Lesbian Nation.(Lamar Van Dyke)

There was a time, briefly, when women ruled the world. Well, their world, anyway. In the late nineteen-seventies, several thousand women in North America decided not to concern themselves with equal pay for equal work, or getting their husbands to do the dishes, or convincing their boyfriends that there was such a thing as a clitoris. Why capitulate, why compromise, when you could separate, live in a world of your own invention? On the fringes, utopian separatists have been part of the American story since at least the early eighteenth century--the Shakers, in New England; the millennial Rappites, in Pennsylvania; the Oneida Perfectionists, in upstate New York--and these women decided to turn away from a world in which female inferiority was enforced by culture and law. Better to establish their own farms and towns, better to live only among women. This required dispensing with heterosexuality, but many of these women were gay, and, for the rest, it seemed like a reasonable price to pay for real independence.

The lesbian separatists of a generation ago created a shadow society devoted to living in an alternate, penisless reality. There were many factions: the Gutter Dykes, in Berkeley; the Gorgons, in Seattle; several hundred Radicalesbians, in New York City, along with the smaller CLIT Collective; the Furies, in Washington, D.C.; and the Separatists Enraged Proud and Strong (SEPS), in San Francisco. There were outposts of Women's Land all over the United States and Canada--places owned by women where all women, and only women, were welcome. "Only women on the land" was the catchphrase used by separatists to indicate that men, even male children, were banned from Women's Land (and they often spelled it "wimmin" or "womyn," in an attempt to keep men out of their words as well as their worlds). Separatists were aiming for complete autonomy, and to that end there were separatist food co-ops--such as the memorably named New York Lesbian Food Conspiracy--separatist publishing houses, and separatist credit unions. "We will soon be able to integrate the pieces of our lives and stop this schizophrenic existence of a straight job by day and radical political work at night," Nancy Groschwitz wrote in a 1979 treatise called "Practical Economics for a Women's Community." Perhaps the most successful separatist venture was the women's-music-festival circuit, with its offshoot, Olivia Records, started in 1973. (Since the early nineteen-nineties, Olivia has concentrated on the lesbian cruise and resort business.)

"The template for this idea of separatism is black separatism," Todd Gitlin, a sociology professor at Columbia University and the author of "The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage," said. "The coverage of the Nation of Islam gained enormous traction with Malcolm X. Via him, separatism was in the air. Run a few years ahead and more people were estranged from normalcy––and normalcy was looking crazier because of the Vietnam War. The appeal of separatism is compounded. You have all kinds of versions of this; various forms of unplugging."

There is no reliable record of how many women were calling themselves lesbian separatists at the height of the movement. "I think it's quite impossible to say, other than thousands," Lillian Faderman, the author of six books on lesbian history, said. Different groups had different definitions of separatism, ranging from a refusal to associate with men to a refusal to associate with straight women to a refusal to associate with gay women who weren't separatists.

The most colorful separatists, although they were neither the most influential nor the most ideologically stalwart, were the Van Dykes, a roving band of van-driving vegans who shaved their heads, avoided speaking to men unless they were waiters or mechanics, and lived on the highways of North America for several years, stopping only on Women's Land. The Van Dykes had determined that the world was suffering from "testosterone poisoning," and they were on a quest: to locate dyke heaven.

They were kind of serious about this, but they were kind of kidding. Or they were completely serious, but they knew it was funny. (They were radical but silly.) When the founding Van Dykes, Heather Elizabeth and Ange Spaulding, first hit the road, in 1977, they wrote a recruitment song to the tune of "Mr. Sandman":

Would-be Van Dykes, bring us your dreams, make them the clearest that they've ever, been, give us a sign, like nickels and dollars, and tell us that it's just a matter of hours, till we find our, land in the sun, with killer dykes there, all having real fun, plantin' grains and hoeing beans, please turn on and cook up some schemes!