Into Our Own Hands: The Women's Health Movement in the United States, 1969–1990

by Sandra Morgen

Recent history has witnessed a revolution in womens health care. Beginning in the late 1960s, women in communities across the United States challenged medical and male control over womens health. Few people today realize the extent to which these grassroots efforts shifted power and responsibility from the medical establishment into womens hands as health care consumers, providers, and advocates. Into Our Own Hands traces the womens health care movement in the United States. Richly documented, this study is based on more than a decade of research, including interviews with leading activists; documentary material from feminist health clinics and advocacy organizations; a survey of womens health movement organizations in the early 1990s; and ethnographic fieldwork. Sandra Morgen focuses on the clinics born from this movement, as well as how the movements encounters with organized medicine, the state, and ascendant neoconservative and neoliberal political forces of the 1970s to the1980s shaped the confrontations and accomplishments in womens health care. The book also explores the impact of political struggles over race and class within the movement organizations.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism, Womens, Sociology, Gender

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thinkgirl.net review:

This innovative and inspiring book documents the feminist health movement in the United States from 1969-1990, a social justice movement deserving of greater acknowledgement. It covers the founding of such groundbreaking organizations as the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, authors of Our Bodies, Ourselves, and the National Women’s Health Network. Women of color leaders, such as Byllye Avery of the National Black Women’s Health Project and Charon Asetoyer of the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center, are well-lauded in Into Our Own Hands.

Fortunately, Morgen’s book does not shy away from the movement’s challenges. She shares the rise—and demise—of feminist health clinics and self-help gynecology. She discusses cooptation, budget challenges, racism, classism, and the challenges of so-called “sisterhood.” She created the book through interviews, surveys, and ethnographic fieldwork; even though it is scholarly, it remains quite readable. If you’re interested in feminist health activism, or in successful ways of documenting social justice movements, this is a must-read! —Review by Julie Fiandt

[Beth Capo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, although not as engagingly written as I would have hoped--a bit too academic to be engaging (built in repetition).