Our Bodies, Ourselves

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Our Bodies, Ourselves
Ourbodiesourselves-1973.jpeg
first edition cover
AuthorBoston Women's Health Book Collective
LanguageEnglish
Published1973
PublisherSimon & Schuster
Publication place United States
Pages276
ISBN 0671214349

Our Bodies, Ourselves is a book about women's health and sexuality. Written by members of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, it was initially self-published in 1970 as a booklet called Women and Their Bodies: A Course. The first commercially published print edition came out in 1973 under the title Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women. The book, often referred to by the initials OBOS, was subsequently revised and expanded six times until the final print edition appeared in 2011.

Contents

The early editions were groundbreaking in the way they encouraged women to understand and celebrate their sexuality, with sections on reproductive rights, lesbianism, sexual independence, and masturbation. [1] The book offered frank talk on topics such as birth control, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum depression, venereal disease, menopause, and abortion. The emphasis in OBOS on women's engagement with their own sexual desires stood in contrast to traditional notions of women as "passive and docile" and men as "active and aggressive" in sexual relationships. [2] The expanded later editions also covered topics such as reproductive justice, violence against women, gender identity, and environmental health.

OBOS has been translated and adapted by women's groups around the world and is available in 34 languages. [3] Combined sales for all editions exceed four million copies. [4] The New York Times called it "America's best-selling book on all aspects of women's health" and a "feminist classic". [5] [6]

History

The women's health workshop that inspired OBOS was organized in spring of 1969 by Nancy Miriam Hawley. The workshop, titled "Women and Their Bodies", [7] was part of a female liberation conference held at Boston's Emmanuel College. [8] In a 2004 interview, Hawley recalled the state of women's health care at the time: "We weren't encouraged to ask questions, but to depend on the so-called experts. Not having a say in our own health care frustrated and angered us. We didn't have the information we needed, so we decided to find it on our own." [9]

The workshop attendees were a small group of college-educated women ranging in age from 23 to 39. [10] They shared stories about the health issues they faced, and their frustrating interactions with doctors. [11] In the months that followed, they met regularly and soon realized how little knowledge they had about their own anatomy. [12] They resolved to obtain the knowledge themselves. [13] The women, individually and in pairs, each took a topic to research and write about, for example, Wendy Sanford wrote about abortion, Jane Pincus and Ruth Bell about pregnancy, and Paula Doress and Esther Rome about postpartum depression. [9] [14] They read textbooks and medical journals; consulted with trusted medical authorities; and gradually assembled information in the form of course material. [15]

They mimeographed what they wrote and used it as the basis for informal classes in women's health taught in the Boston area. [16] The authors decided to consolidate their writeups into "an accessible format that could be shared and would serve as a model for women to learn about themselves, communicate their findings with doctors, and challenge the medical establishment to change and improve the care that women receive." [17] The result was a 75-cent, 193-page stapled booklet called Women and Their Bodies: A Course. [18] Published in 1970 in partnership with a New Left publishing firm, the New England Free Press, [19] [20] it became an "underground sensation", selling 250,000 copies in New England without any formal advertising. [9] To meet growing demand, Women and Their Bodies was reprinted in 1971 under the name, Our Bodies, Our Selves: A Course by and for Women.

As a result of the booklet's success, the authors—now a core group of twelve women—formed the non-profit Boston Women's Health Book Collective (BWHBC) in 1972 (rebranded the "Our Bodies Ourselves" collective in 2002) and prepared a mass-market print edition. [9] The book was expanded to 276 pages; retitled Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women; and published by Simon & Schuster in March 1973. As a precondition of working with the publishing company, BWHBC members stipulated they must retain complete control of the book's contents, they must have a woman editor, and non-profit clinics must be able to purchase copies at a substantial discount. [13] [20]

In the 1973 Preface, the authors cited four lessons learned during their research: (1) that it was important to supplement medical facts with personal experiences, how the latter could enrich knowledge of women's bodies; (2) that possessing basic information was liberating; it meant women were "better prepared to evaluate the institutions that are supposed to meet our health needs"; (3) that they were combating an ignorance which plagued women for centuries and "had one major consequence—pregnancy. Until very recently pregnancies were all but inevitable, biology was our destiny"; (4) that "body education is core education. Our bodies are the physical bases from which we move out into the world; ignorance, uncertainty—even, at worst, shame—about our physical selves create in us an alienation from ourselves that keeps us from being the whole people that we could be." [16] OBOS featured first-person stories from women, and tackled many topics then regarded as taboo. The book's publication is considered a foundational event in the women's health movement in the U.S. [21]

The BWHBC was approached by women in other countries who wanted to translate OBOS. [10] Dagmar Schultz brought a copy to Germany in the early 1970s, where it was translated and quickly had an impact; [22] the first women's health center was founded in West Berlin in 1973 and still exists today. [23] BWHBC members initiated the Spanish translation themselves, self-publishing Nuestros Cuerpos, Nuestras Vidas in 1977. But they soon recognized the limitations of verbatim translation, how "aspects of the book that were culturally appropriate for the original US readers did not always make sense in other contexts." [10] In the 1980s, a BWHBC-affiliated group named Amigas Latinas en Accion pro-Salud began working on a new Spanish-language cultural adaptation of OBOS that would better reflect their experiences. It was published in 2000. [10]

The cover of the 2005 edition, described as a "new edition for a new era". OurBodiesOurselves.jpg
The cover of the 2005 edition, described as a "new edition for a new era".

After 1973, revised and expanded OBOS editions were published in 1976, 1986, 1992, 1996, 2005 and 2011. All told, it is estimated that over four million copies of the book have been sold. [24] The final print edition in 2011 covers many topics not found in the 1973 edition, and grew in length to 825 pages. [25] [26]

In 2018, the Our Bodies Ourselves collective announced that due to resource constraints, it could no longer publish new print editions nor update its website with new health information. [27] [28]

In 2022, the collective started a collaboration with the Center for Women's Health and Human Rights at Suffolk University and launched "Our Bodies, Ourselves Today", a website bringing health and sexuality information to women, girls, and gender-expansive people. [29]

Over the years, several BWHBC members also published single-topic books:

Politics

Written during a moment of political activism in Boston's history, Women and Their Bodies came out of the Bread and Roses collective, a radical women's liberation group formed in 1969. Although Bread and Roses was short-lived, some of the projects it spawned, such as OBOS, had a lasting impact. [34]

The radical roots of the BWHBC, and the influence of second-wave feminism, are evident in the overt political messaging found in the first editions. The opening essay was called "Women, Medicine and Capitalism", and insisted on a connection between the economic system and the quality of women's health. [8] In a section on how to navigate the American health care system, [20] there were subsections titled "The Capitalist Theory of Disease Causation", "The Power and Role of Male Doctors", and "The Profit Motive in Health Care". [35] Historian Linda Gordon alleges that OBOS "would have been inconceivable without the civil rights/new left/feminist context. It included a left-wing critique of medicine in a corporate economy". [36]

Laura Barton adds that it was not just the subjects broached which made OBOS a radical text; it was also "the fact that it was written by women for women. In so doing, it challenged the power and role of the largely male medical profession." [37] The experiences of women were quoted throughout, while the social and political context of women's health informed the content of the book. The authors emphasized empowerment through learning and information, specifically, information gained through women sharing their personal narratives with each other because "by sharing our responses we can develop a base on which to be critical of what the experts tell us." [16]

The later OBOS editions joined in the battle for reproductive justice, argued for women's bodily autonomy and the right to have children or not have children. [38] But as the book evolved, the political stridency was toned down, a change that Elizabeth Gumport viewed with regret in a 2018 New York Times essay: "[S]omething of the soul of those early editions had been lost. In this most recent, and ultimately final, edition, the politics of women's health was not elided, but it had been consolidated into its own section, toward the back of the book." [8]

Style and tone

From the beginning, OBOS was written in an inclusive, non-judgmental style. [39] It addressed readers as companions ("While we work to change..."), [40] and used plain language to demystify medical knowledge. [41] The tone throughout "was informal and warm – the voice of a trusted but authoritative friend. It quickly earned a reputation as a book to be passed from mother to daughter." [42]

The BWHBC writers sometimes referred to their authorial voice as "OBOS style". [43] When they attempted to define it as an aid for book translators, the style was summarized in five principles:

  1. no rhetoric
  2. use we
  3. give choices
  4. non-directive—never say this is the way
  5. respect that the person reading it can make the choice herself. [44]

In the media

In the 1988 pilot episode of The Wonder Years , Kevin Arnold swipes a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves from his older sister Karen. He and his friend Paul Pfeiffer then flip through the book to "prepare" themselves for junior high school. [45]

The 2014 documentary film She's Beautiful When She's Angry covers the women's liberation movement from 1966 to 1971. The film features members of the original Boston Women's Health Book Collective who discuss Our Bodies, Ourselves. [46]

In November 2020, the BBC World Service aired a podcast, as part of its "Witness History" series, on the writing of Our Bodies, Ourselves. [47]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Boston Women's Health Collective –Taking Health into Their Own Hands". Equality Archive. Archived from the original on February 9, 2016. Retrieved March 9, 2017.
  2. ↑ Davis, Kathy (2013). "Reclaiming Women's Bodies: Colonialist Trope or Critical Epistemology?". In McCann, Carole; Kim, Seung-kyung (eds.). Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives (3rd ed.). Routledge. pp. 503–505. ISBN   978-0415521017.
  3. ↑ "Global Translations and Adaptations of "Our Bodies, Ourselves"". Our Bodies Ourselves. Retrieved August 4, 2025.
  4. ↑ Davis 2007, p. 2.
  5. ↑ "Our Bodies, Ourselves –Publisher's Summary". Simon & Schuster. October 4, 2011.
  6. ↑ Aitken, Madeleine (November 21, 2022). "Our Bodies Ourselves Today is a new spin on an old faithful". Boston.com .
  7. ↑ "Remembering the 1969 Female Liberation Conference". Our Bodies Ourselves. Retrieved August 9, 2025.
  8. 1 2 3 Gumport, Elizabeth (April 28, 2018). "The Forgotten Anger of 'Our Bodies, Ourselves'" . The New York Times.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Ginty, Molly M. (May 4, 2004). "Our Bodies, Ourselves Turns 35 Today". Women's eNews. Archived from the original on September 3, 2009. Retrieved August 26, 2012.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Zeldes, Kiki (October 2008). "'Write a Chapter and Change the World': How the Boston Women's Health Book Collective Transformed Women's Health Then—and Now". American Journal of Public Health. 98 (10). PubMed Central: 1741–1745. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2007.132159. PMC   2636468 . PMID   18703436.
  11. ↑ Norsigian, Judy; Diskin, Vilunya; Doress-Worters, Paula B.; Pincus, Jane; Sanford, Wendy; Swenson, Norma (Winter 1999). "The Boston Women's Health Book Collective and Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Brief History and Reflection". Journal of the American Medical Women's Association– via Our Bodies Ourselves. At a workshop on 'Women and Their Bodies,' we discovered that every one of us had a 'doctor story,' that we had all experienced feelings of frustration and anger toward the medical maze in general, and toward those doctors who were condescending, paternalistic, judgmental, and uninformative in particular.
  12. ↑ Isaias-Day, Sofia (March 16, 2022). "Our Bodies, Ourselves in 2022". Jewish Women's Archive.
  13. 1 2 Rimer, Sara (June 22, 1997). "They Talked and Talked, and Then Wrote a Classic". The New York Times.
  14. ↑ Davis 2007 , p. 1 "[They] wrote papers, which they discussed in meetings attended by increasing numbers of local women. These meetings were electrifying, leaving many of the participants irrevocably changed."
  15. ↑ Barton 2021: "Each took a chapter topic to research and write. None of the authors were medically trained, though trusted medical authorities were consulted. Alongside factual information, it featured strikingly graphic illustrations and first-person stories from women."
  16. 1 2 3 "Preface". Our Bodies, Ourselves (PDF). 1973. pp. 1–3.
  17. ↑ "Our Story". Our Bodies Ourselves. Retrieved August 9, 2025.
  18. ↑ Davis, Kathy (2007). The Making of Our Bodies, Ourselves: How Feminism Travels across Borders. Next Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies. Duke University Press. pp. 19–20. ISBN   978-0822340454.
  19. ↑ "A Digital Archive of Radical Literature". New England Free Press. Retrieved August 8, 2025.
  20. 1 2 3 Schneir, Miriam, ed. (1994). "Our Bodies, Ourselves". Feminism in Our Time: The Essential Writings, World War II to the Present. New York: Vintage. p. 352. ISBN   978-0679745082.
  21. ↑ Morgen, Sandra (2002). Into Our Own Hands: The Women's Health Movement in the United States, 1969–1990. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. p. 5. ISBN   978-0813530703. OCLC   48077521. Millions of copies later, this book has changed the landscape of women's health care in the United States and throughout the world.
  22. ↑ "Abortion / Gynecology (1973-75)". Berlin Goes Feminist. August 16, 2023.
  23. ↑ "Selbstuntersuchung". Feministische Projekte in Berlin 1974-78 (in German). 2025.
  24. ↑ Katz, Brigit. "'Our Bodies, Ourselves,' the Revolutionary Feminist Health Book, Will No Longer Print New Editions". Smithsonian . Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  25. ↑ Bennett, Jessica (September 30, 2011). "Our Bodies, Ourselves Turns 40: Why the Women's Sexual Health Book Still Matters" . The Daily Beast .
  26. ↑ "Our Bodies, Ourselves: Turning 40, Going Global". Rewire.News. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  27. ↑ Ebbert, Stephanie (April 5, 2018). "'Our Bodies, Ourselves' will stop printing new editions" . The Boston Globe .
  28. ↑ Shepard, Bonnie (April 2, 2018). "A Message About the Future of Our Bodies Ourselves". Our Bodies Ourselves.
  29. ↑ McNamara, Brittany (September 9, 2022). "Our Bodies Ourselves Today Launches Sex and Health Website For a New Generation". Teen Vogue.
  30. ↑ Doress, Paula Brown; Siegal, Diana Laskin (1987). Ourselves, Growing Older: Women Aging With Knowledge and Power. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN   978-0671505011.
  31. ↑ Bell, Ruth (1988). Changing Bodies, Changing Lives: A Book For Teens on Sex and Relationships. New York: Random House. ISBN   978-0394564999.
  32. ↑ The Boston Women's Health Book Collective (2006). Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause. New York: Atria Books. ISBN   978-0743274876.
  33. ↑ The Boston Women's Health Book Collective (2008). Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth. New York: Atria Books. ISBN   978-0743274869.
  34. ↑ Ewing, Tess (2014). "Bread and Roses: "A Revolutionary Moment: Women's Liberation in the late 1960s and early 1970s"" (PDF). Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program at Boston University.
  35. ↑ "Contents". Our Bodies, Ourselves (PDF). 1973. p. x.
  36. ↑ Gordon, Linda (May 29, 2008). "Translating Our Bodies, Ourselves". The Nation .
  37. ↑ Barton 2021: "'We as women are redefining competence,' the 1970s edition stated. 'A doctor who behaves in a male chauvinist way is not competent, even if he has medical skills. We have decided that health can no longer be defined by an elite group of white, upper-middle-class men. It must be defined by us.'"
  38. ↑ "Why Reproductive Justice Is Central to Our Perspective". Our Bodies Ourselves. Retrieved August 6, 2025.
  39. ↑ "Feminism in Text Book Form". Cannonball Read. April 8, 2019. The book is written in a non-judgmental, informative style that feels inclusive. Small blurbs from women describing their varying experiences make the book feel more personal. These blurbs show the wide array of what women have encountered and their responses. The idea is that knowledge is power, and the more women know about their health and bodies, the better off they will be.
  40. ↑ Wells, Susan (2010). Our Bodies, Ourselves and the Work of Writing. Stanford University Press. p. 123. ISBN   978-0804763080.
  41. ↑ Detroit Free Press (August 15, 2016). "Our Bodies, Ourselves continues to educate women". East Bay Times .
  42. ↑ Barton, Laura (April 22, 2021). "The clitoris, pain and pap smears: how Our Bodies, Ourselves redefined women's health". The Guardian .
  43. ↑ Wells 2010, p. 10.
  44. ↑ Wells 2010, p. 83.
  45. ↑ "The Wonder Years (Series)". TV Tropes . Retrieved August 3, 2025.TV Tropes points out an historical error: the pilot episode takes place in 1968 before Our Bodies, Ourselves was published.
  46. ↑ Harvey, Dennis (December 5, 2014). "Film Review: 'She's Beautiful when She's Angry'". Variety .
  47. ↑ "Witness History: Our Bodies, Ourselves". BBC World Service. November 19, 2020.

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