Michigan Womyn's Music Festival

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The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, often referred to as "Michigan" or "MWMF" or "Michfest", is an international feminist music festival occurring every year in August near Hart, Michigan.

1 Creation and purpose
2 Functioning, activities and services
3 Production and performances
4 "Womyn Born Womyn" policy and debate over Trans inclusion
5 List of past performers
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Creation and purpose

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As a response to misogyny, sexism and homophobia,^{[citation needed]} MWMF was created in 1976 by 19-year-old Lisa Vogel, her sister Kristie, and Mary Kindig, the We Want the Music Collective. All three were working-class women from Michigan who had seen female musicians and stagehands demeaned and repeatedly harassed at festivals and venues run by men.

MWMF created (and continues to create) a feminist alternative, and a niche for lesbians in the music scene. It continues to create an annual place for living out lesbian feminist politics. Many queer women feel safe and "at home" at Michigan, with the result that lesbian-identified women are among the 3,000-10,000 women who attend each year.

Initially run on a smaller parcel of land, in the early 1980s, through donations and fundraisers as well as proceeds from former festivals, the collective purchased 650 acres (2.6 km²) of woodland in Hart, Michigan, and permanently preserved festival lands for women to gather. This land is now affectionately referred to by attendees and workers alike as "The Land".

In the mid-1980s, Vogel was joined by Barbara "Boo" Price, a producer in the Bay Area, as a co-producer. Price's last festival as a producer was in 1994.

[edit] Functioning, activities and services

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The festival is completely built, staffed, and run by women; indeed, women build all of the stages, run the light and sound systems, make the trash collection rounds, serve as electricians, mechanics, security, medical and psychological support, cook meals for 4,000 over open fire pits, provide childcare, and facilitate workshops covering various topics of interest to the attendees, who are referred to as "festies".

Community decisions are made through worker community meetings where the youngest members of the community are given as much access to participate as the oldest.^{[citation needed]}

Three vegetarian meals are served daily to festies and festival workers, which is included for all ticket-holders. Ice is made available for purchase on-site for coolers. There are no buildings on the land, so sanitation is provided through an outdoor dishwashing area, cold water taps, outdoor heated showers, as well as 'porta-janes'.

The festival takes great care to provide healing space for various communities; accordingly, there is "Womyn of Color"-only space, as well as separate spaces for girls and teens. No males over the age of four are allowed on the land although a satellite boys camp welcomes boys through age 11.

Accessibility for women with physical disabilities is provided through some larger-sized 'porta-janes', designated camping and seating areas, and on-site transportation. Electricity is provided to attendees for essential medical equipment by advance arrangement. A volunteer network of ASL interpretation for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (HoH) provides signed interpretation at all main stages as well as outdoor films and many workshops. Childcare, health care, and 12-Step Program support are available to all at no cost.

In addition to ample "general camping" areas, specialized categories of camping areas include "Chem-Free," "Scent-Free", the (unofficial) "Solo Collective" for those attending MichFest on their own, "Over-50s", families with young children, "DART" camping (Disabled Access Resource Team), and an area for deaf and hard-of-hearing festies to camp together, should they wish. There is also dedicated space for "Loud and Rowdy" adult campers and late-night revellers, called the Twilight Zone.

Artists and Craftswomen are an integral part of the MWMF experience, and have provide original, visual expressions of women's culture since the festival began. These artists provide an essential means by which women recognize each other and connect, throughout the year.

Besides the concerts, spoken word performances and comedy, there are also workshops, campfires, sports, movies under the stars, on-site parades, a crafts market, a music store, open-mike performances, drum gatherings, dances, sweat lodges, and other activities to promote healing and well-being. A community-made quilt, vocal choir, and hand-drum orchestra are also assembled throughout the week.

[edit] Production and performances

The festival creates a high tech production in an extremely rural outdoor venue. Built over a month-long period by a volunteer workforce, the festival land starts completely in its natural ecological state. After the week-long festivities, the workers tear down the entire operation and completely remove all non-organic materials from the land. The equipment is then stored in a variety of local barns and warehouses to be used the following year. By the time the last woman leaves the land, nothing remains to bear witness of the event; even the electrical boxes that power the festival are buried at each festival's end.^[1]

Three stages feature an eclectic selection of women musicians. Tracy Chapman began her career playing to the festival audience and many singer-songwriters before and since then have built loyal followings across the USA and beyond because of their connection with the festival.^{[citation needed]} The festival has absolutely no corporate sponsorship, with each year's festival paying for the next.

[edit] "Womyn Born Womyn" policy and debate over Trans inclusion

[edit] History

Since its inception, "the Michigan Festival...always has been an event for women, and this continues to be defined as womyn born womyn" (Lisa Vogel & Barbara Price). This policy has gained notoriety for the festival, as it officially requests that the attendees be "womyn-born-womyn" (WBW) only. That is, those who were born and raised as girls, and currently identify as women. MWMF is one of only a few women's festivals with a WBW policy.

In 1991 Nancy Burkholder, who had attended the festival the year before without incident, was expelled from MWMF when she disclosed her transsexual status to festival workers who, in turn, informed the festival office. Burkholder was asked to leave the festival and received a full refund of her ticket. Festival organizers continued to advocate their support of the women-born-women policy even as criticism from some segments of the queer community mounted in response to Burkholder's departure.

[edit] Support

Supporters of the policy believe that the particularity of WBW experience (separate and apart from a woman's experience) comes from being born and raised in a female body, and see the festival as a celebration of that experience, under the oppression of patriarchy. Many attendees and workers remark on feelings of liberation they experienced while within the WBW-only environment of the festival: from a feeling of safety at being able to walk in the dark without fear, to a deep and sometimes virgin acceptance of their bodies. Supporters of the policy feel that the experience of being WBW in a place that honors the bodies, brains and brawn of WBW (regardless of how they "fit" into mainstream culture), and rescripts the limiting experiences available for women and girls, is vital to unlearning a lifetime of internalized misogyny for both attendees and festival volunteers.

The festival has stated that it does not and will not perform "panty checks." Rather, it states that women must "self-monitor", and attend only if they can honestly state that they were born as a girl, lived as a girl, and presently identify as a woman.

[edit] Criticism

Opponents of the policy believe that WBW is a questionable category created solely to legitimize discrimination against transsexual and transgender women. They point out that very little of the festival's content and language about itself centers around specific experiences of being "born and raised", but rather focuses on the idea that the festival is by and for "all women". Opponents argue for a less deterministic understanding of gender, insisting that "women's space is for all self-identified women," regardless of whether one was assigned female or male at birth. Trans rights activists claim that the festival's policy exerts cissexual privilege and that it establishes and promotes an atmosphere of oppression and discrimination by allowing some women in but not other women. Opponents view the policy as transphobic. Since the 1991 incident involving Burkholder, an active protest movement has sprung up around the festival. Opposition has included performers criticizing the policy from the stage, boycotts of performers who have played at the festival and not taken anti-policy stances, attendees wearing yellow armbands to signal their opposition, and Camp Trans, an annual protest camp that takes place near the site of the MWMF.

In 1999, the then organizer of Camp Trans, Riki Wilchins, led an on-land protest of the WBW policy called "Son of Camp Trans." Wilchins called a highly charged community meeting regarding the policy. Wilchins invited several people along the gender continuum to the land during the protest as a means of physically challenging the policy. One invitee, Tony Baretto-Neto, a post-operative transman, infamously took a nude shower on the Land. Baretto-Neto would later argue that he deserved to attend Michfest because he had "paid his dues" as a lesbian.^[2]

Although Camp Trans now has different leadership, it continues to advocate for the end of the WBW policy and inclusion of all "self-identified" women at MWMF. Some of the musicians who have played at MWMF have spoken out in support of removing the WBW policy, and visited Camp Trans to play in that space in solidarity. Others, like Melissa Ferrick and Lesbians on Ecstasy, have, after years of refusing to attend, reconsidered their anti-policy stance and returned to the festival as performers in 2007.^[3]

[edit] The Current Status of the Womyn-Born-Womyn Policy

In 2006, an out transwoman named Lorraine was sold a ticket at the box office. Following a press release from Camp Trans stating that the womyn-born-womyn policy was no longer in effect, Lisa Vogel reaffirmed her support of and the festival's adherence to the policy ^[4]. Even in light of Vogel's statement that the policy is still in effect and requests that it be respected, Camp Trans continues to maintain that the policy is no longer in effect. In 2007, Lorraine returned to the festival and camped there without incident.

[edit] List of past performers

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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