Product Description
An essential sourcebook for women of all generations explores health-care issues ranging from sexuality and childbearing through menopause and dealing with the medical establishment. Reprint. 60,000 first printing.Amazon.com Review
Three decades ago, information about women’s health was hoarded by physicians and doled out sparingly to their female patients. Our Bodies, Ourselves, first published in 1969, helped change that situation. The latest ed… More >>
New Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women
Tags: Bodies, Book, Ourselves, women
#1 by Anonymous on April 4, 2010 - 3:38 am
The previous edition of this book came highly recommended to me as highly informative about the many health issues facing women – the physical problems/changes women of all ages might expect to face, their symptoms and treatments. Instead, social and political essays on such topics as sexism, harassment in the workplace, lesbianism, the politics of women’s health and medical care, racism and the environment, etc. have crowded out many of the subjects and the information that I, and probably most women, are seeking in a book purportedly about women’s health. While political and social matters like those raised in the book are certainly valid and of interest to many, they don’t belong in a book that should be dealing with women’s health issues. The title itself is very misleading, and I was extremely disappointed in the book. Because of the inadequate coverage of facts and information in this edition, I am searching for another book that will provide the answers to the! many questions that were not answered by Our Bodies, Ourselves.
Rating: 2 / 5
#2 by Anonymous on April 4, 2010 - 4:03 am
The authors write as if women are people, as if women are not all the same but in fact have a wide range of biological and behavioral variability, as if each woman is unique and, not only that, is entitled to living as she very well pleases. It’s a disgrace. They show women naked who don’t look like fashion models but could be just you or me. They write as if it’s a good idea for women to be healthy in mind as well as in body. As if this wasn’t enough, they go on to suggest that the quality of health care has anything to do with the medical establishment, that women should actually be informed correctly of the risks of medical procedures and alternatives available and, lo and behold, make the choice themselves, that the medical establishment is often not a wonderful haven for women who are poor or outside the cultural mainstream, as in for example when they are members of minority groups, that a woman’s sex life and relationships may be influenced by power structures in the society she lives in, and other such far-fetched stuff. In reality, we all know that all women have 28-day periods, get menopausal at 48, are all heterossexual, are all white (most other books agree at least on this one point), are all fairly pretty, all get married, all want children, and that health has nothing to do with anything else in the world out there. No wonder one reader complained that this book, supposed to be about health, is also political. A disgrace indeed.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by S. Jones on April 4, 2010 - 7:00 am
I cannot think of a better resource for women than this book. It changed my life. I have owned this version of _Our Bodies, Ourselves_ since I was introduced to it in college more than a decade ago, and I have referred to it again and again, both for myself and for friends female and male. There is nothing else like it out there. It is ground-breaking not only in its approach, which is frank and unapologetic, but also in the depth and breadth of information it presents. This book makes you feel great about being a woman and is written for us as a group and as individuals. It’s not just a guide for health, it’s a guide for living. Highly recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by Blue Tyson on April 4, 2010 - 8:07 am
A guide to the body and life for the female of the species. This is quite well done and informative, giving useful information and suggestions on health and reproductive life as well as other physiological and/or medical issues that are appropriate to women. This is definitely worth a read and worth having around.
Rating: 3 / 5
#5 by E. B. MULLIGAN on April 4, 2010 - 8:58 am
This 1998/1999 edition is lavishly illustrated with drawings and photographs (including an iconic one by Tee A. Corinne of a disabled person making love in a wheel chair). This is the kind of book you can flip thorough and start reading on any page and find something of interest.
They even have their own internet site containing information about this book and related books. Truly a wealth of information and a treasure to have found. I just got this book and wished I’d had it in my teens, twenties, thirties, but thankfully now in my 40’s I do.
Now after reading the reviews for the 2005 edition I am going to get that new. The 2005 edition is the 8th edition and in 35 years has never gone out of print. The subjects in the 2005 edition cover every issue that a woman can encounter –
Taking Care of Ourselves
Relationships and Sexuality
Sexual Health
Reproductive Choices
Child-Bearing
Growing Older
Medical Problems and Procedures
Knowledge is Power
From the publisher’s website – 1969 Twelve women meet during a women’s liberation conference in Boston. At a workshop on “women and their bodies,” they talk about their own experiences with doctors and share their knowledge about their bodies. The discussions at the conference are so provocative and fulfilling that the following summer, each woman researches a health topic close to her heart. They decide to put their knowledge into an accessible form that can be shared with others and that can serve as a model for women who want to learn about themselves, communicate their findings with doctors, and challenge the medical establishment to change and improve the care that women receive.
1970 A 193-page course booklet on stapled newsprint entitled Women and Their Bodies is published by New England Free Press.
1971 The authors change the name of the book to Our Bodies, Ourselves, to emphasize women taking full ownership of our bodies. Republished by New England Free Press, the book puts women’s health in a radically new political and social context and quickly becomes an underground success. It sells 250,000 copies, mainly by word-of-mouth.
1973 Simon & Schuster publishes the first commercial edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves.
1976 A revised and updated version of Our Bodies, Ourselves is published. A national bestseller, it is recognized by the American Library Association’s Young Adult Service Division as one of the best books of the decade.
1979 An update of Our Bodies, Ourselves is published and becomes a bestseller.
1984 A revised version of the original classic, The New Our Bodies, Ourselves, is published.
1992 The New Our Bodies, Ourselves: Updated and Expanded for the 90s is published.
1998 Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century is published.
Rating: 5 / 5