Editor’s note: This story is by freelancer Susan Green, a longtime Vermont journalist.
[I]t’s Shelved, proclaimed The New York Times.
A Bible Discontinued, announced The Weekly Standard.
Recent headlines about “Our Bodies, Ourselves” — which the conservative magazine also demeaned as “the primal scream of identity politics” — are somewhat misleading. Many people likely assumed they were reading an obituary. Would the landmark book on women’s health, first published in 1970, soon disappear altogether?
Not so, said Jane Pincus, a Vermonter who was one of the original 25 writers and editors who turned a tenuous venture costing less than a dollar into a revolutionary reference for women of all ages. Nine updated editions later, the nonprofit feminist bestseller is clicking onto a 21st-century future.
“We’ll still have a website and a blog,” Pincus said. “The knowledge will continue. Our global initiative will continue.”
“Our Bodies, Ourselves” has been translated into 32 languages. Even now, “a Mongolian edition is in the works,” she said.
Former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin expressed mixed feelings about the transformation. “I think it’s too bad that the book will no longer be published,” she said. “The latest edition remains objective and informative. But I recognize that the young generation gets its information in a different way and, if we are to continue to discuss the material in “Our Bodies,” we have to reach young people in a form which they can easily access.”
The decision to do away with the print version was based on financial realities in a time of digital domination. A 2016 fundraising campaign by Ms. magazine legend Gloria Steinem and actress/author Lena Dunham of HBO’s Girls fame means there’s enough money to pay a director but not an entire staff.
Pincus was one of about two dozen women — many of them young mothers — in the Boston area who found themselves in 1969 unhappy with the scarcity of reliable facts about reproduction. Tired of “getting coffee for the guys” in local civil rights and anti-war activist circles, Pincus said, women “wanted to talk about themselves for a change.”
Each chose a subject for research and discussion — often inspired by personal experience, a problem encountered, such as birth control measures that didn’t work, pregnancy, a difficult delivery, postpartum depression or abortion — which was still illegal.
They held a workshop at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There were gasps among the 50 or so participants at the mention of words like “vagina” and “masturbation.”
“Nobody talked about these things back then,” Pincus said.
Intent on evaluating the mainstream medical establishment, the organizers handed out a questionnaire for participants to fill out. They used stark terms: Was a doctor intimidating? Cruel? Incompetent? Of the 20 responses returned, not one could recommend a physician worthy of trust.
Two women enrolled in the class encouraged the instructors to turn the endeavor into a book, and then proposed the idea to their employer, the politically-radical New England Free Press. The young men who ran the Boston collective, which turned out movement pamphlets and posters, were initially reluctant. They supported feminist causes in general but failed to see a connection to women’s health.
They were persuaded, however, and the project began to take shape in the summer of 1970. Women from the original group wrote about both their research and their personal perspectives. Pincus covered nutrition, physical changes during gestation and emotional needs. She even included photos of herself, unclothed and very pregnant, to illustrate one chapter.
Originally titled “Women and Their Bodies,” it was 193 pages long and printed on newsprint. It sold for 75 cents. The contents were necessarily graphic. They also provided an intimate nonfiction narrative in an accessible format about female anatomy, contraception, pregnancy, childbirth and other related subjects.
The project mushroomed, with a revised edition in 1971. “We incorporated ourselves as the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective,” Pincus recalled.
A second edition sold for even less — only 40 cents. “A quarter-million copies were sold,” Pincus said. “Colleges had been putting them in every incoming student’s mailbox.”
Their small publisher had trouble keeping up with demand and the authors envisioned an even wider audience. “It was clear we could reach more people by going with a commercial operation: Simon & Schuster,” Pincus said. “The New England Free Press told us, ‘You shouldn’t do business with capitalist pigs!’”
Pincus and her comrades ignored the warning in the interest of improving women’s lives on a grander scale. In the spring of 1973, a new 278-page version of the book came out, costing $2.95. Between rearing children and other domestic responsibilities, the book collective ladies fanned out across the country on promotional tours.
Their success was met with vehement opposition from the religious right. The Moral Majority, led by Reverend Jerry Falwell, denounced the book as “obscene trash” and its authors as “liberals and advocates of pornographic sex education.”
Vermont’s Madeleine Kunin saw “Our Bodies, Ourselves” as a touchstone for American democracy. “It was revolutionary,” she said. “Nobody had described women’s health and sexuality before. And they did it in such a clear, no-nonsense way. The authors were really pioneers.”
She recalled the bad old days when “we didn’t talk about our bodies,” and said she thinks there’s still a need for ”frank discussions on this topic. This generation may assume they know everything but they, like we did at their age, have a lot to learn.The shroud of secrecy remains around sexuality.”
Melinda Moulton, CEO/Redeveloper of Main Street Landing on the Burlington waterfront, still remembers growing up in the 1950s when ”there was this real hunger to understand our sexuality, but we had nothing to teach us. Our girlfriends were kicked out of school if they got pregnant. I never even saw a gynecologist until I was expecting my son in 1972.”
A Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE) board member for seven years, Moulton said the organization’s Peer Educator Program is in the vanguard of giving youngsters meaningful opportunities to learn about themselves.
This effort began at Burlington High School in 2013 and has since expanded to high schools in South Burlington and Essex. Students — 18 so far, each with 40 hours of training — engage in dialogues with fellow students about pregnancy, birth control, abstinence, sexually-transmitted diseases and similar health issues.
While not required, “Our Bodies, Ourselves” is on our resource lists for people to seek out if they are looking for books to read on their own or with their families,” said Lucy Rose Leriche, Vice-President of PPNNE’s Public Policy Vermont. “[It’s] a wonderful resource.”
A 2012 Library of Congress exhibition “intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives” cited “Our Bodies, Ourselves” as one of 88 important literary works in the country’s history. In the company of classics — “The Great Gatsby,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “On the Road” — the guide to women’s health marches on, even if no longer on paper.
“To me, the exciting part is that it was always an angry book, full of energy. I find it so moving to hear from women about how much it meant to them,” Pincus said.
In 1975, Pincus moved with her husband and children to Roxbury, a town of 400. Several years later, they started a flower farm called Third Branch that’s still going.
A batik artist in her spare time, she remained a co-editor of the book until 1996, and watched it grow more diverse, multigenerational and comprehensive.
Pincus is still on the Health Collective board, and “still in the game,” she said, excited to witness “Our Bodies, Ourselves” evolving.
“On the eve of my 80th birthday last April, I gave a talk in Northfield to young women,” she said. “Someone told me, ‘I want you to know that your book saved my life.’”
