Founders in 1969
The 1960s saw pivotal efforts in the women’s movement, and women all over America were uniting and holding important discussions. In 1969, Emmanuel College in Boston held one such conference dedicated to female liberation. At this event, a group of women met and joined efforts to create a piece of literature that, to this day, is considered revolutionary.
Cover of the first edition in 1970.
The founding women met during a “Women and their Bodies” workshop. There, they discussed the shortcomings of healthcare and expressed frustration at doctors’ lack of knowledge regarding female systems and anatomy. This sparked the creation of the Doctor’s Group, in which they could learn about themselves and share that knowledge with other women.
They compiled their new knowledge into a book that would be accessible and would help women understand their needs and, ultimately, use that to receive adequate medical care. This would present a necessary challenge to how things were in the 1969 medical environment. The 193-page course was titled “Women and Their Bodies”, cost only 75 cents, and was groundbreaking in its bold discussion of sexuality and abortion.
Two years later, the group of authoring women renamed their work “Our Bodies, Ourselves” to further show autonomy. They sold 225,000 copies, amassing an underground following gained largely by word-of-mouth.
Cover of the 1973 addition.
The following year, the Doctors Group formally became the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective and signed with a big-name publisher to broaden its reach. Since then, “Our Bodies, Ourselves” became an important piece of nonfiction and received updates every few years until 2011. That year, Time magazine honored the piece as one of the 100 best nonfiction books since Time’s creation in 1923, and the Library of Congress included it in the Books That Shaped America collection in 2012.
Cover of the 2011 edition
Years of collaboration made this a credible and innovative publication with evidence-based information and allowed readers to learn all about female health and sexuality. The scope included the range of conditions that affect healthcare access and quality of care, including social, economic, and political effects. Readers found this enlightening, empowering, and inspiring.
In 2018, the team found that they could no longer sustain such a robust research-based operation and chose to scale down to a 501(c)3 volunteer organization; as a result, they became Our Bodies Ourselves. Now with an online presence in collaboration with the Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights at Suffolk University, Our Bodies Ourselves focuses on two main objectives: women’s health and social justice advocacy and supporting global partners. The nonprofit continues to have an immense impact on women worldwide.