Lesbians and Economics and Physical Locations

This from the San Francisco Chronicle.

The cease of the publication of Girlfriends and On Our Backs has been on my mind as I think about Queer Culture. However, our culture is not tied exclusively to economic capacity as this article - and much of contemporary culture seems to suggest.

Nonetheless this article raises interesting issues.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/07/BAG7FL0HUI1.DTL&type=printable

BAY AREA
Marketplace finds lesbians an attractive, but elusive, niche
Still, target group seems ripe for growth
- Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, September 7, 2006

The list of hubs of gay male culture is familiar: the Castro in San Francisco, Chelsea and Fire Island in New York, and West Hollywood and Palm Springs in Southern California, among others.
Those places have high concentrations of both gay men and businesses that cater to them.
For lesbians, no equally high-profile neighborhoods exist, and the businesses that do are disappearing.
In Alameda County, where Oakland has more lesbian couples per capita than any other major city in the United States, two bookstores that catered to women and lesbians have shut their doors in the past few years. This spring, two lesbian magazines headquartered in San Francisco ceased publication; the final sale of their assets was announced last week. There are only two bars in the city that cater to lesbian clientele.
"In the 1970s and '80s, there were seven active women's bars in the city; that's what we used for socializing," said Maureen McEvoy, a board member of the Golden Gate Business Association, the Bay Area's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender chamber of commerce.
"Ultimately what happened was we couldn't support them financially, and one by one they went out of business," said McEvoy. Speaking of her organization's 480 member businesses, she said, "A lot are certainly lesbian-owned, but they just can't afford to be that exclusive."
Women who lead the country's major lesbian-focused businesses believe the national market is ripe for major growth, although the demographics of the lesbian community may preclude establishing neighborhoods like the Castro, where bars, clothing stores, furniture stores, restaurants and a host of other shops cater to gay men. Lesbian couples tend to make less money than gay couples, they are more than four times more likely to have children, and they are more geographically dispersed, according to U.S. Census and marketing agency data.
More than their gay male counterparts, lesbians tend to live outside metropolitan areas, according to Gary Gates, a UCLA researcher who authored "The Gay and Lesbian Atlas," a report on gay and lesbian couples nationwide based on the 2000 census. Lesbians don't tend to cluster -- either in urban neighborhoods or in suburban and rural areas -- as gay men do.
Still, if there is a core to the nation's lesbian business and social community, it remains in San Francisco. The annual fundraising dinner for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, headquartered here, drew 2,800 people and is offhandedly called the "lesbian prom." It generated nearly $800,000 this year.
That kind of money -- the combined buying power of gay and lesbian consumers is estimated at $641 billion this year -- is beginning to attract marketers to the lesbian niche.
"The lesbian community is probably where the gay male community was 10 years ago. Companies are just getting an idea now about the marketplace," said Frances Stevens, founder and publisher of Curve magazine, the sole remaining lesbian magazine in San Francisco, which circulates to 230,000 people each month.
Stevens' staff often offers advice to companies that place advertisements in the magazine that they think are lesbian-friendly, but instead show images of male couples.
"Is that the 'LGBT market' or just the 'G' market? Advertisers need to learn that it's not a cohesive market, just like anything else," she said.
The business that has most successfully captured, defined and profited from the lesbian market is Olivia, the San Francisco travel company that started 33 years ago as a record label for women. The company began chartering cruises in 1990, and its revenues have quadrupled over the past four years as it has expanded to offer more cruises and other vacations, said Amy Errett, chief executive officer at Olivia. The company is planning another major expansion next year, including a magazine and an enhanced Web site.
"Olivia will be the gateway to offer everything women need to be a visible lesbian in any way they choose," Errett said.
The expansion will come after three decades of slow growth in a hard-to-reach market that requires diligence and patience, she said. The market can be hard to measure, too, with census data only tracking couples. Nobody knows for sure the actual number of lesbians or gay men in the country.
Judy Dlugacz, Olivia's president and founder, said the company brought together -- through music and travel -- women who otherwise might never have met.
"We helped create the community, and the community helped create the company," Dlugacz said.
Unique aspects of that community, however, have played a part in the decline in lesbian-specific businesses.
Lesbians are more likely to have children than gay men -- 32 percent of lesbians are parents, compared with 7 percent of gay men, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau, which conducts an annual survey of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender consumers.
Part of the issue may be that they're spending their limited funds on housing for their families. For Olivia's customers, according to company research, home ownership is a high priority. The average California lesbian couple's household income is $65,000, compared to $73,600 for gay men, according to census data. So lesbians are more likely to need to leave high-cost urban areas to find affordable housing.
Another factor in business decline is that bookstores and cafes that catered to lesbians often had strong ties to feminism, which has been less visible since the 1970s and '80s. Mama Bears bookstore on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland closed in 2003.
On Our Backs, a lesbian sex magazine that premiered in 1984, was a response to the "sex wars" that dominated lesbian feminist politics during that era, when prominent lesbians argued that pornography was a social evil.
On Our Backs ceased publication this spring, along with the magazine Girlfriends. The magazines were sold to an online company that plans to move them to the Web, but has yet to do so.
"I always felt like I was a small fish with another medium-size fish in a very small pond," said Heather Findlay, whose publishing company sold the magazines.
Sociologically, a complication in targeting lesbians lies in how women identify their sexuality and thus determine what community they belong to. Surveys consistently show more women identifying as bisexual than as lesbian, according to UCLA's Gates. Others reject any label, defining themselves foremost as women.
"I think the word 'lesbian' itself is problematic. It's an old word loaded up with baggage from the '70s," said Betty Sullivan, whose Betty's List Web site is a resource for gay and lesbian events in the city. She said she prefers the label "women" to the "L" word.
The Dyke March, which usually draws tens of thousands of participants during Gay Pride Week, also avoids the lesbian label.
Several women who do identify as lesbians say they see a need for more businesses that target their specific needs.
"I think of myself as someone interested in fashion, but I don't feel like anyone is making clothes in my style," said Elizabeth Falkner, executive chef and owner of Citizen Cake restaurant in San Francisco. "I'm not going out and buying Fendi shoes, I'm not buying floral-print dresses and I'm not going to dress like a guy."
San Francisco has two remaining bars for lesbians -- Wild Side West in Bernal Heights and the Lexington in the Mission District -- and some venues host special nights for lesbians. But in this gay and lesbian mecca, where gay men fill bars every night of the week, women are aware of their lack of options.
"Friends call when they have visitors and ask where they should go at night," said Sherri Franklin, who lives on Potrero Hill and shared a drink with her partner at Wild Side West recently. "I always have to stop and think, well, which night is it?"

E-mail Wyatt Buchanan at wbuchanan@sfchronicle.com.

Lesbian-oriented businesses face challenges

-- Same-Sex Couples*

Lesbian couples are almost as numerous as gay couples but
are more dispersed through California and have lower incomes.

In San Francisco

Lesbian: 2,353
Gay: 8,902

In The Bay Area

Lesbian: 12,406
Gay: 15,002

In California

Lesbian: 42,524
Gay: 49,614

* - The most reliable data on lesbian and gay people counts couples, not individuals.

-- Same-sex couples as a percentage of California unmarried-partner households

Lesbians: 6%
Gay men: 7%

-- Percentage of couples that have children

Lesbian couples: 32%
Gay couples: 7%


-- Median income

California

Gay couples: $65,000
Lesbian couples: $54,970

U.S.

Gay couples:$73,600
Lesbian couples: $61,030


Sources: Data from 2000 U.S. Census, except proportion of couples
with children, which is from Simmons Market Research Bureau.


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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/07/BAG7FL0HUI1.DTL