Where the L are the Women? with Leslie Cohen and Rachel Wand

Women's eNews

Influenced by the second wave of feminism and the gay rights movement, Leslie Cohen and three others were inspired to open Sahara, a groundbreaking, elegant, woman’s night club in New York City. The Sahara was a groundswell of change and the first bar in New York City owned and operated by women for women. Sahara represented a milestone along the arduous and ongoing road to gay and lesbian liberation, a turning point from a negative perception and discrimination to the beginning of acceptance and inclusion. Leslie Cohen is the author of the memoir The Audacity of a Kiss (Rutgers University Press 2021). She received a Master’s degree in Art History and worked at Artforum magazine and asa curator of the New York Cultural Center in Manhattan.

What you will hear

• The significance of Sahara and its importance to lesbians and feminists
• The challenges women faced to acquire credit for gay women clubs
• The fundraising events at Sahara
• Why women lost the ability to inspire change and push for continued feminist rights.
• How Sahara existence helped assimilate the wave of feminist concepts against lesbians
• The impact of her fathers absence and her mothers resilience
• Breaking through your personal glass wall
• Leslie and Beth love story
• The 1979 gay liberation public arts culture

Quotes

“Women’s experiences are not as valued as men.”

“There is nothing like going to a bar where there are all women.”

“Eventually it comes around, it just has to take time.”

“There is a lot of women who think their lives come to an end when realize they are gay. That is not the way it is. There is a lot of joy in being gay.”

Mentioned

Sahara Nightclub

The Audacity of a Kiss

1977 National women’s conferance