bookstore, Lillemors Frauenbuchladen , opened in November 1975 in Munich . Two weeks later, the women's bookstore Labrys opened in West Berlin, followed by Lilith in 1976 . In the years that followed, women's bookshops opened in almost all major West German cities. The founding of women's bookshops, like other women's projects, was part of the strategies of the autonomous women's movement at the beginning of the 1970s. The focus was on self-awareness, intellectual self-understanding and emancipation from patriarchal structures. Women as a social group discovered themselves and other women as subjects of the discussion, related to each other and wanted to get to know the history and experiences of women. Like left bookstores, the women's bookstores also had a networking function for those who belonged to the movement or were interested in its topics, and they became places of discussion and education. With cultural projects such as bookshops, women's publishers (such as the women's offensive , the Orlanda Verlag , the Ulrike Helmer Verlag , the Weismann Verlag-Frauenbuchverlag founded by Antje Kunstmann ), women's centers and feminist women's and lesbian magazines, women created forums for discussion and networking.
With women's bookshops, initially run by collectives, jobs outside of the established structures were created in this way. Until then, feminist and lesbian literature from the new women's book and small publishers was hardly represented in the usual range of bookshops. The managers of the women's bookstores wanted to support these branches of literature.
On December 1, 1990, the first and only women's bookstore Tian in the east opened in Leipzig . Men were also allowed to use the shop, but not the adjoining cafe, which was intended exclusively for women. The range was traditionally that of a women's bookstore, but became wider over time in order to remain competitive. The store existed until 2010.
But the concentration on a women-specific offer has not been sufficient since the 1990s, many shops had to close. There are many reasons for this: areas for “women's literature” have also been set up in the established book trade. Since the beginning of 2000, like the book trade as a whole, the fast internet trade has made it difficult for women’s bookshops to survive. On the other hand, fewer and fewer women felt attached to the idea of “women's bookstores”, so that the shops didn't have customers. It is possible that some bookstores could not or did not want to adapt their concept to the changes, because - according to an editor at Orlanda Verlag (originally a purely women’s publisher) - the range should also be broadened.
In March 2013 Fembooks opened, the first internet bookstore for feminist and emancipatory literature. On the one hand, this was intended to accommodate the new digital consumption habits of younger and older customers. On the other hand, it also contains a conceptual further development of the idea of a “women's bookstore” into an offer with a feminist focus, which continues to focus on women as readers, but would like to consciously address men and other people interested in gender issues.
range
The range of women's bookshops includes non-fiction, fiction and scientific works, mostly by women authors and feminist magazines. The main topics are feminist and gender theories on gender issues , biographies , lesbians , women's history , women in the world of work, girls, psychology , health, healing , spirituality , sexuality, sexual violence, racism , National Socialism and the international women's movement. In most women's bookshops, however, all other available books can be ordered. Often non-books such as CDs, stickers, badges, postcards and jewelry are also offered.
Web links
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ FrauenMediaTurm, Chronicle of the New Women's Movement 1975 ( Memento of the original from January 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Barbara Holland-Cunz : The old new women's movement , Edition Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. Main 2003, ISBN 3-518-12335-1 , p. 145
- ↑ Uwe Sonnenberg: Agitation and Enlightenment - On the history of left bookshops after »1968« . In: Bois, M./Hüttner, B. (ed.): Contributions to the history of a pluralist left, H.2. Theories and Movements after 1969, Berlin, pp. 16-19
- ^ Nave-Herz, Rosemarie (1997): The history of the women's movement in Germany. Bonn, 5th edition, p. 65, online version (PDF; 825 kB)
- ↑ Börsenblatt November 2011: NRW loses its last women's bookstore
- ↑ Women's literature : Women's bookstore? Nothing. Tagesspiegel June 23, 2001
- ↑ FEMBooks - Internet bookstore for feminist and emancipatory literature , girls team, September 15, 2013
