Apparently, one of our community s unsolved mysteries is that we are our own worst enemies, and my conversations with friends and other lesbian business owners made it clear that The Amazonian is not the first enterprise to encounter powerful resistance from the Valley lesbian community. To help other lesbians who may be contemplating a business of their own, or who are puzzled by the community response to their existing businesses, I have tried to distill these theories into three major categories of dyke dysfunction. The advent of The Amazonian caused a minor uproar in some Sapphic circles, since the region already had its own lesbian newsletter, thankyouverymuch. Never mind that its mission, content, layout you name it was decidedly, deliberately different. Reminded me of a story told by former New York Times columnist Anna Quinlan, who said her earliest columns were often turned away by big city newspaper editors with a similar rationale.
Dykes are cheap.
When Hilary and I began talking in earnest to Valley lesbians about starting up The Amazonian , more than one asked if we planned to be a non-profit organization. That should have been our first clue. On the contrary, we started the paper with every intention of someday turning a profit. One of our earliest frustrations was the number of lesbians who expected The Amazonian to be free like The Valley Advocate and The Women s Times, which swim with advertising . Since we didn t start the paper to spend our free time chasing down hordes of P.C. advertisers, we were sunk.