Living feminist: the liberation and limits of countercultural business and radical lesbian ethics at Bloodroot Restaurant

Abstract

In 1977, Selma Miriam, Betsey Beaven, and Samn Stockwell formed a collective and opened Bloodroot restaurant and bookstore in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Pat Shea and Noel Furie (then Giordano) joined shortly after. The Bloodroot Collective strove to embody its radical lesbian ethics in every facet of the business from its vegetarian menu to its self-service rule. Like the women’s movement as a whole, the Collective’s feminism, and its enterprise, was conditioned by its members’ white middle class identities. Despite these limitations, Bloodroot restaurant survives as a pro-woman space providing connective tissue between one part of feminism’s past and the present.