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- Title
In/visibility, resistance, autonomy: Creating a lesbian bar community in Tampere.
- Authors
Juvonen, Tuula
- Abstract
In this chapter the author follows the creation of a local lesbian bar community through three different bars in Tampere, Finland, from the 1970s to the 1990s. In the analysis of these heterotopias, the notions of increasing lesbian visibility, exercising resistance, and gaining autonomous control demarcate the stages of its development. In 1970s bar culture the lesbians and gays who partied together provided each other with a useful cover, as at that time remaining in the closet was still advisable. In the 1980s the lesbians put more effort into becoming visible to each other, which also helped them to find each other. Although the meetups of lesbians in a bar drew some heterosexist attention, lesbian and gay solidarity helped them to withstand the harassment. It was nevertheless a relief for the lesbians to move into a lesbian bar in the 1990s. It turned out, however, that the coming together was also the beginning of the falling apart of the lesbian bar community, as the lessening external pressures coincided with increasing internal differences. Following these stages makes evident how a local bar community is always a contextual and fragile construction.
- Subjects
TAMPERE (Finland); LESBIAN bars; HETEROSEXISM; HARASSMENT; COMMUNITY attitudes
- Publication
Publications from the Norwegian Institute of Local History / Skrifter fra Norsk Lokalhistorisk Institutt ved Nasjonalbiblioteket, 2022, p427
- ISSN
0802-720X
- Publication type
Article