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• 1 media/Novak_Item0219.jpg 2024-04-16T13:27:13-07:00 Our Bodies Our Selves (1971) 31 plain 2024-05-24T11:44:20-07:00 "Our Bodies, Our Selves" was first published in 1970 after its creation in 1969. A group of women, the Boston Women’s Health Course Collection, joined together after a female liberation conference at Emmanuel College in Boston, Massachusetts. After this group of women left the conference, they shared with doctors and other professionals how little they knew about their own bodies. This experience led them to form the Boston Women’s Course Collective in order to learn more about not only their bodies but also their sexuality, relationships, etc. From there this group decided to collect all of their findings and make it accessible for other women both in and outside of their communities. They did this by communicating with doctors and physicians and exchanging ideas with one another. This eventually led to the production of “Women and Their Bodies” in 1969, that was then changed to “Our Bodies, Our Selves” which is what we know now. This change was implemented to make the information more inclusive and show the connection women should and do have to their bodies.
  
  This work has been described as revolutionary because many of its contents openly and shamelessly brought to light ideas and conversations about abortion and sexuality, which at this time were illegal. “Our Bodies, Our Selves” supplied people with knowledge that improved the health, knowledge, rights, and overall lives of women and people with a female anatomy. There is focus on reproductive, mental, physical, heart, and general health for the people who need this information on how their bodies work. For the past 40 years, since the work's original publication in 1969, it has been updated and revised around every four to seven years. The most recent edition of this work was published on the new website, titled Our Bodies, Ourselves Today, in 2011. Unfortunately, in 2018, the group came to the conclusion that they no longer had the resources to keep a fully paid staff. This is when they switched to a team that consisted mostly of volunteers, and they began only to update resources and information on the website due to the fact that printing, editing, etc. was also a drain on their resources.
  
  As stated previously, "Our Bodies, Our Selves" exists only on the website as Our Bodies, Ourselves Today where there are countless topics, resources, and ever changing information about women’s bodies, and bodies that have female anatomy within them. As it is presented on the website, intersectionality is one of their topics and overall goals in continuing Our Bodies, Ourselves Today. They also bring up more instances where knowledge about one’s body is needed. This website touches on the same original topics as its first publication, including abortion, birth control, and sexuality, but it also brings to light more subjects that address mental health, ableism, activism, and incarceration. Four years before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the organization was forced to cut back and cut its paid staff. As we see now, the information they provide for girls, women, and people with female anatomy is needed now more than ever. When this initiative was launched 55 years ago, so many of the topics discussed were illegal, and today it often seems as though the country has been moving backwards. Women needed this information then, just as much as we continue to need it now.