As part of its 40th anniversary celebration, Our Bodies Ourselves is honoring its global partners who have adapted the “Our Bodies, Ourselves” book for their own communities. Twenty-four groups have been inducted into the Women’s Health Heroes Hall of Fame, joining dozens of advocates working to advance the health and human rights of women and girls. In this blog series, we’ll introduce you to some of the global partners attending OBOS’s anniversary symposium.

by Sophia Moradian

In the spring of 2009 of my freshman year at Boston College, I received an advanced study grant to travel to Armenia. As an 18-year-old of Armenian descent who had never been to the country, I had few expectations of the one month I would spend investigating small business entrepreneurship in rural Armenia.

I soon saw the links between economics, socio-cultural norms, and the status of rural women and girls, many of whom are confined to their homes. Living in disproportionate and desperate poverty, they are unable to influence or control household finances and decisions. Many of the women’s husbands work outside the country, and while this leaves their partners back home more vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections, women are unable to protect themselves or access basic health and reproductive services. I learned that more than half of rural Armenian women have never visited a gynecologist.

OBOS’s partner in Armenia, the “For Family and Health” Pan Armenian Association (PAFHA), is working to address these inequities via education, advocacy, training and service programs throughout the country. The Association has informal branches in all 10 regions of Armenia and is headquartered in the city of Yerevan.

The main areas of focus include abortion, health care access, adolescents, advocacy and HIV/AIDS.  Its work includes health clinics, one of which provides free reproductive care twice a week to women and girls, subsidized by sales of the 2010 Armenian adaptation of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” (Tour the clinic here.)

Clinic staff undergo training at the Vernissage Reproductive Health Clinic at the St. Mary’s Family Health Centre in Yerevan, Armenia. Click the image to tour the clinic. Proceeds from the sales of the Armenian edition of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" are used to provide free reproductive health care to girls and women.

I have worked on gender and economic rights in Armenia and in the greater Middle East region and witnessed first-hand the impact of poverty on access and health in these communities. For the women and girls who cannot afford health care, PAFHA’s clinics are essential lifelines.

As the president of the Boston College Armenian club, I am an active voice in the Armenian community on campus and in the greater Boston area, organizing events on the health of rural Armenian women and the Armenian Genocide, including an annual Remembrance Day gathering on campus. These are my actions — a way for me to raise awareness about human rights and engage people on issues and injustices that affect Armenian women and girls.

PAFHA’s work in Armenia, under the leadership of Meri Khachikyan, should inspire all of us who believe women’s rights are human rights. The group’s “Women’s Manifesto,” for example, is a courageous call-to-action that will soon be submitted to the Armenian government with the endorsement of approximately 500 community leaders.

Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, has called for taking up the health rights of those who cannot provide basic health services for themselves. Meri and her team are answering his call, and it is my hope that we can all do the same.

I am now applying for a Fulbright scholarship that will take me back to the Shirak province of northwest Armenia. This time I hope to build on my previous experience and further the economic rights – and ultimately the sexual and reproductive rights – of women and girls. As a young activist preparing for this assignment, and as a member of the Armenian Diaspora, I am eager to meet and listen to Meri’s experiences this October at the OBOS symposium and I hope you will join me, in person or by webcast.

Sophia Moradian is a senior at Boston College majoring in international studies with a minor in Islamic civilizations and societies. After graduation, Sophia plans to work internationally in the field of economic development and human rights.

As everyone from authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn to Nike has been saying, when girls and women are valued in society, society as a whole is healthier, better educated, and better off economically.

Today, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), along with National Geographic, the U.S. State Department, the International Women’s Health Coalition, Global Leaders for Reproductive Health, and other organizations, are highlighting the need to support women and girls to accelerate progress for everyone. And they’re doing it in the context of the world population:

In late October 2011, world population will reach 7 billion people. It is critical that we unleash the power of women and girls to alleviate poverty and accelerate progress on all of our global development goals.

When women are healthy and educated and can participate fully in society, they trigger progress for themselves as well as for their families, communities and countries. Help us raise the profile of women and girls, unleashing their potential and empowering them to be engines of change.

The event will take place today from 3 to 5 p.m. at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. It will be live-streamed and posted afterwards at 7billionactions.org, which was established by the United Nations Population Fund to highlight actions by individuals and organizations making a global commitment for a healthy and sustainable world.

You can also follow on Twitter (@7BillionActions) and discuss the event using the hashtag #7billion, and share your story on the 7 Billion Actions Facebook wall.

Speakers include:
- Lois Quam, Executive Director, Global Health Initiative, U.S. Department of State
- Donald Steinberg, Deputy Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development
- Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund
- A panel of youth advocates, including: Phil Hay (moderator), Human Development Network, World Bank; Monique Coleman, Actress, High School Musical, and United Nations Youth Champion; Ronan Farrow, Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Global Youth Issues, U.S. Department of State; Alexandra Garita, Program Officer, International Policy, International Women’s Health Coalition; Natalie Imbruglia, Singer, Actress and Ambassador, Virgin Unite; Kakenya Ntaiya, President and Founder, The Kakenya Center for Excellence.

For more resources, check out 7billionactions.org/resources.

As part of its 40th anniversary celebration, Our Bodies Ourselves is honoring its global partners who have adapted the “Our Bodies, Ourselves” book for their own communities. Twenty-four groups have been inducted into the Women’s Health Heroes Hall of Fame, joining dozens of advocates working to advance the health and human rights of women and girls. In this blog series, we’ll introduce you to some of the global partners attending OBOS’s anniversary symposium.

by Paula Doress-Worters

In 2011, Women and Their Bodies — a collaboration of Israeli and Palestinian women — will publish Arabic and Hebrew resources based on “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” By doing so, they will make an important social and political statement, challenge the status quo, and further their message of collaboration.

As a first generation Jewish-American woman growing up in the safety of Boston, but sharply aware of my parents anxiety for family left behind in Europe, I feel a cultural-spiritual connection with the land and the peoples of Israel. I am also passionate about finding paths to peace, whether in women’s health, environmental science, or the arts, and I am enthusiastic about Women and Their Bodies setting an example for us to follow.

I anticipate our 40th anniversary celebration with great excitement. Among OBOS’s global partners attending the event will be Dana Weinberg, the founder of Women and Their Bodies, and Raghda Elnabilsy, a certified sex educator who coordinates the organization’s outreach to Arab populations in Israel.

The Israeli-Palestinian project has been close to my heart for many reasons. As a founding co-author of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” in the United States, I appreciate and support women coming together across differences to gain greater control over their lives and bring that knowledge to their countrywomen.

This “coming together” is a hallmark of WTB. The group, which was founded in 2005, has brought together more than 300 volunteers from different professions — physicians, psychologists, gynecologists, midwives, sexologists, gender and social studies researchers — to develop and share information and language on health, sexuality and rights with Jewish and Arab communities (read more about the project).

The "Our Bodies, Ourselves" project team at Women and Their Bodies

Together, they are a powerful symbol of co-existence, not only respecting ethnic, political and religious difference but bringing them together towards shared goals.

Arabic and Hebrew women’s health resources are already in use in the community via workshops, trainings, advocacy efforts and other capacity-building initiatives run by Women and Their Bodies. A tri-lingual women’s health website will also increase online access. The information provided will be vital to those seeking honest, accurate information through anonymous channels. These important resources will reach women and girls in Muslim and Christian Arab, Bedouin Arab, and Jewish Israeli communities, and help increase knowledge, leadership and activism in the region.

In 2007, Dana won national recognition for her work. Israel Venture Network’s Social Entrepreneur Fellowship Program, an affiliate of The New Israel Fund, awarded her one of its two fellowships for 2007-2009. In its awards announcement, the Network described WTB as “a unique multicultural, multi-professional non-profit organization of women in Israel, Jewish, Arab and Palestinian, who have made it their mission to work towards empowering women to become self-health advocates who can protect and promote their own health.”

Dana expressed her delight at news of the award, exclaiming: “This is so meaningful for me and my partners in this project because [of] it’s recognition of the importance of our vision and goals; and it means practical assistance through mentoring and funding which will enable us to run this important initiative in an optimal way to add to its success.”

That same year, on my second trip to Israel, I was honored to be warmly welcomed to a gathering at Dana’s home, with delicious food and enthusiastic introductions all around. When we shared our experiences of writing and reaching out to women in our respective communities, I was deeply impressed with the commitment of the WTB women, most of them health professionals and many working mothers as well, who regularly give so much of their time, creativity, and skill to make vital health information available to women and girls in their country.

If you are attending OBOS’s anniversary symposium, you will have a similar opportunity – to meet Dana and Raghda, listen to their extraordinary journeys, and become involved in a pioneering peace-building effort to raise the status of women and girls in the Middle East.

Dr. Paula Doress-Worters is a founding co-author of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” and contributor to subsequent editions for over three decades. Currently, she is a resident scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University where she chairs a Women’s History Symposium, the most recent featuring women’s leadership toward co-existence.

As part of its 40th anniversary celebration, Our Bodies Ourselves is honoring its global partners who have adapted the “Our Bodies, Ourselves” book for their own communities. Twenty-four groups have been inducted into the Women’s Health Heroes Hall of Fame, joining dozens of advocates working to advance the health and human rights of women and girls. In this blog series, we’ll introduce you to some of the global partners attending OBOS’s anniversary symposium.

by Jane Pincus

I first met Codou Bop, in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in 2001 and felt instantly connected. We were both attending the initial international gathering of women translators and adaptors of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

As an integral member of the Research Group on Women and Laws in Senegal (or Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes et les Lois au Senegal; the group is known by the acronym GREFELS), Codou (left) had coordinated a team to create the francophone African health book “Notre Corps, Notre Sante,” a 10-year-process that was finally coming to an end. It was thrilling to see the final typewritten version awaiting printing and publication that she had brought to the Utrecht meeting.

Now in its second printing, “Notre Corps, Notre Sante” serves 21 francophone countries as well as immigrant communities. It is distributed for free to schools, health centers and women’s groups, and translated into local dialects for wider use and accessibility (read more about “Notre Corps, Notre Sante”).

We can learn so much from “Notre Corps, Notre Sante.” Its authors urge African women to value and care for themselves in the context of economic, political and religious issues that affect their lives. Addressing society’s attitudes toward health and sexuality, the book describes how women’s bodies are used, taken care of, dressed, and violated.

While emphasizing women’s strengths, each chapter addresses oppressive and harmful practices and beliefs. The list is long. Some examples: Women, as the prime caretakers of their communities, must care for others; they are not “allowed” to be ill. In general, they belong to fathers, husbands or uncles, and young women rank low in the social hierarchy of power. Over half of them end up marrying and becoming mothers by age 17. It is desirable to be fat, since thinness is associated with poverty and AIDS. Young women age 15 to 19 are most afflicted by HIV/AIDS (an insidious myth exists that a man infected with AIDs needs to have sex with a virgin to purify himself). And, as a result of colonization, many women seek “whiteness,” whitening their skin with bleach, which can cause skin cancer and kidney problems.

In Senegal, laws beneficial to women exist but are not enforced. Women have little or no access to health care, land, jobs or schooling. Increasingly, religious fundamentalist beliefs stand in the way of their achieving health information and human rights. Women and families feel these privations keenly in their everyday lives.

GREFELS and its partners aim to change the behavior of institutions and rural communities to prevent disempowerment and violence against women.

Take, for example, the practice of female genital mutilation, which was banned in 1999 under the Senegalese penal code but persists, resulting in nearly 700,000 girls being circumcised each year. GREFELS educates girls about the risks and dangers of FGM, provides a network of support so they can protect themselves, and aggressively advocates to eliminate the practice altogether.

I love Codou and admire her strong spirit and her dedication. Traveling constantly throughout the world, she represents not only GREFELS but lives out her own keenly held beliefs in women’s powers and in the necessity of fighting to maintain them.

For those of you attending the 40th anniversary symposium, I hope you will meet Codou and speak with her about her efforts and the work of GREFELS.

Jane Pincus is a co-founder of Our Bodies Ourselves and co-writer and co-editor of previous “Our Bodies, Ourselves” editions. She is also a women’s health activist, artist, writer, editor, singer, horseback rider, Ed’s wife for 51 years, Sami and Ben’s mother, and Jordan, Caleb and Kai’s grandmother.

Today we kick off a series of blogs posts by and about members of the Our Bodies Ourselves Global Network who have adapted “Our Bodies, Ourselves” in their own countries, using a range of print, digital and social interactive formats for outreach and advocacy.

As part of its 40th anniversary celebration, Our Bodies Ourselves decided to honor its global partners by adding them to the Women’s Health Heroes Hall of Fame.

These courageous women join an impressive group of U.S. and global advocates — including midwives, student activists, abortion counselors, health care reform activists, bloggers, physicians — who have been nominated in past years by OBOS readers.

In this blog series, we’ll introduce you to some of our health heroes who are coming to Boston on Oct. 1 to attend the OBOS anniversary symposium, “Our Bodies, Our Future: Advancing Health and Human Rights for Women and Girls.”

The symposium is open to the public but seats filled quickly and there is now a long waiting list. The good news, though, is that the event will be broadcast live online, and we’ll soon post information for groups and individuals who would like to host viewing parties at their homes or schools. You can view panels featuring these extraordinary women and hear for yourself how they are working to transform the lives of girls and women worldwide.

The first posts in this series focuses on the work of Women and Their Bodies, a collaboration of Israeli and Palestinian women who are publishing Arabic and Hebrew resources based on “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” and the Research Group on Women and Laws in Senegal (Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes et les Lois au Senegal, or GREFELS), which created the health book “Notre Corps, Notre Sante” for French-speaking Africa. In the coming weeks, you’ll meet our partners in Japan, Armenia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Turkey and India.

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to use the comments to ask questions about their work.

Ready to party in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Our Bodies, Ourselves? Then get ready for a cabaret fundraiser on Thursday, September 22, at OBERON, the second stage of the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) in Cambridge, Mass.

“The show features women in charge of their bodies, their creativity, and their self-expression,” said Our Bodies Ourselves board member and cabaret producer, Nancy Allen, “but it is primarily about having a great time and celebrating a milestone in women’s health history. This cabaret show is not just a fundraiser for a good cause, but also a fun and entertaining evening out for anyone who loves women.”

Cabaret acts include acrobatics, belly dance, burlesque, live music, hula hooping, tap dance, poetry, and comedy. Local comedian Robin Maxfield will emcee the event. Performances include:

* Four-part harmonies and acoustic music from adam&eve
* Dance performances by Vadalna Tribal Dance Company and Boston Tap Company
* Comedy by Jenny Zigrino, Marcy Goldberg Sacks, and Rachel Kahn
* Gender-bending and gender-blending clowning of Johnny Blazes
* Poetry and spoken word by Lady Rose and UnAmerika’s Sweetheart Karin Webb
* Partner acrobatics from Marci Diamond & Teresa Kochis of the Boston Circus Guild
* Burlesque performances by Sugar Dish (The Slutcracker, Babes in Boinkland), Mary Widow (Black Cat Burlesque), and Rogue Burlesque
* Jazz vocals of Lilly Bordeaux
* Rosie the Riveter-themed hula hooping by Little L and Lolli Hoops of the Boston Hoop Troop

“We’re thrilled that such a diverse and talented cast of performers will be donating their time for what is sure to be a great show,” said Allen. “They will make our birthday one to remember!”

Co-producer and fellow Our Bodies Ourselves board member Heather Nelson said, “Many of the performers told us how much impact the book had on their lives, their health, and their self-confidence. For many women and men, Our Bodies, Ourselves has had a lasting and life-long impact. And that is worth celebrating.”

Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and show is at 8 p.m. Tickets and more information are available at the OBERON website, cluboberon.com.  All proceeds and ticket sales will go directly to Our Bodies Ourselves.

The 40th Birthday Bash is one of several anniversary-related events including: A global symposium, “Our Bodies, Our Future: Advancing Health and Human Rights for Women and Girls,” on Saturday, Oct. 1, at Boston University (there is now a waiting list only for this event); the release of the ninth edition of the “Our Bodies, Ourselves” book, which will be available for sale at the cabaret; and a video project that includes stories from women and men describing the impact of the book on their lives as well as their thoughts on the history and future of women’s health. Learn more about how to share your story — on video or in print.

And stay tuned for information about the book tour, which will include Boston, San Francisco, and D.C., among other cities.

Guest post by Sarah Morison

It was not until I started working at the Global Justice Center that I learned that due to U.S. policy (not law, policy), it is almost impossible for a victim of war rape who becomes impregnated to have the option of abortion. That is because all humanitarian aid that the United States gives in areas of armed conflict to either governments or humanitarian organizations contains a blanket prohibition on any monies being used to provide abortions — or even information about abortion.

Yet under the Geneva Conventions, to which the United States has been a party for over 60 years, “wounded and sick” civilian victims of armed conflict are absolutely guaranteed the right to “comprehensive and non-discriminatory” medical care. The Global Justice Center is therefore contending that the United States is in violation of the Geneva Conventions by maintaining its current abortion restrictions on humanitarian funds in areas of armed conflict.

Our current initiative is the Geneva Project, whereby we are harnessing the power of the Geneva Conventions to tackle the horrible problem of sexual violence deliberately used as a weapon and strategy during armed conflict in many parts of the world. (For more background information, see the GJC’s legal brief, “The Right to an Abortion for Girls and Women Raped in Armed Conflict” [pdf].)

No doubt you have read about the epidemic of war rape going on in places such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Sudan, and that occurred during the genocides in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, and the intransigent conflicts in Columbia. During the recent uprising in Libya, the military was given Viagra to help them carry out rapes against the women living in areas of armed conflict. Right now, ethnic women are being raped by the military in Burma.

The military strategy of raping women is intended as a way of destroying families, communities and cultures. In Rwanda, girls and women were deliberately infected with HIV. In Yugoslavia, girls and women were gang-raped (typical form of war rape), impregnated, and then deliberately detained so as to force them to give birth to a child of a different ethnic group.

International courts have classified war rape as a war crime, and also as a form of torture. For those girls and women who become impregnated, the torture often continues, both psychologically and physically. Denial of abortions in this context frequently leads to desperate measures such as suicide or dangerous self-induced abortions.

We have learned that women being treated for war rape at internationally funded clinics often beg doctors for abortions but are turned away because these clinics can’t risk losing funding. By the time they reach these clinics, the time is often well past for using emergency contraception, which must be taken within a short period of time after the rape. Sometimes several donor countries give aid to an organization providing services to rape victims, but if U.S. funds are pooled with other countries’ funds, the effect is that all such funds are restricted.

The 62nd anniversary of the Geneva Conventions is Friday, Aug. 12. An international “August 12th Campaign” is underway, and we are asking organizations and individuals from around the world to commit to writing President Obama on Aug. 12 to urge him to lift these restrictions through an executive order (the current restrictions were put in place in the waning hours of the Bush administration). Many organizations — both prominent and small — throughout the world have committed to the campaign, which is heartening.

There is also a way for individuals to endorse our campaign, by signing an online petition to the President. I am asking you to read this petition and, if you agree this policy should be changed, add your name to the list. Consider sending the link to your friends and posting your endorsement on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you all for reading this and for considering giving your support to this critical campaign.

Sarah Morison is an attorney at the Global Justice Center in New York City. The GJC advocates for the implementation of and compliance with international human rights laws and humanitarian laws (laws relating to war), especially those relating to women.

As previously reported, women with health insurance will soon have access to a host of preventive health care services, including contraception, without having to pay out-of-pocket costs such as co-payments, co-insurance and deductibles.

Not surprisingly, the news rankled some conservatives who refuse to acknowledge the long-term economic or health benefits.

Take, for instance, Sandy Rios, a FOX News contributor and vice president of the Family-PAC Federal, a conservative political action committee, who likened women’s health needs to beauty services: ”We’re $14 trillion in debt and now we’re going to cover birth control, breast pumps, counseling for abuse? Are we going to do pedicures and manicures as well?”

Once again, we turn to Stephen Colbert to explain the outrage. And he does so beautifully, noting, for instance, that “a woman’s health decisions are a private matter between her priest and her husband,” and insurance companies should be in the business of covering only “necessary medical expenses — like boner pills.”

Plus, learn what happens when U.S. women get their hands on birth control pills …

Have you seen the Summer’s Eve videos featuring vaginal puppeteering (by way of a talking hand) asking for more V-love? The videos promote using scented cleansing and deodorant products to freshen your vagina.

Let’s get one thing straight up front: Vaginas don’t need cover-up. In fact, douches and other scented products are more likely to cause irritation and infection. The vagina is very good at cleaning itself, so if Summer’s Eve really believed in its tagline, “Hail to the V,” it would leave our vaginas alone.

But making money off women’s insecurities about their bodies never grows old for Summer’s Eve. Its newest ads targeting black and Latina women play on racial and ethnic stereotypes in addition to playing on women’s insecurities.

So how do you point out the ridiculousness of this campaign? Imagine, as Stephen Colbert does, what would happen if men’s genitals were the focus of such advertising. Hail to our best satirists.

Share it, save it, and come join us Oct. 1!

SAVE THE DATE: OCTOBER 1, 2011

It began with a small group of women
and one stapled book in Boston in 1971.

Since then, Our Bodies, Ourselves has inspired women’s health
and human rights movements in 25 countries.

Please join us as we celebrate the work of
our courageous global partners,
launch our 9th U.S. edition,
and honor 40 years of activism on behalf of women and girls.

Our Bodies, Our Future:
Advancing Health and Human Rights for Women and Girls

Saturday, October 1
Boston University, Tsai Center for Performing Arts

Register online (free, but space is limited)
http://ourbodiesourselves.eventbrite.com
Or call 617-245-0200 ext. 10

Featuring women’s groups around the globe that have developed health resources based on Our Bodies, Ourselves; contributors to the new U.S. edition; public policy and human rights experts; and special guests.
Reception immediately following symposium.
More information: ourbodiesourselves.org/40thanniversary.asp

by Paul Noble

As a 19-year-old sophomore at Beloit College in Wisconsin, I became a resident assistant. At Beloit, at least when I was there, RAs weren’t simply the dorm cops they were at other schools; Beloit’s resident assistants were in a kind of peer review/leadership program. RAs selected and supervised each other. We were required to provide a host of resources to residents, including counseling and social, emotional and educational programming.

Among our basic tenets, we believed in the power of co-ed dorm living, and we encouraged parents and students to avail themselves of its many advantages. We found, for example, that there were significantly fewer fights, vandalism incidents, and unwanted pregnancies on co-ed floors than on single-gender floors. The vast majority of our students saw wisdom in that, the annoyance of knocking on the bathroom door notwithstanding.

I was thrust into this RA program as a 19-year-old suburban boy who’d attended an all-male Catholic high school and grew up in a staunchly pro-life home. Probably because I was a theatre minor, I was assigned to take over mid-year for the RA of the Arts Co-Op – needless to say, a houseful of free thinkers. The RA selection process had been fairly intense, and there were several days of training before the semester began. The only resource given new RAs that wasn’t written or patched together by one of our staff, however, was a brand new copy of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

Perhaps the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective donated them for that purpose. Perhaps Beloit College had the foresight to go out and buy them for us. In any case, there was no explanation of how a book “by and for women” would be useful to me as an RA. I shrugged and assumed the mystery would be revealed in the reading. Wasn’t college just a series of mysteries revealed? I took it home over the holiday break and promised myself I’d at least look at it.

I did just that. I started by looking at it. The pictures, mostly. I remember thinking how frank they were, how real the people looked, how—is that what I think it is? As I began reading, I started in the section on masturbation. Catholic, you know. I proceeded, I’m sure, through all the sexual bits in the order of their fascination to me. And then I just read. And read. And read some more.

By the time the winter break was over, I’d read all but one of the major sections. Thoroughly. Had made notes in the margins. And let’s see … how to put this without sounding silly: I was changed. I didn’t lose my virginity until a month later, in the same awkward, forgettable way most kids do, I guess, but something about having explored that book made me more … whole. More thoughtful. More conscious. I remember feeling equally a pride in the things I now knew, and a certain shame for the many misapprehensions I’d long held. I felt paradoxically humbled and empowered by “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” even if it wasn’t meant for me.

I suppose I was even more transformed by the afternoon I spent three months later: Driving a resident to the nearest clinic, sitting and talking quietly with her in the waiting room, waiting for her, and then driving her back to the dorm. Honestly, though, I’m not sure I could have been very helpful, even to that desperate young woman who felt she had but one option, if I hadn’t read “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

Today, I’m 46 and the father of 2-year-old twin girls. Someday, when the time is right, my wife and I will introduce our daughters to an edition of the book that has no doubt come a long way since then. Their father certainly has. Thanks, OBOS.

Paul Noble has taught English for 24 years at Oak Park and River Forest High School. When his daughters allow, he also acts professionally in Chicago, or rewrites the occasional, nagging short story.

* * *

Do you remember when you first read “Our Bodies, Ourselves”? Take part in OBOS’s 40th anniversary by sharing how “Our Bodies, Ourselves” made a difference in your life. View more stories and submit your own.

Click the photo to view a larger image.

Generally speaking, we don’t get all that excited about book covers. Words and images may entice you to pick the book off a shelf, but covers don’t usually have their own story to tell.

That’s why we’re so thrilled to introduce the new cover of the ninth edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” The cover features 52 (!) women, from young to old, who have been influenced in some way by reading “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

How did this cover come to be? In preparation for the 40th anniversary edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” we posted a call for photos of readers. We heard from women all over the United States and as far away as Tanzania — where a locally produced health resource based on “Our Bodies, Ourselves” is used to reduce infant and maternal mortality rates.

Many recalled receiving “Our Bodies, Ourselves” from a parent, sibling, friend or teacher. Some readers also submitted their stories to the blog (read them here; you can also submit your own).

We received hundreds of submissions and sent the photos that met size/quality requirements to the publisher, Simon & Schuster. Its art team went to work on a design that would incorporate as many photos as possible and reflect both the diversity and the connectedness of readers’ lives and experiences.

OBOS readers provided the inspiration. One woman wrote with her submission: “I first picked up ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ for a human sexuality class in college. Since then, the book has been my ‘go to’ book. Even in a time when I can just plug in questions into Google, it is so much more meaningful when I can open a book that I know has touched the lives of many women. That common experience means so much more than a search engine.”

That theme is also highlighted in the cover quote by none other than Gloria Steinem: “Within these pages, you will find the voice of a women’s health movement that is based on shared experience. Listen to it — and add your own.”

We note in the book’s introduction that this revised and updated edition includes the voices and perspectives of more women than ever before. A month-long online conversation about sexuality and relationships involving more than 30 women turned into the Relationships chapter. Stories from OBOS’s global partners who are working to advance women’s health and human rights in their own communities — reshaping health care policy in Nepal, for instance, or distributing HIV-awareness posters via canoe in rural Nigeria — are interwoven throughout the text.

More information about the focus of this edition is available here. The book also features recommendations from a number of new reviewers, including Loretta Ross, Miriam Zoila Pérez, Tavi Gevinson (the first teenage reviewer!), and Nancy Redd.

“Our Bodies, Ourselves” will be released Oct. 1 (it just became available for pre-order). We’ll set something up online by then so there’s a place to do what Steinem suggested: Add your own voice and share your story.

Calling all out and proud African American lesbians! Due to a last-minute replacement, we need a photo, specifically of one or more couples, for the new edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” scheduled for publication in October.

If you think you have a great shot, and know you can gather permissions by 5 P.M. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, please email the photo to obos07@gmail.com.

Everyone in the photo needs to be willing to sign a release giving permission for it to appear in the Sexual Orientation chapter. We’ll also need a signed release from the photographer, who will receive photo credit. These are all standard one-page forms required for publication. Names of people in the photo will not be published unless requested.

This ninth edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” focuses on reproductive health and sexuality. It has been under development for more than a year and includes dozens of personal stories and essential, up-to-date information about gender identity, sexual orientation, birth control, abortion, pregnancy and birth, perimenopause, menopause, health issues such as breast and ovarian cancers, and sexuality and sexual health as we age.

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by Susan  Bell

Forty years ago, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article about the synthetic estrogen DES that is now recognized as a watershed in the annals of medicine.

The authors of the study, physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital, reported an association between DES – a prescription “wonder drug” intended to prevent miscarriages – and vaginal cancer in women who were just 15 to 22 years old. From the 1940s to the 1970s, between 5 and 10 million pregnant women and their sons and daughters were exposed to DES during pregnancy. When the daughters became teenagers and some of them developed reproductive tract cancer, the MGH physicians identified DES as the first transplacental carcinogen, and the daughters took on the new identity of “DES daughters.”

When DES daughters had trouble becoming pregnant and giving birth to healthy babies, DES was connected with miscarriage and other problems during pregnancy. These characteristics – crossing the placenta, disrupting the developing fetus, and affecting the bodies of DES daughters in multiple ways that often do not appear for many years – are those that identify DES as the first endocrine disruptor.

Much has been written in the past few weeks about DES. There have been reports of current research about damaging effects of DES: of its possible effects on the children of DES daughters, of its significance for understanding how human reproductive organs develop, and of the dangers of too much haste and too little prudence in adopting medical technologies.

Physicians writing in the New England Journal of Medicine use the words “humble” and “trauma” and “unanswered questions” in looking back and looking ahead to the future of DES. All of this is wise and good. Yet there is more that must be said in this time of remembering.

The DES story is about more than a tragedy that occurred to a population in the mid-20th century and more than a humbling experience for medicine. It is also about a women’s health movement that questioned whether doctors always know best. These women were among the first to judge science based on their intimate, firsthand knowledge of their own bodies, and joined together in collective action for social change.

Thank goodness for one “DES mother” whose daughter developed vaginal cancer during the 1960s and for her doctor who worried too. This mother asked her daughter’s physician—who was also puzzled about the cause of her daughter’s very rare cancer and was searching for answers—whether it could have been caused by the DES she took during the pregnancy.

Her physician was Dr. Howard Ulfelder, who listened to her, took her question seriously and researched the possibilities. We should celebrate this mother for voicing her hunch and this physician for listening to her. Ulfelder became one of the authors of the NEJM article; the mother remains anonymous.

DES mothers and DES daughters began the grassroots organizations DES Action (in 1975) and the DES Cancer Network (in 1982). Among other things, we should be grateful to these organizations for their efforts in bringing about an interdisciplinary, international “workshop” about DES in 1992 – a watershed in DES research, legislation and funding. Lines of research and practice initiated at that 1992 workshop have transformed the doing of science by incorporating activists in the conceptualization and conduct of DES science.

Thirty years ago, I began a research project to understand DES daughters’ experiences. I interviewed DES daughters, read their letters to the editor of these grassroots organizations, and traced their participation in the DES workshop. The results, published in my book, trace story by story their individual and collective efforts that galvanized the watershed DES research, legislation and funding.

One DES daughter who had vaginal cancer in her early 20s was devastated when her surgeon told her she would need a complete hysterectomy. Years later, after she had returned to see him many times for examinations she told me, “I was one of the wonders of medical science,” a woman whose surgeon had saved her life and rebuilt her body. For her surgeon – one of the pioneers in surgery for DES cancer – her body was “the most wonderful thing in the world.”

By the time she told me her story, “it was nothing abnormal to have five or six guys standing around” watching and learning as her surgeon examined her during follow-ups. They learned both from him and from her. As she put it, during those exams, “I used to tease him a lot you know, ‘Oh yeah, I know what to do now.’” The repeated examinations and displays of her body had educated her as well as doctors. She too, became a bearer of knowledge about the clinical contours of DES.

In taking care of themselves these patients and their mothers created new pathways, transformed relations of power and knowledge, and contributed to making new spaces and bringing world wide attention to DES. So on this 40th anniversary of that publication, let us celebrate the courage and the unique contribution of women’s health activism to the DES story.

Susan E. Bell is Professor of Sociology and A. Myrick Freeman Professor of Social Sciences at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. She is the author of “DES Daughters: Embodied Knowledge and the Transformation of Women’s Health Politics” (Temple University Press, 2009).

Motherhood and Justice: This special series, published at RH Reality Check in partnership with Strong Families, examines various issues at the intersection of justice and motherhood.

Recent stories include: “The Up and Down Journey of Motherhood: Let’s Lift As They Climb,” by Marlene Sanchez; “Supporting Her Journey: A Full-Spectrum Doula’s Look at the Politics of Motherhood,” by Lauren Guy-McAlpin; and “Mother’s Day 2011: Why Reproductive Justice Is a Black Thing,” by Walidah Imarisha.

Strong Families, a project of Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, is a national initiative to change the way people think, feel and act in support of families. Read more accounts of motherhood at the ACRJ blog, and view some of the amazing stories Strong Families has collected, along with this video:

Beyond Flowers for Mom: Want a new way to honor mothers? How about doing something that saves the lives of women around the world?

Nicholas Kristof writes about the work of Edna Adan, who runs a maternity hospital in Somaliland. The hospital is supported in part by the Friends of Edna Maternity Hospital, who were prompted to get involved by this 1999 article about Adan’s work. From Kristof’s recent column:

On a continent where hospitals are often dilapidated and depressing, Edna’s is modern, sterile and hums with efficiency. She lives in an apartment above the hospital so that she is available 24/7, and she accepts no salary. She also donates her U.N. pension each month to help pay hospital expenses.

So far, the hospital says it has delivered about 10,000 babies, some of them after the woman was rushed to the hospital gate in a wheelbarrow. Edna has also used her hospital to train Somali midwives to serve in remote areas. Training a midwife at Edna’s hospital costs $215 a month for 18 months — and then that midwife will save mothers and babies for many years.

If there’s ever a time when the needless deaths of women in childbirth — one every 90 seconds or so somewhere in the world, according to the United Nations — should be on our radar screen, it’s at Mother’s Day. And we know how to save those lives.

Continue reading for more information about organizations doing great work, such as CARE, Save the Children (see its new report, “State of the World’s Mothers“), the Fistula Foundation and Mothers’ Day Movement — which was was founded by six women who were shocked to learn that $14 billion was spent in the United States in 2010 on Mother’s Day celebrations. They’d like to see a portion of that money donated to spending on programs and services for those in need.

Update to Amnesty Report on Maternal Health Crisis: Amnesty International has released an update to its 2010 report, “Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA“ (both are pdf’s) that highlights important new studies and legislative developments.

Visit Amnesty’s section on maternal health is a human right for more information and links, including info about the Maternal Health Accountability Act of 2011.

Over at Human Rights Now, AI’s blog, be sure to read “Why Midwives And Maternal Health Need To Go Hand-In-Hand,” by Jennie Joseph, a midwife in Winter Garden, Fla. Joseph is clinical director of The Birth Place, a full-service midwifery clinic and birth center, and developer of the JJ Way, a midwifery curriculum geared toward eliminating disparities.

She is featured in Christy Turlington Burns’ documentary film “No Woman, No Cry,” which tells the stories of at-risk pregnant women in four parts of the world. “No Woman, No Cry” makes its debut this weekend on the OWN network (as in Oprah’s). One more clip:

Plus: Finally, on a lighter note — what six words describe your mom? The New York Times is hosting a contest. View all submissions and read the rules here. Amid the many joyful descriptions, some are heartbreakingly painful. Here’s one I could really identify with: Clenched teeth: “Deborah Ann, what now?”