Our Bodies, Ourselves Collective

“We came together with a passion for a project. We would do a course on women and their bodies, and if women were excited about the material, they would take it into their communities, their neighborhoods and just pass on the information.”—Miriam Hawley

In May of 1969, 12 women ranging in age from 23 to 39 met at a Boston feminist conference and began a discussion about health care and their bodies – an event which helped to launch the women’s health movement.  Spurred by those discussions, they decided to research and discuss what they were learning about themselves, their bodies, and their health.

That fall they taught a course at MIT on women’s health, and soon after published a 193-page course booklet entitled Women and Their Bodies. That evolved into Our Bodies, Ourselves, one of the most long-lasting achievements of the women’s movement.  Time Magazine named it one of the 100 most important works of non-fiction.  Our Bodies, Ourselves has sold millions of copies around the world and has been translated into more than two dozen languages

Individual bios
www.ourbodiesourselves.org

"People who had post partum depressions worked on the post partum chapter. People who had abortions worked on the abortion chapter. We always said the personal is political, the political is personal and there it was.”—Vilunya Diskin