Have fundraising skills and a passion for women’s health? Consider applying for our new, half-time fundraising position!

We’re looking for someone to develop fundraising materials, master the use of fundraising databases, identify and cultivate individual donors, and pursue new sources of foundation funding.  Help Our Bodies Ourselves maintain our legacy of education, activism and empowerment.

Find out more here. Feel free to share and re-post. Thanks!

by Jayne Marchesi

Oh my gosh! Congratulations on 40 years!

I received my first “Our Bodies, Ourselves” when I was starting college back in 1978. Then I gave a newer edition to my daughter when she was in high school. The information in this book was so invaluable to me. Having so many questions and not knowing who to talk to back then made me feel
empowered in my young years.

Having just seen your commentary on the Evening News made me stop in
my tracks and smile and feel so grateful to you for helping women then
and now.

Congratulations!

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.

NBC Nightly News, which broadcast a great report this week on the 40th anniversary of “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” has posted an exclusive web-only interview with Judy Norsigian, OBOS co-founder and executive director, that is well worth viewing and sharing. (Also see the equally impressive interview with Dr. Susan Love.)

Norsigian talks about how the earlier “Our Bodies, Ourselves” editions demystified health and medical care, helping women to feel entitled about their right to ask questions — and get answers — from a paternalistic medical system. The book “changed the basic discourse” around women’s bodies and health, while also offering explicit information about access to birth control and abortion.

One of the ongoing health challenges, she notes, is the rate of sexually transmitted infections; women around the globe still struggle to have sex that doesn’t put their health at risk.

The video includes footage of a recent book signing for the brand new 2011 edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” held at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Mass., and references the work of women’s groups in other countries that have adapted “Our Bodies, Ourselves” for their own communities.

In under 3 minutes, this interview provides one of the best historical and forward-looking assessments of the impact of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” around the world.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Susan Love, the well-known breast cancer researcher and women’s health advocate, was a 23-year-old medical student when the first edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” was published, but the book’s impact was instant and permanent.

“It completely revolutionized how I and really the whole world looked at women’s health,” she said during an exclusive web-only interview with NBC Nightly News, which earlier this week broadcast a report on the 40th anniversary of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” and the new 2011 edition. (Also see the web-only interview with OBOS co-founder Judy Norsigian.)

Women were treated as “small men who have babies,” says Love, noting there was no effort made to understand how women’s bodies or brains might be different than men’s. “Men were the model, and women were sort of this extra thing.”

“Our Bodies, Ourselves” put forth the radical notion that women are worthy of study. Love recalls seeing the map of the cervix in the first edition of and thinking, “It was amazing, it was a miraculous thing! Who knew what was in there?”

Fast forward 40 years, and Love is still considering the differences between women and men in her medical research. While most of the medical community studying breast cancer is focused on cancer cells, Love focuses on the breast itself.

“Believe it or not, all these years after ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves,’ we know all the molecular biology of breast cancer. But we still don’t know how many holes are in the nipple that milk comes out of,” said Love. “We still don’t know the anatomy of the breast. We still don’t know what the breast is doing when it’s not making milk. So we still need ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ in our lives.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Great segment on “Our Bodies, Ourselves” on NBC Nightly News! We’re delighted they featured some of the original authors and women talking about what the book has meant to them. And the camera shots provided good context, showing the many different editions over the years. We’ll post video here once it’s available. (see below!)

A few quick observations:

- Didn’t know Mona Charen was taking part, or that she’s still angry “Our Bodies, Ourselves” separated sex from marriage.

- We need to see and hear more younger women activists like Veronica Arreola, and Veronica’s daughter is super adorable.

- NBC censors must be ridiculously tough these days. From Brian Williams’ introduction:

“Our Bodies, Ourselves” was ground-breaker, a game-changer. It got its start in life as a short pamphlet 40 years ago this month. Then, it became a book and started arriving in American homes. And it was a revelation for women for what it talked about, like sex and plumbing and menopause, information a lot of women at the time weren’t getting from their mostly male doctors. For some it quickly became a kind of bible for the female body in terms of health and empowerment. …”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The new edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” has been picking up some great press from coast to coast, and tonight we’re going national!

NBC Nightly News is doing a segment on the book and its 40th anniversary featuring OBOS co-founder and executive director Judy Norsigian as well as Susan Love, Nora Ephron, Faye Wattleton and book contributor Veronica Arreola, an all-around awesome feminist and women’s health advocate.

NBC also filmed a book discussion and signing held last week at Porter Square Books in Cambridge and may include some of that footage.

NBC Nightly News is on from 6:30-7 p.m. EST. We hope you’ll watch!
UPDATE: OBOS will be featured in a 2.5-minute report at the end of the show.

Plus: If you haven’t bought your copy yet, you can learn more about the book and order it up here.  Also check out of the amazing coverage it’s received so far.

And did you know that “Our Bodies, Ourselves” is available at a 70 percent discount to health clinics and certain other nonprofit organizations? Seriously. That means it’s only $7.80 per copy. Check out the clinic discounts page for more details.

by Anonymous

OBOS means being a nine-year-old girl and sneaking to flip through the contents of my mother’s copy. I recall seeing a drawing of a woman growing pubic hair and using a tampon. I remember being horrified and intrigued at the same time. It’s been many years since I’ve thought about that book but it would be 15 more years before I could muster up the courage to use a tampon.

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.

by Vanessa Fernando

I first came across a copy of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” in a used bookstore when I was fifteen. I had been making myself throw up for about a year by that point, counting calories and restricting my sugar intake during the day just to sneak downstairs at night, quietly eating pretzels and cookies while trying not to wake my mother up. My world consisted of a high school where the ‘pretty’ girls were all white and wore two-hundred-dollar jeans. I was hungry for all the things I couldn’t name- community, self-acceptance, a feminist analysis that could help me sort through the layers of my identity (queer, mixed-race) and find wholeness.

I can’t say that Our Bodies, Ourselves ‘cured’ me of my bulimia and solved all my problems. But what OBOS did was help me realize that women– women with very different backgrounds and from very different life experiences — have been mobilizing for years to create resources for girls like the one I was then. OBOS provided a community of sorts, a refuge, in which women discussed their own thoughts and fears and insecurities and shared information with one another in a way that alleviated my fears and my feelings of isolation.

Throughout my teenage years, as I started trying to stop my disordered eating and replace it with less destructive habits, questioned my sexual identity, and thought about becoming sexually active, OBOS was there with me, a friend to turn to in the middle of the night as I tried desperately to resist purging, as I tried not to listen to those voices in my head telling me that I was ugly, that I was disgusting, that I wasn’t worth loving.

I am proud to be a part of this project [ed note: Vanessa is on the cover of the new edition of OBOS], because I know that I have come a long way since then, and OBOS has helped me countless times as I’ve worked so hard to get here. OBOS has also allowed me to share my growth with others. I gave my mother a copy of ”Our Bodies, Ourselves: A New Edition for a New Era” when it first came out, hoping that she might be able to find a similar refuge in its pages as she struggled to embrace menopause and her aging body. Since then, I’ve noticed that her copy’s pages are dog-eared. In addition to providing me with personal support, OBOS has also helped build empathy, as well as solidarity, between myself and my mother. That, I believe, is feminism in action.

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.

We’re working on pulling together images and stories from this past weekend’s incredible 40th anniversary symposium. Our global partners from Turkey to Tanzania go to great lengths to ensure women in their countries have access to resources and information that enable them to make decisions about their health and the health of their families. Stories from these women affected everyone who watched and listened (see E.J. Graff’s great post over at The American Prospect).

Meanwhile, over on Capitol Hill, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted Wednesday to approve a bill (H.R. 2059) that would prohibit the U.S. government from providing funding to the United Nations Population Fund.

The International Women’s Health Coalition, in an alert sent out Wednesday morning on the assault on funding for services that help the world’s poorest women, noted that the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC), “may not understand how essential and cost effective UNFPA’s work to promote the health and rights of women and girls really is.”

Here’s what UNFPA does for the world’s poorest citizens (feel free to call Rep. Ellmer’s office, 202-225-4531, to share this information):

• Access to contraception and family planning services
• Midwifery and emergency obstetric care
• Prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections
• Prevent and treat obstetric fistula
• Work to end female genital mutilation and other harmful traditional practices such as child marriage
• Essential reproductive health services in post-conflict and disaster situations

We’ve heard the stories first-hand of how funding and access to services can save lives, yet right-wing politicians continue to malign the UNFPA out of ignorance and bias.

Reality check: The UNFPA “supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.”

Read more about the international development agency’s programs, along with this FAQ, and please spread the word.

Today at Boston University’s Tsai Performance Center, Our Bodies Ourselves is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the publication of the original “Our Bodies, Ourselves” book, editions of which have informed and inspired women ever since.

To mark this milestone, the organization is holding a free public symposium, with speakers including Loretta Ross of SisterSong, Byllye Avery of the Black Women’s Health Imperative, and OBOS’s own Judy Norsigian. Jacyln Friedman of Women, Action, & the Media is the emcee.

There will also be panels on global activism featuring OBOS’s network partners from 12 countries who will discuss their experiences transforming ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ for their own countries (meet some of them here on the blog).

Here’s the full agenda and program guide (pdf).

Last but not least, the 40th anniversary edition of the landmark book, a completely revised ninth edition, will be released today.

I’m super-excited.

Realizing that everybody who might be interested in these sessions — which include a great deal of international representation — might not be able to attend, the event will be live-streamed online starting at 9 a.m. today.

If you’re following along at home and want to tweet about it, the hashtag we’re using is #obos40. There will be a post-event round-up at here at Our Bodies Our Blog.

Be sure to check out three new stories about OBOS posted today. And thanks for celebrating with us!

by Ruth Bell Alexander

In late 1969, a couple of months away from delivering my first baby (my son, who is now 41), I was 25 years old, living out in the country suburbs of Boston 3,000 miles away from my family, with a husband who went off to Cambridge every weekday for work.

It was a pretty lonely existence. I knew almost no one. But when my husband came home one day and told me he had met some people at work who knew about a women’s group that was starting, my life began to change. They were offering a class after hours at MIT about women’s issues. I remember the class being called Women and Their Bodies, but that’s with 42 years hindsight, so I may be wrong about the original title.

I do remember with startling clarity that although I knew only one person there, and even she I knew only barely, the roomful of women I walked into was very welcoming. The “class” was presented in a series of lectures about topics that ranged from women’s “roles,” to women’s work, health, legal issues pertaining to women, etc. — one topic per week for 12 weeks.

Each week had a “presenter,” and everyone in the room was invited to ask questions, offer comments, and discuss the issue at hand. I remember the Pregnancy class most clearly of course, and most specifically I remember raising my hand, with some trepidation, to ask about nightmares. During my pregnancy I had been having troubling nightmares, one of the issues that led me to brave the New England winter nights to drive 20 miles into Cambridge for the class. So I raised my hand and asked, “Has anyone experienced nightmares during pregnancy?”

Remembering this brings tears to my eyes even now at age 67, because my question was met with such loving responses that I felt embraced by the warmth and power of the experience and a deep connection to every woman in that room. No one patted me on the head and told me not to worry, as my doctor had done. No one scoffed at me. Instead, they listened and they responded from their hearts. And several of them had nightmares during their pregnancies, and they told me it was a fairly common experience for pregnant women to have strange dreams.

The flood of relief I felt at that moment, and the power that came from the sense of not being alone, really did change my life. The course ended after my baby was born, but I remember being at the last class when anyone there who wanted to participate in the writing of the lecture series into a book was invited to come to the next meeting.

I did show up at that next meeting and I have been involved with the OBOS collective since then. Happy 40th Anniversary, “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

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.

by Maura Ann Dowling

In 1986 I was a senior in college, had just ended a relationship with my boyfriend who had anger management challenges from some unresolved issues in his past. Then I found out I was pregnant. My parents were very concerned with image — so this was not an event they were able to open their hearts to for many months.

Fortunately I owned a copy of “Our Bodies Ourselves,” because my mother had planted a seed in me to question the medical establishment, and one of my professors in college was part of the generation of 1968 in France and she had raised my feminist consciousness. Neither my mother nor my professor had the ability to advise me in this, so OBOS gave me that mentoring supportive voice that I needed.

For me, an abortion was not an option. I always knew I would carry my pregnancy to term and raise the baby on my own. And OBOS continually gave me the women’s wisdom I needed. I was 24 at the time but looked about 17 — and when I went to physicians’ offices, I noticed the disconnect between what I wanted to be a positive nurturing pre- and post-natal experience.

Just the forms I filled out asking for the “father’s name” even before my name was appalling. Then the “meet-the-doctor-naked-in-a-paper-gown” was uncomfortable. And then the insistence on ultrasounds and tests that I didn’t agree with. All through this OBOS was my midwife — always informative, always encouraging me to hear and express my own voice.

I declined prenatal tests with 30 percent failure rates. I requested to meet and speak with my physician clothed and with questions about their practice. I discussed natural childbirth and what reasons would cause them to use medical interventions. Once I was faint on the examining table and the female physician asked if I always acted this way! I changed physicians four times through my pregnancy because of the way they handled my taking the lead in me and my baby’s care.

Through all of this, my family went through all manner of projecting judgment and fear on to me — my father didn’t speak to me for four months, my mother made inquiries into an unwed mother’s home, my brother asked why I wasn’t getting an abortion, my Godmother told me I could never wear a white dress at a wedding in future. OBOS validated me while my family heaped their shame on me.

I kept up a full-time course load, and waitressed part-time until I was eight months pregnant. Then the physician I had come to trust told me my baby was breech and that she would schedule me for a C-section. After I had gotten dressed and met her in her office, I knew enough to ask questions because of my intense reading of OBOS. Formulating the question in the heat of the moment was very challenging because this news came at me so suddenly.

I managed to ask why we wouldn’t wait until I went into labor to plan the C-section, because then we would have a clear indication that the baby was ready to be born.

Her response stunned me. She asked, “Why would you want to go into labor — it’s no fun.”

I drove straight home and pulled out OBOS. I searched for some answer — this didn’t feel right. My father stopped by, he was speaking to me now and I told him what had happened. He was an HR executive, and he told me that the major medical health insurance I had paid a physician a higher rate on a C-section than a natural birth.

Since midwives were discussed, I decided I needed advice from one. I obtained a phone number of a midwives association in the New York City area where I was — and when I discussed what had transpired with the midwife, she asked how I knew to call them. I told her about OBOS! She was so supportive of me and encouraged me for standing up for myself — then she gave me three physician’s names and why she thought they were worth a try in my case. She did warn me that changing physicians at almost nine months was tricky due to the way insurance pays.

The second physician’s office took me in for an appointment. My mother went with me and told me I was being vain to avoid a C-section. I reached behind her seat in the car and handed her a copy of “The Silent Knife” that OBOS had recommended and told her the page number to read where they described a C-section step-by-step. My mother had been an RN so I knew she would understand after she read — she did, and she stopped resisting my medical choices. The new physician was willing to discuss ways for the baby to adjust position before birth, as well as manual ways to change her position and he reassured me that a C-section would be a last resort.

By the time I had an ultrasound to check, the baby had moved with the exercises. My former physician called me to see why I was terminating our relationship, and when I explained she went on the fear-path, telling me how big my baby was. I just quoted something from OBOS and told her I felt natural childbirth was the right path for me to pursue.

My beautiful daughter, Maia, was born a few days later after a long and vigorous labor with no drugs or surgery. I spent one night in the hospital (my choice) and took her home, and we were a champion nursing team. She lost 2 ounces, and then gained weight at a robust clip. She was born on a Monday and then on Wednesday evening my mother and aunt babysat for a couple of hours so I could go to my feminist economics class where I got so much positive support along with my trusty OBOS.

My daughter and I thank you — all of you past and present! And for many years now my daughter and her father have cultivated a deep and growing relationship. We are a family that started with bumps, but have found resolution, love and peace.

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.

by Whitney Pinger

As a young teen in the 1970s, OBOS taught me that women’s health was ours, and that we did not have to give up or strength and power.

I learned that midwives are the guardians of normal and natural birth and that is what I have come to incarnate.

I have been learning to be a midwife since I opened my first copy of OBOS … my journey took me many places but I am now the Director of Midwifery at The George Washington University.

I was an OBOS Women’s Health Hero in 2010.

My entire life has flowed from OBOS.

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.

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 Gamze Karadağ
OBOS Project Coordinator, Turkey

I’m a 29-year-old feminist from Turkey. It is hard to be a feminist in Turkey, as I know it is in many countries.

When you state that you’re a feminist, people judge your appearance and question whether you hate men. They speculate about your sexuality, asking if you are a lesbian and why feminists are so “offensive.” Pity we have to encounter such prejudices.

In Turkey, women who call themselves feminist have increased in number in the past few decades, but they are still a very small group. Of course, there are many women who, though they fear being associated with the term and the clichéd prejudices, are still interested in feminist issues.

Many women go about their daily routines giving little thought to obtaining information about their rights, health and body. At the same time, they have difficulty finding sources of information if the need arises. So feminism remains not well understood.

Also, there are some separation points in the women’s movement, including ethnicity, religion and sexual identity, that make moving forward with common goals more difficult. Groups tend to focus on specific concerns, such as legal regulations and violence against women, instead of women’s health and broader political issues. In addition, women’s issues are pushed to the side in Turkey’s political institutions.

I got involved in the women’s health movement when I started working at Mavi Kalem as a volunteer. We were organizing health programs and implementing house visits. At the end, my teammates mentioned the “Our Bodies, Ourselves” book and the possibility of starting that project. It was a brilliant experience to be part of such a project as a health trainer, and with OBOS I started specializing on women’s health rights.

Being a part of this project, I learned a lot — especially about myself, my body, feminism and women’s solidarity. My commitment to finding solutions to problems affecting women in Turkey increased when working on “Bedenlerimiz Biziz,” the Turkish version of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” (read more about the book in progress).

Now we are developing educational modules on women’s health based on “Bedenlerimiz Biziz,” and we are working on women’s health and women’s rights education. In these times, coming together with women are the moments I enjoy in life. The experiences give me energy and hope.

We expect to complete the “Our Bodies, Ourselves” project by the end of 2011. When “Bedenlerimiz Biziz” emerges, we believe many women will take steps to improve their lives. We also believe that this book’s arrival will create an opportunity for reform around the politics of women’s health and the feminist movement in Turkey.

A native of Çanakkale in Turkey, Gamze Karadağ is the general coordinator of Mavi Kalem. She organizes its volunteer and field teams, conducts health trainings for women in local communities, factories, and shelters, and contributes to its monthly women’s health magazine, Zuhre.

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 Irina Tordorova
OBOS Project Coordinator, Bulgaria

The Women’s Health Initiative in Bulgaria (WHIBG) published a Bulgarian adaptation of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” in 2001, with support from the Open Society Institute and Global Fund for Women.

In the years following its publication, we have used the book as a base for discussions in many seminars in community centers (or “Chitalishte”) across the country, as well as in other outreach activities with women’s groups in small towns and villages. These seminars have been met with great interest and support.

Some of the women’s health topics on which we focus are health disparities, particularly in relation to cervical cancer, cervical cancer prevention, and infertility/assisted reproductive technologies. Our outreach and health promotion activities are based on extensive quantitative and qualitative research that our associates conduct in Eastern Europe.

The situation in Bulgaria concerning cervical cancer prevention is worrisome, since cervical cancer mortality has risen during the past two decades. In Western European and most other Eastern European countries (except Romania and Serbia), in contrast, the incidence and mortality rates are consistently decreasing. In Bulgaria, mortality from cervical cancer has increased from 3.9 per 100,000 women in 1980 to 6.9 per 100,000 women in 2006, which is more than three times the rate for Western European Union countries.

Though Bulgaria sustained a regular screening program from the 1970s until the late 1980s, this program was discontinued when the healthcare system underwent restructuring during the nation’s transitional period. The results vividly illustrate the effects of the rapid dismantling of the existing healthcare system on women’s health and mortality. Screening is currently conducted on an ad hoc, opportunistic basis. Rather than making PAP tests part of a preventive program, they are usually done as part of exams for other purposes.

Women are facing structural barriers, which limit motivation and access. In a nationally representative study we conducted with women age 20 to 65, we found that relatively few women (46 percent) have ever had a Pap test. Socioeconomic conditions were related to the extent to which the women reported facing healthcare system barriers to screening (difficulties in access, transportation, price, communication with providers, etc.).

Quite striking were the disparities in the different ethnic groups. For example, 51 percent of women of Bulgarian ethnicity reported being screened, while only 39 percent of Turkish women and 8.8 percent of women of Roma ethnicity reported screenings.

More recently, there have been initiatives by the Ministry of Health to develop contemporary strategies to reduce mortality from cervical cancer. So far, the process has been slow. However, our associates have been conducting health promotion activities. They are also providing policy recommendations and participating in Parliamentary and Ministry of Health working groups to develop successful prevention strategies and programs.

Cervical cancer mortality is a vivid indicator of inequalities between and within countries, as well as an indicator of the health of a health care system. Cervical cancer is highly avoidable, and continued health promotion and policy efforts are needed to reduce incidence and mortality in Bulgaria.

Irina Tordorova is a health psychologist and professor at the Center for Population Health and Health Disparities at Northeastern University. She is also past president of the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS) and EHPS representative to the United Nations. She co-founded the Women’s Health Initiative in Bulgaria, which published a Bulgarian adaptation of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” in 2001.