Follow Up Post: "Our Bodies, Ourselves"

I really enjoyed reading “Our Bodies, Ourselves” by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective.  I think the initiative taken by this group of women was invaluable to women across the country.  Not only by divulging real information about women’s health and bodies but also through demonstrating that women need to take the initiative on issues that pertain to them.  Thus, these women act as examples to other women nationally, demonstrating what exactly can and should be done to better the female experience.  They emphasized the need to think critically about society rather than simply accept the women’s position.  As the article said, “for some of us it was the first time we had looked critically, and with strength, at the existing institutions serving us”.  In doing so, this group of women set a positive and proactive example for other women to also critique society. 

Of course, the information on women’s health was significant as well.  These gathered facts allowed women to finally understand what was going on with their bodies.  It was especially vital to the comprehension of birth control and the female reproductive cycle.  The women researched and discussed these important topics and in doing so worked to decrease the ignorance surrounding women’s health.  I think this was a first step that was necessary in order for the topic of women’s health to receive the attention that it deserved.  This information was likely freeing and obviously applicable to women in the country.  With a more comphrensive understanding of the reproductive cycle, birth control methods could better analyzed and used.  As the authors explained, this knowledge really gave women the power and control that they deserved of their own bodies.  This inspirational power alone was useful to encourage other women to also take the initiative, while the actual knowledge worked to help women understand their bodies.