Nancy Levine women's music record albums

Women's music—sometimes defined as music by women, for women, and about women—formed alongside the rise of second-wave feminism in the 1960s and 1970s. It often relates closely to the labor, civil rights, peace, and lesbian separatist movements of the period as well. With few women musicians being signed by mainstream music labels, the earliest women's music relied on sales via mail order, feminist bookstores, and in concert venues where the musicians played to primarily female audiences. In 1973 the country's first women's music festival was held and the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, which would grow to be the largest, began in 1976. In 1979, the first women's music label, Olivia Records, was formed by a lesbian collective from Washington, DC. Over time more women artists would be signed to major labels, but some continued (and continue) to produce and market their music through small, independent and often women-owned labels.