90:, a national women’s record company created to release music centered on women’s lives. Similar to The Furies, Olivia Records operated as a collective that created an alternative feminist economic institution for women in the music and music distribution industry. Olivia Records, along with Berson and Meg Christian, moved from Washington DC to Los Angeles in March 1975 and then to Oakland in 1977. Christian and Berson ended their relationship in 1976 which led Berson to transition from managing and touring with Christian to working with the record label’s distribution network and eventually leaving Olivia Records in 1980. Berson went on to write a book titled,
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radicalizing moment that solidified her as a political activist, driven by a longing for justice. After graduating from Mount
Holyoke, Berson spent two years in the Peace Corps in Panama, where she became fluent in Spanish, gained more experience in community organizing, had a first-hand look at US colonialism, and was certain she was a lesbian.
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From a young age, Berson recognized the professional limitations imposed on women during the mid-twentieth century. One of her childhood dreams was to play baseball in the Major
Leagues, however, this opportunity was denied to her because of her gender. She went on to play softball as a shortstop on
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Born in
Hartford, CT in 1946, Berson is the second of three daughters. Her parents were first generation Americans of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Her grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. The family moved to Fairfield, CT when Berson was in kindergarten and
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in 1967 with a degree in political science. During her time in college, she developed her writing skills and became active in the anti-Vietnam war movement, holding a vigil every week on the college’s campus. The combination of her political research and exposure to elite higher education was a
114:. As part of her work at Pacifica, she collected radio content by attending marches, conventions, concerts, and Nelson Mandela’s triumphal visit to Oakland after his release from prison. She later went on to become the Director of Federation Services for the
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in Panama, helped organize women’s softball games in
Washington DC, played second base for Terry’s Trumpeteers (a fast-pitch Class A lesbian bar softball league in Los Angeles), and played with the East Bay Blues and the Vampire Bats in Oakland, California.
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first as the
Director of Women’s Programming and then the Program Director. In the mid 1990’s, Berson worked as Senior Producer for Live National Events for
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is a radical lesbian feminist, political activist, and community organizer who lived and worked collectively as a lesbian separatist with The
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Schwing, Lee; Harris, Helaine; O'Flynn, Diane; Williams, Jay; Keegan; Berson, Ginny; Bunch, Charlotte (May 1, 1973).
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363:"Free for All Lesbians: Lesbian Cultural Production and Consumption in the United States during the 1970s"
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After serving in the Peace Corps, Berson returned to the US and moved to
Washington, DC. She found the
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Berson, Ginny; Christian, Meg; Dlugacz, Judy; Gair, Cyndi; Harris, Helaine (1974).
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After her work within Olivia
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opened a family run children’s clothing store called the Peter Pan shop.
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This Book Is an Action: Feminist Print
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Olivia on the Record: A Radical
Experiment in Women’s Music
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