41 years ago...Why it still matters. [View all]

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Last edited Sat Mar 23, 2013, 11:01 PM - Edit history (1)

Sep 30, 2011

Forty years after the text was first released, Our Bodies, Ourselves has gone through various revamps: nine editions, 25 translations, e-books, education campaigns—even a pink book cover that caused more than a bit of feminist eye-rolling. The latest edition, a whopping 825 pages, will be released next week, with new chapters on date rape, body image and plastic surgery—“a new edition for a new era,” the authors gush. In its honor, Boston University is hosting a public-health symposium; at Harvard, undergraduates can peruse the changing artistry of body hair in a library exhibit of the early editions. With four million copies sold already, the authors hope to reach a new cohort of young women.

But in an age where every 12-year-old girl can learn about the female anatomy on Google, does Our Bodies, Ourselves still matter? In the beginning, the authors of the book were just 12 women, none of them medical experts, who’d met at a Boston women’s conference, bonding over their inability to find a good doctor. They started gathering in the basement of an Armenian church, and—suddenly realizing how little they knew about their own anatomy—decided to write down their thoughts. Abortion, child-bearing, birth control, lesbianism—nothing was off-limits to these women, who believed, rightly, that with better knowledge, women would be better equipped to deal with their own health.

At the time, abortion was illegal. Female doctors were virtually unheard of in many areas. There was little, if any, sex education in schools. So when the group—who’d later call themselves the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective—decided to release a 193-page pamphlet called “Women and Their Bodies” (what would ultimately become Our Bodies, Ourselves) it was nothing short of revolutionary. “Our Bodies, Ourselves transformed people’s understanding,” says historian Wendy Kline, a professor at the University of Cincinnati and the author of “Bodies of Knowledge,” about the book’s influence. “It was revolutionary both because it provided so much information, but also because that information was, for the first time, in lay-people’s terms.”

Our Bodies, Ourselves is still easy to read and simple to understand. But over the years, it’s had to change its tone. (See: 5 Ways the Text Has Changed.) Gone is the anti-patriarchy bent, as well as the iconic raised fist that once graced the title page of the original hand-printed 1970 edition. No longer do the authors proclaim, “We must destroy the myth that we have to be groovy, free chicks.” (Do we even know what that means?) Instead of essays on “capitalism,” there are chapters on changes in the healthcare system, environmental health risks, and how to be an activist in the 21st century (less marches, more Twitter).

“Tell Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and other anti-choice politicians to please read,” quips Erica Jong.

*****Sorry the first link I posted didn't work....click the second one for more*****

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/30/our-bodies-ourselves-turns-40-why-the-women-s-
sexual-health-book-still-matters.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/30/our-bodies-ourselves-turns-40-why-the-women-s-sexual-health-book-still-matters.html

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