Fostering a Feminist Counterculture: Women's Space, Technology, and Ecology, 1970s-1990s

In the women’s land movement, lesbians and other feminists created women-only spaces where they imagined and invented a different culture to align with feminist values. In doing so, they challenged mainstream patriarchal values and capitalist society by stepping outside of it, largely because they did not believe reform from within could be successful. Their comprehensive cultural and political vision called for a non-sexist, non-violent, inclusive sisterhood that was ecologically and economically sustainable. Women’s land and women-only spaces took many forms, encompassing time-limited festivals, permanent multi-home communities, as well as large rural wilderness tracts.  One of the most engaging aspects of their effort to create feminist space occurred at the intersection of technology and the environment.

In their effort to create sustainable communities with light ecological footprints, women landers found creative architectural, waste disposal, and agricultural solutions.  Some made use of existing infrastructure and construction, while others started from scratch with unscathed landscapes. At times individuals with well-developed technical and environmental knowledge moved forward largely on their own, but in other cases, communities fostered new tools to exchange and share knowledge among large groups of women. Using oral histories, published and unpublished biographies, as well as newsletters, books, and leaflets published by participants, this paper explores the philosophy and approach of feminists involved in the women’s land or space movement of the late twentieth century. In doing so, it considers women’s contributions to countercultural discourse and activism particularly as it relates to the intersection of technology and the environment.