Political Experimentation and Community Building

In their heyday of the 1970s and 1980s, there were more than 200 - possibly more than 400 - feminist restaurants and coffee shops in the USA and Canada. These places were aiming to change ways of working, and upend the hierarchies of restaurants; to provide food that was ethically sourced and affordable to customers, while providing staff with a decent wage; to signal to particular kinds of people that a space was specifically for them. They didn't always succeed, and often they didn't last for more than a couple of years. But they sure did try things. Dr Alex Ketchum, author of Ingredients for Revolution, a History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses, explains the ups and downs of how these places used words.

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This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. The music is by Martin Austwick. Download his own songs at palebirdmusic.com and on Bandcamp, and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.

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