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