Yay! Women's bookstores are closing.....

These purveyors of male-hatred are closing...that's just plain good news...

Nearly two decades after almost being destroyed in a firebombing, the Toronto Women's Bookstore is once again fighting for its survival.

Earlier this week, the 36-year-old bookseller issued a desperate plea to its patrons, revealing that financially it was "in crisis" and needed funds urgently to stay open.

It's a plea that's sure to resonate with the few remaining women's bookstores in Canada. The country once had upwards of a dozen such stores, but those numbers have shrunk drastically: according to women's rights website section15.ca, feminist bookstores in Calgary, Saskatoon, Hamilton, London, Ont., and Sudbury, Ont. have all closed their doors since 2004.

The Toronto Women's Bookstore recently tweeted that there were only 21 stores worldwide, down from 125 in 1994. But those in the women's movement say it's market forces - not a declining interest in feminism - that's bringing the stores ever closer to the final chapter.

"I think it's much more the difficulty of small independent bookstores surviving when Chapters controls 70 per cent of the market," said Judy Rebick, a well-known activist and writer who sat on the Toronto Women's Bookstore's board of directors in the 1990s.

Rebick can blame it on Chapters..but that's not the problem. First, the internet and Amazon have really hurt stores like this. Secondly, who needs a special store to get male-hatred. I believe more and more women are getting tired of the male-bashing...