Functioning, Activities and Services
Attendance at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival ranges from 3000 to 10,000.
Women build all of the stages, run the lighting and sound systems, make the trash collection rounds, serve as electricians, mechanics, security, medical and psychological support, cook meals for thousands over open fire pits, provide childcare, and facilitate workshops covering various topics of interest to the attendees, who are referred to as "festies". Hundreds of women spend upwards of a month out on the land building the festival from the ground up because every year the festival is torn down, leaving the land as close to how it was found as possible.
Community decisions are made through worker community meetings where the youngest members of the community are given as much access to participate as the oldest. While men are not allowed at the festival, male children age 4 and under are allowed within the festival. Childcare for girls and boys aged 5 and under is provided by Sprouts, and for 5 and over girls the main venue is "Gaia Girls". There is also a teen tent. Brother Sun Boys Camp is available for boys aged 5 to 10.
Three vegetarian meals are served daily to attendees and festival workers, which is included for all ticket holders. There are also alternative venues for food, which sell pizza, pretzels, calzones, coffee, doughnuts, etc. Ice is made available for purchase on-site for coolers. There are no buildings on the land, so sanitation is provided through two outdoor dishwashing areas, multiple cold water taps, four sets of outdoor heated shower facilities, as well as rented portable toilets nicknamed "porta-janes."
The festival takes great care to provide healing space for various communities; accordingly, there is a "Womyn of Color"-only space and a "Jewish Womyn's Tent", as well as separate spaces for girls and teens. In addition to ample "general camping" areas, specialized categories of camping areas include "Chem-Free," "Scent-Free", "Over-50s", families with young children, "DART" camping (Disabled Access Resource Team), and an area for deaf and hard-of-hearing attendees to camp together, should they wish. There is also dedicated space for "Loud and Rowdy" adult campers and late-night revellers, called "The Twilight Zone." (These policies are explained in the festival program made available to each festiegoer after she has signed up for her work shift upon arrival.)
Artists and craftswomen are an integral part of the MWMF experience, and have provided original, visual expressions of women's culture since the festival began.
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“Minds do not act together in public; they simply stick together; and when their private activities are resumed, they fly apart again.”
—Frank Moore Colby (1865–1925)
“Men will say that in supporting their wives, in furnishing them with houses and food and clothes, they are giving the women as much money as they could ever hope to earn by any other profession. I grant it; but between the independent wage-earner and the one who is given his keep for his services is the difference between the free-born and the chattel.”
—Elizabeth M. Gilmer (1861–1951)