Joan Ditzion and Nancy Hawley

00:02 Hi, I'm Joan Didion. I'm 75 years old and probably aging today is Friday, July 13th, 2020 18. I'm in Boston and I'm with Miriam Pauly my co-founder dear lifelong friend.

00:20 Hi, I'm Nancy Miriam Holly and I can called Miriam. I'm 75. Today's date is Friday, July 13th. 2018. I'm in Boston. And Joanie is my dear sister by choice and co-founder of our bodies ourselves.

00:40 So marry and we've been in a reflective mood and thinking about you know years ago and what's your earliest memory about? How you your body? Have you had The Facts of Life talk? Your Mom said. Remember those moments. Well, I remember getting my my first period walking down the street in the town in Westchester where we lived at the time and being kind of crampy and knew what was happening, but, you know went home to get a Kodak so remote as that we were using in those days.

01:16 And my mother had told me there wasn't a sex education or body education in schools the way there is now for our grandkids.

01:29 So I had I had basic information.

01:40 I don't she would have been matter-of-fact. She would have been informational in matter of fact and

01:47 But I don't remember details. It wasn't a bit. It wasn't a big deal.

01:54 I think

01:56 It was a big deal to get my. For the first time and

02:03 To adapt to the changes in my body, but it wasn't a big deal in terms of like I didn't know what was happening in or

02:12 That can be really awful for some young women.

02:22 What do you mean?

02:25 What's been exciting?

02:27 Time it was matter of fact, it wasn't exciting went by the time I had a daughter.

02:36 We were into celebrating our femaleness and I remember buying her a bunch of roses when she got her first. And I don't know.

02:49 Is my granddaughters are old enough to have their periods and

02:54 I don't know what my children did with them. But I did with my daughter. I brought her flowers.

03:13 So Joni, how did how did you get information about your. Or other health matters when you were growing up? My mother told me that I would be maybe getting a. And she gave me some Kotex and built the sanitary napkin belt and said a little bit about ovulation, you know, then I could have babies kind of saying there was a little bit of Facts of Life. I didn't learn too much. I mean she said little bit about sex if you know that women have vagina is a little bit about intercourse but not much at all. I had a vague idea of and that was about the extent of it. What about birth control does gin lead in disgust if I was twelve or thirteen at the time. I honestly don't remember, you know, the actual moment when I got my. And we when we had this talk, but

04:13 I know nothing about birth control. I remember that much more more fully with my mother my mother sitting me down and talk in about using diaphragms cuz diaphragms were the only

04:25 Accessible form of birth control for us as women at that point that was reliable accessible unreliable and

04:37 I don't remember went what year I don't remember how old I was but it must have been laid in high school.

04:45 But in those, you know, it's like I could have been sexually active in high school and many of our kids or grandkids were.

04:54 How many kids and grandkids you know our

04:59 But it was in the times of the late 50s.

05:04 Early sixties you just didn't do that.

05:10 You didn't acknowledge that you had it and people in high school who were sexually active or talked about behind doors.

05:20 But I really appreciate getting that information for my mother.

05:24 Yeah, I know. I remember that it I think there was some women girls in the class who would like floozies or so cold fast, and I had had no idea and I had nothing to do with this in those days and I think also my mother can bet it was like sexuality would come in at a later point and some have boyfriend man. He would know about it. It wasn't something when did the particular too bad at all. You know, I will do it when I reflect back in highschool. I have there were some boys that I was interested in and in junior high even and I was much more sexually if I am honest I was much more sexually interested.

06:10 Then I felt I could be openly.

06:16 I would have like to maybe not have intercourse but certainly pet heavily more heavily than we did.

06:36 Their views on sexuality reproductive how we grew up in a very simple houses you want to start? Yeah. I mean basically my parents live very loving parents very close to both of them and they were Progressive radicals really most School teachers and ice cream it with a family where there was a strong matriarchal influence my mother and her sisters and grandparents which in fact influence me a lot and getting involved in the women's movement cuz I always felt I was standing on the shoulders of women who came before me and my mother was a good-looking woman. She ahead of her time me my grandmother moved by mother and her sisters to New York, so they could have college and graduate education. And so my mother both was a teacher as well as a mother and you know,

07:37 Why do Finn and always very open-minded person in Owen? Yeah.

07:44 Well, my mother was very much the same and it was different than your family in the sense of there being a matriarchy. My mother was like the first generation of feminist, you know and talked about that and it wasn't so much.

08:04 It was her for her focus at was on the larger world and on social justice for everybody and

08:16 I don't think you know women's my parents were both incredibly proud of.

08:25 The accomplishment of our bodies ourselves my father would buy lots of copies and give them out to his friends after we printed the book and so they were you know, when they were just thrilled that the of the work I was doing but it was new for them. I think to have that as a form of social justice expression.

08:49 But our families were you know, in terms of you know, one of the things that Drew us to one another and kept has kept us being really close friends is this very familiar values in our family and certainly around the political radicalism of the time and just being involved in active the activism of the time. I remember pictures of myself in my snowsuit with political buttons on my on my snowsuit and

09:22 I knew that I needed to be.

09:25 You know for a very young age and maybe you two that I was going to be in that I needed to be conscious not just of myself and my needs and my body but of the world and how what I did and what other people do it affected other people and certain people were more privileged than others and that wasn't fair.

09:48 Joan you mentioned that there is there's like talk about other people in high school merge fast as wondering for both of you were there other people you turn to aside from your family to get to get information.

10:06 Yeah, actually know I didn't.

10:10 Did you marry him know how I felt I had the information I needed and probably.

10:20 I wasn't that I was so.

10:25 Sexually precocious that I you know wanted to get more information. I was looking forward.

10:33 I think I was looking forward to going to college and being out of the small town. It's he was just it's a suburb now of New York as you know, but it was a small town then and in my high school class. I don't know if you know this or 40 for graduating students. So I felt fairly hidden as

10:59 As a Jew cuz we were among the few Jewish the first Jewish families that moved to Irvington.

11:05 And I felt fairly hidden as a child of political radicals. I had one friend who lived across the street whose mother was good friends with Pete Seeger.

11:18 And whose father had fought in the Spanish Civil War.

11:23 So those folks were close to my family and my mother and Sarah was still a wife in the family stayed in connection.

11:33 After that family moved to another town.

11:38 And it's really interesting her daughters.

11:42 One of whom was a close friend of mine have stayed stayed in connection with my mother until my mother died there. It was their their mother died early and my mother was kind of a surrogate mother for them.

12:03 Anyway, you know, what I started to say about waiting to go to college was I was really waiting to find other people who shared my beliefs share the beliefs of me and my family and I found them very quickly in Michigan. I went from a small class of 44 to University of Michigan.

12:25 And the first it was the sixties in the first week. I found voice political party which later became students for a Democratic Society.

12:35 And in that group I found my

12:40 Soul mates my political soul mates

12:45 And what and what about you you you also how was the transition between high school and college for you in this Arena? I guess I always my parents were active in the teachers union and stuff. I mean I should have knew my social activism wasn't out there yet. I was still would have had a sense of social justice. I had a sense of wanting to make the world a better place that I just grew up with but frankly it wasn't until graduate school. I mean in college, I wasn't that active politically at all, but in graduate school, I got himself in the Free Speech movement in Berkeley and actually was arrested and that was the first time I was arrested because when you're in spell whole city, you don't turn around it wasn't as if I was blaming Lee rating to be arrested, but I was arrested and it was a real turning point for me in terms of my activism and graduate school.

13:45 What's more when I became really politically active, I guess she for me the first, you know, I met people invoice and We Gather clothing and food to take we did a cloak clothing and food drive to take take stuff down south the people who were being evicted because they were registering to vote and Andy who is my first husband and I and my college roommate Carol and her husband the four of us. Borrow. Kenny's parents speak station wagon loaded it up at intersection of our freshman year and drove down to Tennessee to the front one of the first 10 cities and took the stuff. We were stopped by the cops. They threatened us with keeping us in jail overnight and they gave us the option of being a scored it out of town which we we did.

14:42 But

14:44 And then the next thing I remember next story that again, I don't know if you if with all the years of our knowing each other if I share this with you is like how I met Andy know, okay, so it was the night that John Kennedy was being elected president.

15:04 And I was in a dorm Carol and I were both in dorms with a lot of Republican young women and if those days you had to sign out.

15:15 You couldn't just go and come as you please so we snuck out of the dorm at the invitation of a friend of ours whose mother was a democratic councilwoman in Detroit. She said I'm going to Detroit and be with other Democrats when the election returns come in and you can come with us.

15:33 So we went and watched John Kennedy win the election and came back to Ann Arbor, but we we couldn't get into our door because

15:44 We weren't supposed to be out of it and then warm so Sharon said to us, you know, I have some friends who work on the Michigan Daily. They're going to be up all night.

15:53 And we can go stay in their apartment. So I wound up sleeping in Andes bed. Carol end up sleeping in Kenny's bed. We married these men number of years.

16:15 So you said so what was it? Like at Berkeley? What got you more engaged in Berkeley?

16:24 I don't know is I mean, I think it was really the beginnings of the student movement. It was the sixties. And in fact, they was trying they were trying to do civil rights organizing on campus and it just seemed to me these were just reasons and I wasn't enough. So I think it was that it was the 10 or the time that there was student movements and activism in groups all over the place talkin about social justice issues and it was more overt sort of time in a way. So it just seemed totally natural to get engaged in that and that was one of the first you know moments. That's really the most the beginning of my activism some funny way.

17:05 So, you know we could talk a little bit about.

17:09 We we did we talked about this before in times before but the transition between social activism in support of other people and the women's movement are being conscious of ourselves as women and health. So I'll say something I'll share some of that with you and then maybe you could tell me for you how that transition was cuz it was definitely a transition for many of us who are activist.

17:43 When I was

17:46 I was getting ready to leave in Arbor.

17:50 And

17:55 My husband and I were deciding.

17:59 Where to go whether to go back to New York he had he had a doctorate and he was looking for jobs and could have looked for jobs in New York area as well as the Boston area and we had a small child. Josh was three weeks at the time when we left but we were having a small child when we were he was so applying for jobs and we decided that it would we didn't want to raise a child in New York City at that time. It was going to be too hard. So we wanted to be near my family in in New York. But we love the ocean and mountains of New England. And so we we have we knew people who would enjoy living in Cambridge. We picked hambridge and Andy got a job teaching English the first year that UMass Boston open and Lease located in Cambridge. And as I say to people when they ask where I'm from I say I'm a New Yorker who's happened to live in Cambridge for 53 years.

18:59 And I still live in Cambridge.

19:05 So when I was leaving Ann Arbor.

19:09 Again, I had a new baby and I've had a final.

19:14 Final check up with my doctor

19:18 And he handed me this pill and I said, what's this pill?

19:22 He said he said don't worry. Your pretty little head came over in the other side of the desk and patted my head and said don't worry your pretty little head just take it.

19:31 I was enraged it was a it was a birth control pill and the original birth control pills were highly or high doses of estrogen.

19:43 And I left I was Furious.

19:46 And that quick question is a very significant question in my in my helping to start our bodies ourselves, which will get back to that, but I came to Cambridge.

20:02 And shortly after I in that was 1960s 68. So that was 66. So 68, you know, I was looking when I first came I was looking for other people who are Community organizers and activists and I got a part-time job working in the neighborhood settlement house. I have a Social Work degree at that point.

20:26 And sometime in early 68

20:32 A friend called who have been involved in SDS said we're meeting in Maryland, you know, some of us who are women who were active in the movement talking about women's roles and how we are treated in the new Left movement. And you know, please come and I was headed off on vacation with my husband and son so I couldn't go but there was a follow-up meeting that November in Chicago. I was pregnant with Gina my second child and I went with some other people from Boston.

21:06 And

21:09 That was you know, why?

21:12 In that interim of time I have my friend.

21:17 My friend from Irvington the one friend that I had from the family. That was Radical gave me a copy of Simone de Beauvoir the second sex.

21:27 And she was

21:30 Had was kind of early into.

21:36 Feminism and was one of the founders of red stockings it turned out to be.

21:41 Anyway, Kathy tell me about that. So I was kind of alert.

21:47 And when I went to Chicago and met with other women people were starting to write feminist papers about education and quite was there and deliver the myth of the sagittal orgasm that blew all our minds. Anyway, some of us were from Boston came back to kick it to Cambridge.

22:09 And said, we've got to share this with other women and it was a time, you know, as any movement develops their little PODS of people that start having conversations and they start expanding and people hear about other people in different cities having similar conversations and things start to grow and flourish in ways that you didn't if it just happened seems like it happens organically with this is one of the times that one of the things about being a faculty wife. My husband at that point was teaching at MIT.

22:43 As a faculty wife I had access to space so I could have a meeting and MIT and get a room at no cost.

22:54 And so I started holding, you know opening up the space and inviting other women who invited other women and you know, we seem to gather together about once a month.

23:06 Two head really talk about begin to talk about what are our lives and our concerns as women and some of it has to do with social activism. Some of it had to do with hell some of it it had to do with the issues that each of us.

23:20 We're concerned about.

23:23 And

23:28 That's where our bodies ourselves though. The seeds of our bodies ourselves were planted in the halls of MIT.

23:47 What looks like anything that really sticks out about someone setting to the yes, this is why we meeting.

23:53 Cuz this was actually before they our bodies are sodium and he will comfort you. This is before this is before the Emanuel conference. This is just people talked about there. I don't remember specific conversations, but I do remember women feeling beginning to feel comfortable talking about their experience as women.

24:16 In whatever environment that was they were in.

24:20 And this was

24:25 Really?

24:28 Revolutionary

24:32 We were talking, you know, it was women talking to women about the things that were important in our lives.

24:41 Never had that.

24:46 Not in not in a

24:51 Not in that kind of way. I've had that conversation, you know with my friend Kathy who gave me the book that I was referring to earlier.

25:03 You don't have individual conversations with people who are beginning to be conscious about being a woman. I had conversations with some of the women from SDS who felt like they were being

25:16 Run over by the men in meetings. It had those conversations.

25:22 But to really think about being a group of women exploring our lives together as women, which is what you Joni you and I and other women for our bodies ourselves in the women's movement have done now for 50 years.

25:40 It's amazing to you know to have this time to reflect and look back on 50 years bus and just see how things.

25:52 I've grown and flourished in what's possible for our daughters and daughters-in-law and granddaughters?

26:00 Now

26:11 Remind me how we met. Yeah. Well, I just backtracking even said it would be for you know, then I got married to my husband Bruce food. I can have hairy to for 40-50 what New Year's model moved to DC and I was at and I think it was January 69. I was in an auntie in North Korea. Will Nixon event.

26:43 And sitting around there and all the sudden there was a group of women from Boston who stood up and they said we are not going to just make coffee and take notes. We have ideas. We want to be involved in governance and decision-making and we wanted and gender inequities. Oh my God, and I had never heard anything like that. I think I had read Betty sedan and had a little bit of sense suit in a feminist issues. But that the that moment was sort of my feminist awake beginning is a feminist awaken. Oh my God, you know, I never really thought about gender in that way. So I said well when we get back to Boston or Cambridge, I'll try to find out more about what's going on in This Woman's movement. And I knew that they were organizations beginning throughout the country that this group with some bread and Roses which was the ultimate with which was the group that sponsored the original

27:43 Our bodies ourselves conference was one of the one of the groups and I began to understand. Although hadn't been part yet of this whole idea of Consciousness raising, which is phenomena that never been a political movement always when you're politically active you sign petition to try to let you know. I have a case of policy the heart and soul of this is that women would sit together and talk about their lives and this kind of understanding that the personal is political that growing up, you know feeling inferior cuz I'm a woman and not a man and then understand the world and I don't all that stuff which I just would have thought was this is how it is all of a sudden. No it sexism. It was a real and it was this moment where we could begin to make connections between our personal sense of who we are and who we were and the sexism in our society which defined roles from a patriarchal View and you know, biology need not be our destiny.

28:43 So this was sort of floating but I notice it when I so anyhow, I said I need to find out more about this. And so when we move back to Boston and Cambridge I said so but net in the old mole and said there's going to be a new can talk more about the whole background check my talk about the background. I said, oh it's the women in their bodies course. I also would consciousness-raising groups when we figured out. Well, this is a process but I said, okay, I'm going to go to this this meeting. I really want to find out more about it. Okay. So how many got shot up Charlie? Here's my here's the Scoop.

29:25 So a disease

29:27 Consciousness-raising meetings at MIT in the kind of loose knit unorganized women's movement.

29:36 Some of us said we want to have a conference we want to come together and there were some of us who came from political backgrounds, you know, and

29:46 And social justice, there were some people who were coming for a place of self-defense.

29:53 And there were some people who had begun to.

29:59 Do self exams, you know to really feel like what was down there. So to speak with something that we ought to know about since it was our down there.

30:12 I love the down different reminds me of the the women who wrote the the Palestinian women who wrote the Arab Edition when there is no has no language. There is no language in Arabic for genitals was just cut down there and they had to create a new language to write their version of our bodies ourselves down there and

30:41 Hooray for plastic speculum

30:44 So some of us came together out of these conversations and said we need to have a conference and that was the beginning of the planning for the first Women's Conference in Boston that I was involved with as well.

30:59 And that was held in May 9th.

31:04 1969

31:08 I had I was we were talking when we were talking about this yesterday.

31:14 My my daughter my second daughter was 3 weeks old.

31:18 And some of the other founded the founders of our bodies ourselves, who were there had new babies and I don't know what we did with our new babies, but I think they must have come to nurse and then going to the side.

31:35 So

31:38 People have all different kinds of workshops that they had created for this conference.

31:47 And there were the political radicals of bread and roses and

31:53 There was a self-defense people and sell 16 and the people who had started some women's clinics doing self exam and

32:05 I created a workshop called women and their bodies cuz one of the things that started to happen for me and for some other women in the halls of MIT kind of before and after those loose group meetings was we start to identify issues of women's.

32:25 Alive's that were important to us

32:29 And for those of us who were young relatively young married and had one or two children, you know, our primary concerns were those relationships and the health and well-being of our families and we realized we had lots of questions that were not answered. Remember I came to Boston with a question of what's in this pill that I was told that I was not told what was in the spill by the doctor in Ann Arbor.

33:01 So

33:03 I created a workshop call women in their bodies and it was packed and I cannot remember to this day what I said except that people wanted to continue the conversation afterwards and that was important that we so that was May of 69 and all through the summer.

33:23 We met.

33:25 Pretty frequently

33:27 And what we did was we took topics that were of Interest us and if you look at the we had a copy earlier we were looking at the first edition of the book so their sexuality. There's Anatomy there's pregnancy this postpartum this violence violence against women what else am I forgetting?

33:50 Miss about women about women that you worked on in America. They call us diakses first chapter about lesbian women. Anyway, it was almost like we were taking term paper topics and we're going to learn it and we're going to and we pick topics that were relevant. So one person who had a difficult postpartum pick that one person who had a difficult pregnancy pic that you know, and had some experiences and started to

34:20 Learn for birth control for instance for some topics. It was worth learning how to use the countway medical library at Harvard and talking to the few doctors that were accessible to us.

34:36 And by the way, just to for this conversation, there were no women doctors not that women doctors are the answer to everything. But it certainly now there may be 50% doctors that women. It's a very different time and lots of different choices for us for women and for our children and grandchildren.

35:04 Turn key to research these things.

35:08 Well when I remember Joan is that

35:12 Return to

35:16 The medical people that were available

35:19 But we did not have

35:22 The idea of turning to one another for our lived experiences and that was

35:29 Enormously radical and Central to the success of our bodies ourselves.

35:37 The combination of accurate information medical information with lived experience with a political analysis and here's where our

35:51 Progressive politics came in cuz we we did have an analysis. We developed an analysis of the the healthcare the medical system wasn't a Healthcare System still isn't a healthcare system.

36:05 And those three threads came together and I do think it's what made our bodies ourselves so powerful powerful and still does those combination of cells three threads coming together accurate information lived experience.

36:25 And a political analysis anyway to continue the story and to get up to the present moment.

36:38 During that summer, we worked and we put together.

36:42 Papers which we mimeographed and we had an intention of doing a course. This is where you come in joining and I'm in and I'm going to stop talking you're going to talk about the course.

36:56 And we said we went back to MIT got space and MIT and

37:04 Start to give a course with the idea that the information would be we would start the Network's going. So if you if if I gave a section on sexuality, you would take that session on sexuality back to your community your temple your church your kids Child Care Center your neighborhood and share the information and that those women who herded who are interested in sharing information with continue to share it with their communities, and that's how the word spread.

37:39 The first course was in a mighty and you were there I was there and it was amazing. I mean, I remember so vividly the sense. Well, I think one of the earliest Prince was on sexuality. Yes. It was a big drawing of an anatomical drawing of vagina in great detail on the water. Tell my god. I've never seen Simpson masturbation stuff. You know, I really didn't really tells me I had not too much and I had some knowledge of butt and it was like most realizing that most description. We were beginning to say what we are sexual beings. We will take responsibility and our own our own sexuality and response and up until then it was doctors and Men primarily. Just throbbing what women's

38:39 Experiences will like it was so mind-blowing to think it was women who needed to find a lot that what this is about. So they was that then there was the pregnancy and childbirth and they were women talk about their childbirth pregnancy childbirth experiences. Many of the women is like Miriam had had children before this whole project so they did he grow up you get married and have kids and they were just beginning to understand the impact of you know, and having natural childbirth or thinking about childbirth again. It's a woman's centered view not a medical event and they were women breastfeeding and I've never seen a woman breastfeed my understanding of pregnancy childbirth with my mother told me she was very modern woman. She went to a hospital. She was an esta size and the doctor brought me to her and she was delighted.

39:32 That was my that's all I really knew you know, and so it was just amazing to really hear all these stories the and then birth control in at the time I get I was on diaphragm and it had been hard times getting diaphragms and pills and then there was a question of well, okay, but I always just said okay, this is birth control to decide whether I want to have kids but the idea of reproductive Justice in a came home in such a deep way because it was like wow, that's something that women have to have choice about their whole lives and I had never quite understood that so deeply and what was it like in the midst of that course you and Bruce didn't have children yet to think about getting pregnant and having a child.

40:21 Yeah, who's that? You know, I you know for me I didn't think about it. I mean, I knew it was a choice I chose to get pregnant the two times. I got pregnant but it was you know, I was going to be the first person in my family to go to college and I my mother said be sure you get a professional degree before you get married and have children, but the expectation was I would get married and have children which I did. I got married and had children before I left graduate school, but your situation was different. So how ya sit in that cuz that's such a profound issue that yeah. I know I being so just backtracking at the good we would not going to have kids right that we're thinking about at some point with you no have kids but I wasn't pregnant at the time and and but to me this whole idea is that it's a choice was sort of something new. It was just sort of I was going to do it at some point because that's what you doing.

41:21 What kind of thing but anyhow, and also women talkin about abortion which was shocking to me cuz I knew no one would ever had an abortion and it was illegal to sell the risk to their life to the doctors lies to be kind of hard that they went through with that point. So the whole notion of reproductive Justice, you know, it was so clear to me in a way never happened before and I just felt well, you know this material, you know, Phil Savoy. I knew nothing, you know women all women need to know this all women need to learn this and so I just was hooked at that moment. I said, I have to be part of this process. So, you know, I joined it was part of the course and then it should have began to evolve will maybe we'll teach it in different places and I said, you know grade love to do that. And then we said, oh, okay, cuz I always had been an art educator. So I'll arrive the saying I always love

42:21 Sabathia bodies ourselves project is it was both a consciousness-raising and a task group from the very beginning. We always were you and I liked it a sin to go to text very special and I know that you were so that was very important and then the idea was well, maybe we'll do a pamphlet and so that seems like a really we have had this discussion. Well, it's interesting to think about

42:55 Before I say something about the pamphlet, did we first meet each other? How do you what do you remember about meeting me and I'll say what I remember I was in the context of the course and then wanting to go on with it in some way teach it in certain places or do the pain. I don't remember but I just remember feeling a real connection and bond with you cuz if our shared roots and we just understood each other so but I didn't have an actual moment that I don't have an actual moment either but I have that same memory of what if the time having there must have been a time when we talked about growing up. So close to each other in New York and

43:37 And talking about our parents and just how similar they were. And then finally when we entered at some point later on and one of our celebration, they all our parents came and how much they enjoyed each other how much how much pleasure that was for you and me and you and our relationship is just groaned Independents over the years back to the pamphlet is very funny and thinking about this conversation. You said pamphlet I said pamphlet pamphlet pamphlet or 20 Pages know you said I thought about the news print editions of pants. I said, that was a book we raise money for a book.

44:20 When when the papers got spread and people took the course and they said we want these all together. We want a book. They didn't say want to pay off lit, maybe someday maybe some people called it a pamphlet because it was new Sprint.

44:36 So we wound up raising $1,500, which is that time in 1970 was a lot of money and then went to the New England Free Press, which was the

44:50 Radical, press in the Boston area and the piano Factory building and I remember I don't remember the man's name arguing with us about whether he would publish the book because

45:05 Women's issues. We're not political.

45:10 He needed he was uneducated. He got educated over the years. I hope but anyway, and then we published it in the fall of 1970 and we first sold it for $0.75. And then the price went down to 35 and then 30 +.

45:35 We sold.

45:38 250000 by word of mouth before the Publishers in New York start to get really interested.

45:46 And at the time I remember saying to people when we were going after publishers.

45:53 You know, we're going to sell a million copies and people laughed at me. They really left and I said no don't laugh. I said every single woman in the world has a body and needs to know about our bodies. It's going to sell and now it's worth 5 million or something more conversation. I think where I was thinking about at that point is that really are message was to have consciousness-raising groups. We wanted the information in a coherent form, but goal was it when we get together to talk about the material it wasn't going to just be self-help in the sense, but it was part of that process. And so we never it was always tool for a conversation to tool for women to think about these things as a book.

46:53 Then what we imagine the goal if it was with the same, we just called it by different names and the other to know it's our bodies ourselves Workshop was women and their bodies and it really spoke. I didn't say that at the time but thanks for when I mentioned it earlier to you. It really spoke about the distance. We had it was a really good title in the Cento is accurate in terms of our distance from her body and at the point at which we got more integrated as as we talked with other women about the experience and it became just too much more familiar conversation and a key part of the women's movement.

47:40 Then it was our bodies ourselves.

47:53 Was it the pictures the the way it was printed, but it looks

48:07 Why don't you start your own? Yeah, it's newsprint. So I still have copies of the true gem is newsprint and gives a table of contents and just different topics. I can read the topics of introduction women medicine and capitalism anatomy and physiology sexualities and miss about women venereal disease birth control abortion pregnancy prepared childbirth postpartum and medical institutions and that these subjects were being explored from a woman's center point of view was totally radical in Revolutionary. Nothing like that existed before and the process at that point and we were working all together on it. You know, we will soon it would have lots of meetings a bad content in the book and and and working on the seams together and graphically the idea to have a book with had This Woman's picture.

49:05 Rusia know when he was just again the images the graphics were also so revolutionary in that sense so it and for me and it would became even more so when we really started Incorporated and collaborated, but I had never I mean I had been a good student and I have written papers and stuff like that, but I never took my voice and my seriously, you know that it for me it was really trusting and authentic passionate view about things me every woman had that and it was our voices that mattered and never before had had had that experience in Antioch, and I'm looking over the pictures in the early edition, and I don't remember this but here's two pages of pictures of a woman giving birth.

49:55 And the whole experience of it's a hospital birth surrounded by masks doctors and nurses and stuff. It is in a midwife and isn't it home and but I'm sure for a lot of a lot of people this was rat, you know just revolutionary to see pictures of a birth experience and there are a lot of photographs. I think I was partly responsible for helping to bring together photographs of

50:29 Just different women's pictures and women with children and women breastfeeding and and there's I think there's in the anatomy chapter.

50:39 Drawings of our anatomy is Joan was this you were describing earlier. I can't seem to find it right now.

50:49 But

50:51 There's a description of how you put in a diaphragm.

50:58 An IUD

51:01 Anyway, the pictures got more elaborate in later editions, but they're their pictures in this book that were at revolutionary for people to see pictures of our bodies.

51:24 It's slick. It's it it's beautiful, you know and in this as like handwriting, but

51:35 Well, the cover picture is a cover of three women and older won't you know women probably range in in one woman in her 20s one and 30s and one woman?

51:49 Probably in her 70s holding up a sign women unite and it was on some kind of demonstration. Probably looks like New York in the background and that

52:04 You know it was the message was about us uniting coming together to empower ourselves and one another in the aspect of Health, but it's you know, it's certainly not looking at the women's movement is coming together in all aspects of life. And it's always lovely. We've always had an intergenerational Fusion of this, you know, that it women of all ages together working together that's been a strong seeing, you know it with every aspect of women's last throughout the life-cycle and that's what's so beautiful about that picture is what you know, and that picture we we we continues it continues and continued on to the first Simon & Schuster Edition, which was published in 7373.

52:58 First moment you

53:00 Came after the printing press what did you do?

53:08 Sense of all, I'm Delight hard to believe I wanted to just admit me a graft. It was quite a few have the papers that were given out in the course. You took were mimeographed and it's been fun talking over the years to people who to younger women who say do you know what made me a graph was and many of them don't and it was I was totally thrilling to me. I wanted to get a whole armful of them and hand them out and give them out to people. I wanted to know it's like I was on a mission a million people were going to see this book quickly.

53:52 What was it like to see your ear names in the byline?

53:58 Just delighted and I mean sort of almost all because you know, I was more an art teacher at the dance and the thought of having written something that had this kind of influence in packet was to me amazing. See you tomorrow me it was a little different because you know, it was in terms of my project my you know action mine send private. It was like the next step and the impact of it and didn't come because I wanted the word out. I wanted the information out. I wanted other women to have what I had and you know, it was part of the social justice mentality and reproductive Justice is so we were talking about earlier and it really has not been since it was until later till the impact. So we were getting feedback that I think the impact of what I and we have done came to me.

54:58 It was just you know this. I think it's really important to convey to people we did not set out. I did not set out to initiate the writing a book or change the global conversation about women's health and sexuality, but that's really what's happened over the years and it was done and you know, I say this when I'm lecturing women leaders now in my Consulting and coaching business.

55:30 You take one step at a time.

55:33 And you don't know necessarily what that impacted that's going to be but you just take the next step and the book or the pamphlet is Joan as you call. It was the next step and then the next step after that was getting it out and the next step after that was getting it but you know, we we couldn't get we couldn't publish it fast enough to meet the demand and we did were not marketing people. We wanted to get it out to

56:04 We want we want to do marketing department like a publisher hat. We were not a mark on marketers and that was the next step.

56:14 And also just I was just thinking that we you do in terms of the social justice message, which was the main thing was the fact that we will really collaborating working together and that made the whole project so much fun and was so compelling because we were jointly putting this thing together and we were trying to we will contributing to a larger movement and it was great in a feeling to do that. It was just start this piece of a conversation that we started to meet regularly group of us came together who put together the original book and we started to meet weekly and we started to part of it was to keep the project moving but it was getting to know each other see the fact of the matter is we were not friends before necessarily a couple of us knew each other from different.

57:11 You know, I knew I knew Paula from cuz we had our children are old our first children were about the same age and we created a playgroup for them. So they were few people. I knew and other people in the group who knew each other from share childcare experience or something else.

57:29 But we became friends through the project through our shared commitment of to the projects in our love of ourselves and one another and Women's Health in the women's movement.

57:43 And we started to have personal conversations and get to know one another.

57:48 We start to create a conscious it what would be conventionally call the consciousness-raising group after the project was successful or as the project was going to be successful.

58:01 But it's also important them in the transition. We went through from pamphlet to deciding to go with a commercial press which was a whole turkey year, which is ridiculous looking back but then we can talk more about the contract and what what what what is all it takes of it works but we be incorporated and we became a group of 12 and that was really when you know, we really got you know started knowing each other and in the deeper way after we incorporated as

58:35 I thought we I thought we had has 72. Yeah, I thought we had started to have personal conversations.

58:50 Please ways that you distributed this book / pan flute.

58:56 Friends friends of friends. Were you physically could you could you describe how you sold it to people?

59:04 I think the Free Press pretty much circulated if we handed a yeah, we handed it to family and friends people contacted the Free Press.

59:14 Now the clinic we we got the price reduced so that clinics could buy a bunch of them.

59:22 You know, I don't remember. I don't remember a lot of toxic, you know college talks or things those days but you know later on we would distribute it when we gave talks.

59:46 I don't think so. And then people that heard from other people.

59:51 And I think one of the things you know, I think we'll never know how many.

59:56 Lives have been touched by the material and the book because people share it with one another or people find it on bookshelves on their mother's book show button.

01:00:15 Or and then I kind of want to paint a picture for people of like was this viewed isn't ladylike at the time or inappropriate or so, it seems crazy to say now, but I want to understand what it was like to be in this world. That was one way and suddenly changing well talk we can talk about how people try to ban the book but that is that was later later. I mean, I think we felt very protected by being in the women's movement. And so it was only people who wanted to find out more, you know would really read it. So, I don't remember any I mean, I knew we were standing on street corners in New York or Boston, you know, if people started writing letters and it was a little it was like Again part of this process. I can just say again of The Next Step, you know, and

01:01:14 I think people's reaction.

01:01:17 To the Revolutionary content

01:01:23 What what is you no ordinary information these days for us, but at the first was in a shocking to some in Revolutionary to others.

01:01:38 I think begin to change because of the larger women's moving and what was happening in the world.

01:01:46 And if he can again it became it was part of the social justice issues.

01:01:53 And women started to talk about their experiences with doctors a one of our projects are early projects was before the book was we started to talk about

01:02:07 Create a Doctors live a list of good doctors doctors who would be respect. We know we couldn't evaluate Doctors Medical skills, but we could evaluate whether they were kind and respectful to us.

01:02:23 So we thought okay, one of the services we can provide for one. Another is make you know out of one of these women's group said loose-knit women's groups. We can provide a list of good doctors that we would recommend.

01:02:39 Well, the fact of the matter is we we developed a gray list because there weren't

01:02:46 Good doctors, there were doctors that were sometimes respectful and sometimes not so we gave up that project but it really did alert us.

01:02:57 To the way doctors got educated or didn't get educated about women.

01:03:03 And about how you treat patients.

01:03:07 I mean now they're courses from net and medical school for pay you no bedside manner.

01:03:15 And it still hasn't answered the question.

01:03:19 You know, it still hasn't solved the problem of doctors being respectful to.

01:03:24 Not just women patients as well.

01:03:28 I was wondering if do you remember the first time you went back to a doctor after being involved with all this and feeling a different way through the shift or feeling like you could say I want to know what to do.

01:03:54 For me, it wasn't so much going back to the doctor and now being able to say what's in this birth control pill, which I certainly could at that point. One of the things that did change his between the birth of my first child in 66 in Ann Arbor and the birth of my second child 69 in Cambridge. I really

01:04:21 Advocated for my husband being in the delivery room and we were able to have him in the delivery room the second time and it was the first week that Harvard Medical School took over the OBGYN unit at Cambridge hospital.

01:04:37 And my doctor the time was on the staff and I really pushed him to make sure that Andy could be in the delivery room and that was

01:04:49 You know came out of my work.

01:04:52 Can the women so fat?

01:04:54 Really advocating

01:04:57 I was not going to go to another delivery just me alone cuz that was very lonely.

01:05:13 Being this working.

01:05:16 Oh, yeah, I know. That's right. We didn't we got on that we got until I got off in the pamphlet to.

01:05:27 In 1973, why hasn't got a family so you're not good became pregnant and I was the first woman in the group to read our bodies ourselves while pregnant which was sort of amazing and I guess it was profound for me because I felt well, you know this I did it and we did it in the context of choice, you know, it wasn't a requirement for any kind of adulthood or I put them in an identity but want to have kids and really feeling raising children is one of the most important work that people do in society that still doesn't get too much Creek validation. So we said, okay, so it was in the context of choice in this context of reproductive choice that women had that I decided yeah, we're going to have kids and I love being pregnant and I love having kids and I love raising kids. I'm it was something I felt very passionate about

01:06:27 And also that our bodies ourselves as a as an organization always affirmed in a parenting if Chosen and always had family values in a context where Sometimes some women's groups were oranges pros at as we were and also some women and also it was at a time when it was just very important in that sense. And so we affirm Family Values, but our definition of family could be however people Define family, but it wasn't the prerogative to the right-wing as it were and that's always been true when in fact we went on to write a book called ourselves and our children in 78 and because we felt so strongly about the importance of parenting through the life cycle that men can care for kids as well as women and all that and sharing parenting and things like that and and that was a Wonder

01:07:27 I mean, it's just you know what it reminds me of also how important it was in the early days of the women's movement people were not very receptive particularly to male children and I remember having fights with people about that and just feeling like it took a while to really because it

01:07:46 People didn't have the choice that you have or didn't feel like they had the choice people got into a very resistant kind of place of pushing kit, you know kind of blaming kids when it really wasn't blaming but that wasn't the issue. The issue is the society is not set up to really well support Mothers and Fathers and Families and to honor children and even beyond that to honor children is our teachers and what you know, I feel like I've learned

01:08:18 At least as much if not more for my children that I've learned for me.

01:08:25 Do you know in terms of a choice with?

01:08:30 In my second marriage we chose to have a child. You know, it's like I question whether I wanted a third child and I did and I especially wanted a third child that I could have at home if it all possible with midwife and

01:08:51 Noah's birth was amazing and with 15 people there half of my sisters were bodies ourselves or at his birth and it was very special to talk about taking charge of your birth experience. If you know again I was fortunate cuz it's this not true for everybody that you can successfully birth at home with without intervention, but

01:09:22 I have the opportunity to do that and it felt like another another level of choice around childbirth for me.

01:09:31 Yeah, and this is this the whole parenting thing also is that I feel this is one of the unfinished issues of the women's movement because they're still you know, not family caregiving this still not you no good maternity paternity leave is still not child care and I see from my kids who are married with kids. Now, you know, they're going nuts trying to balance work family stuff and I are so blessed to have you and Bruce nearby would like being grandparents also talked about how you develop work on Aging because it's a continuation of family and it's completing the life cycle. Yeah, I would love to but you wash and we talked a little bit more about the our body the first de Simon & Schuster & Stuff. Yeah, but I'd love to talk about I really want to talk to you.

01:10:31 Chronological

01:10:32 And then I'll do it now cuz I still forget the

01:10:39 Okay. Okay. It's just here though. It is 15. I think it fits here because you're talkin about the life cycle and talk about Society not honoring children and it just feels like a natural flow to the work you've done and you're getting a social work degree in your specializing in 8 in aging issues and how many how much a big contribution you've made to the Asian movement?

01:11:09 So I can I think I could fits here. We can easily go back to the Simon & Schuster Edition it's there and then I decided in in the 80s that I wanted to get it so I had been in our teacher but I got so involved with human development issues in Social Work degree and then got involved in geriatric surprisingly enough because that was an expanding field and I had very close relationships with my grandparents. So I really got said okay. This is no need for this kind of work continuation of family. So for many years, so I've been been a geriatric social worker but the issue for me then and now is ageism in our society and it is horrible to sexism even more so cuz it affects everyone who age is

01:12:09 To all of us do a lot of stuff growing older and in the last few additions everybody else tells the chapters. I worked on we're on the Aging 1-b in a menopause in this life and then aging women and to me it's just been a growing up with a book and and it influencing me but then it affected the kind of work I've been doing and I might I sick of myself now is in aging activist that I just want to combat ageism and find ways we can roll cage consciously and well in this society that still doesn't impress a chick so it's more on that topic but it was a very organic kind of gross from my you know, that the book also found it or is she took the chapter on growing older and she in and another person develop the book ourselves growing older.

01:13:09 You probably want to know about.

01:13:21 Go back.

01:13:27 Something I want to know.

01:13:30 Oh that the Simon the Simon & Schuster. Remember the conversations about a capitalist press you did we go with a capital Express. You know, it's like I'm I'm there sanding same with every woman has a body. We've got to get this out and we can't be the marketing team and people were saying no but you know, if we go to a commercial publisher, they're all capitalists presses and and we wound up it was interesting choosing Simon & Schuster / random house because Simon & Schuster at the time was not owned by a conglomerate and then shortly after we went we at I mean juice or guess what and

01:14:11 I mean one of the things that was very special about what we did was we really negotiate a contract that allowed us to have Clinic discounts at 30% for clinic so that

01:14:26 It was affordable for women who didn't necessarily have the resources to pay for a full price published book an amazing contract that we had that we had quote editorial control unit of all the words of all the pictures we had this clinical attachment clinics could buy it at discount and we also had a clue as what we going to do with it a translation for a span of a Spanish Edition and it's always for better for worse than we've made a lot of profit for Simon & Schuster after all, but you know, when you think back many Publishers don't have to have somebody cut, you know, they don't come to a group or have us come to them where we successfully sold already 250,000 of a finished book.

01:15:28 No, no, no.

01:15:31 That we were not budging about cutting. We didn't need them. We have people competing from you started that we started out with was a member of the founder James Pincus had a classmate at Brown who was involved.

01:15:52 With another New York publisher and it slips my mind and we got introduced to them first and then Simon & Schuster and I didn't know was a little brown. I was you if you tell me a hard word. No, I don't even remember it. Whatever doesn't matter. There was another publisher here and he was he was represented with the other publisher and then we went I'm not sure how Simon & Schuster and random house got to us, but

01:16:22 Did you guys ever?

01:16:26 If you could tell Joan if you remember.

01:16:32 Any other like arguments or disagreements and I don't mean to ask this as like to get hit like for their fissures but like the get at like how collaborative.

01:16:43 It was like how would you guys work out?

01:16:47 Disagreements or different perspectives on where to go. We had a talk with we develop this consensus method of writing which is we had this understanding that any word. We were using we sofa to say we in any text required everyone agreeing. This is the twelve of us and if we're would disagree Finn's then we would say some of us think this and some of us think that we met like ours and I never could go through that process again, but it was consensus collaborate. And remember we went we having a decision. We have a consensus of one man. Come back to the next day's somebody else would have strong opinions and I remember one conversation that actually is at my house with James sain,

01:17:39 You know, it's like Whoever has the strongest feelings gets this hold their Courtney and I think that happened some of the times you know that if one of us really had strong feelings when pushed for it and I'm not sure everybody was happy with that. So it's like

01:17:59 And there were times when we have people come in and helped mediate.

01:18:06 And I I think sometimes never got to the bottom of some of the issues but proceeded and

01:18:12 With a consent Rihanna with a essentially consensus model that

01:18:20 I think that.

01:18:24 You know in looking back if we had been able to just be more easily with a differences of opinion and

01:18:34 I think we would have been happy with one another at the time.

01:18:39 I'm not sure exactly what I'm saying, but

01:18:44 I think I think what people were left sometimes with hard feelings like they had been.

01:18:50 Pushed into a you're making a decision or a position that they didn't agree to and they wasn't I think that

01:18:59 If I think about it now if I were going forward now if at that point, I would

01:19:04 With all my training is a

01:19:07 Therapist in a Consulting and coaches just make sure that there was space for everybody's feelings to be acknowledged and honored and we'd still let need to make decisions and everybody wouldn't agree all the time, but there was a wouldn't be pressure to line up your feelings behind somebody because we had to make a decision.

01:19:31 What's your main point of contact at Simon & Schuster prior to the publication. I'm a man or a woman woman Alice may you and her name that came up recently because the son of one of the people who worked on ourselves and our children who is past is negotiating a book on Joe is looking for a book contract and you wrote me an email saying, you know, do you know Alice met you and he was talking with Alice may you so John and I were figuring we think she was only right and it's great to hear that. She's still at in Lively engaged in book cookbook publishing.

01:20:16 There's

01:20:18 So many years and so many additions in expanded expanded as wondering if you could talk about like a few favorite memories or something if they're funny stories and things that you took back on fondly.

01:20:38 I think one of the things that I look back on fondly is

01:20:44 Our celebrations

01:20:47 You're 10 years 25 years.

01:20:50 Celebration in a snow storm March 9th. Maybe you'll help me. Remember the year Joan. When is this the one in Boston and everybody could make it because the snow is so bad. Kennedy is Edward Kennedy and John Kerry spoke and Vicki Kennedy spoke with past year is of the Sackler Museum in Brooklyn gave us an award as one of the first it was their Wards about women who were first until we were the first group to do women's health and when Gloria Steinem introduced us, there was a woman in the balcony said and you taught us about masturbation. That was a very funny moment, but those celebrations and I think bringing our it was they were honoring our parents those of

01:21:50 Guess who had parents who were alive over the years we had different celebrations and we met each other's families.

01:22:01 And that was very moving and especially since you know, most of them have passed now to really kind of know, you know know each other better by knowing our family is Amina You and I John were very blessed in her.

01:22:18 Our parents

01:22:21 So those are some of my memories May sack leader the Sackler. I mean the Timmy is so extraordinary that we are one of the few surviving group seminar found a group is intact and we have some of the few surviving groups of the early days of the women's movement and I don't know any other kind of you know, when when I think about it and

01:22:45 Remember, I told you the story about this guy David contacted me who wanted to know about my involvement with our bodies ourselves and he's a person who works with doctors and does a lot of Health talks. He says I quote you're booked all the time. And and in the conversation. I was telling him about the May 9th workshop at and 1969. He wrote me a note by saying I put in my calendar May 9th 2019 for the 50th anniversary celebration of your workshop. And aren't you going to I'm going to come to your new workshop and I you know, I just laughed and what they wrote and the more I thought about I thought will employ not maybe I will or we will

01:23:32 You'll do it with me this time and do a workshop and then we found out a finely who was responsible for helping us get.

01:23:44 I'm space for this conference at Emmanuel College because in 69 Emmanuel College is a Catholic girl school.

01:23:51 And we could not over the years figure out we had one friend who was a teacher who was not a nun we thought maybe she had arranged for us to have a space but we've checked with her and she wasn't and it turned out through a number of circumstance the details of what you're not too important the woman who

01:24:13 I talked with one of the nuns.

01:24:18 About using the space without a dinner event that some of us an informal dinner event, and she said I had a place to play in that and she told us the history and

01:24:34 And was going to see if she could find the nun who was who had said yes to her. And that was that was very thrilling and it turns out that it's Emmanuel College is hundredth anniversary.

01:24:47 And I thought that maybe we haven't contacted a manual yet, but it would be wonderful to have a

01:24:54 A celebration of them

01:24:57 And to do a repeat, you know to do a 2019 version of art of women in their bodies.

01:25:08 Take a few years.

01:25:11 I have a funny recollection. This is way back when the first Simon & Schuster Edition was printed and we I think we all felt a little apprehensive then like how was is going to be received and if ended up it was great fine, but my grandfather who was then I think 95 was in a nursing home brought him a copy of the key offensive to the vaginal self exam.

01:25:45 And I have is about ready to go through their floor at the

01:25:52 My family is very supportive of it.

01:26:01 Oh well yet. I mean that's this to gift of this thing that wherever we go. We find people come up and just say, oh my God, I know where founder and found it. Oh my God, you know Story the book stay there life in some way the information a funny story, you know how they gave it to them and grateful to have been part of something that had such an impact on so many women's lives. It's a kind of amazing wherever we go and it's uniglobal now, you know, 3134 installations adaptations around the world and you know and Norma Norma had an idea to do a road trip and I got or I got excited about the possibility of her and I or whoever wanted to do if you wanted to join us or different people want it from the collective wanted to join us.

01:26:58 I'm doing a road trip and go to different cities where we know people who can put us up and then have an event at the local bookstore a local library and invite people to bring their addition to our bodies ourselves as they want us to sign it. We would be glad to do it but also but video there were their experience and have the stories of the impact of this book these years later.

01:27:25 That would be that is thrilling because it's just very moving hearing.

01:27:31 The impact that the book in our work has had on so many people's lives.

01:27:37 And every everybody has a story everybody has a story.

01:27:44 Interactions list

01:27:48 You mentioned funny ones people who said like this save my life.

01:27:58 It's happened a you know, this may sound funny, but it's happened so frequently.

01:28:06 The details don't stand that what stands out is every single time which stands out is.

01:28:15 Really appreciating that something we started has had impact on people's lives.

01:28:23 You know one of them I run this pay on the paper you gave us earlier about what my

01:28:31 Purpose was really might in life. It's really to be a catalyst for Global transformation. One person one family one couple one community at a time and I every time I hear people stories. I feel like my cat. I'm being a catalyst. I've been a catalyst. We've been a catalyst. We've been Catalyst not me alone and

01:28:54 That's just brings tears to my eyes. Just very moving.

01:29:04 Yeah.

01:29:06 Yeah, I know it is and I know I'm going and the thing is our work is not done. The work isn't done and our work isn't done. I think that

01:29:21 First of all, lots of you know, it's like with the political situation in this country. I never thought you know in 1972 when I helped organize an abortion demonstration when abortion was still not legal. I thought it became legal. We thought this is over we don't have to do this ever again well wrong we may have to do this again. And we we are in a place where we have a certain kind of credibility and Authority from that credibility to

01:29:56 Speak up and to no other groups that other, you know to make alliances with other people to speak up cuz we need the women's movement more than ever.

01:30:10 It seems to me with the current political situation in this carpet up political so-called leadership in this country. And so whatever we can do to you.

01:30:23 Take the inspiration take our own work and the inspiration of other people and the opportunity to.

01:30:33 Have younger people who are not familiar with the book, but who needs to know the issues as well?

01:30:44 Really gives me.

01:30:47 The possibility of some hope in these times that are

01:30:51 Really politically very difficult

01:30:55 Yeah, I know. I mean, I think we're up a pool by the rise of misogyny and sexism again and it was interesting cuz it was a. I guess in the 90s or so. We're younger women used to think that feminism was a dirty word and not really inclined to be feminists and you know in for us it's always been you know, just equality between the Sexes. It's nothing set traumatic, but what's been so heartening is it feminism is now people are embracing it and you know, young women are really becoming much more active is and so this I think we'll see what happens either the me to go on and on about it, but there's a real resurgent as well. As you know this rise of misogyny and we have to be very protect, you know, my full of not the undoing of all the victories we've had, you know, do you know if we can go on and on about that, but my oldest granddaughter who's 18?

01:31:55 When she was last year the last year's that she's now a just finished her first year in college, but when she was in high school was a member of feminist Club, this is Columbus, Ohio. This is not a major city in me on the east coast and you know felt the need to have a club that talked about feminism. That was not assume that

01:32:21 You know, she would get into arguments with other kids about the necessary that you know why this was necessary.

01:32:31 Did you guys can you called but sharing the book with your kids?

01:32:39 Or was it like?

01:32:45 Well, I think my kids would say.

01:32:48 Some of the kids at the collective would say, you know dinnertime conversation about in our family is very unusual for people coming to visit this we might be talking about birth control or clitoris is or masturbation or how babies get born or something like that.

01:33:08 I've I think that the conversation really was you know in our families.

01:33:16 And the kids would get used to it. They would both be embarrassed by it and both be matter of fact.

01:33:28 Yeah, I mean my kids are proud of me. I mean, I have two sons and if they're funny situation two sons married and three grandsons, I mean day it's all got an oboes thing again, but they were I think when they started dating women that they would tell that it was his assistant that was always a plus it gives them. It gives them a lot of credibility in certain circles they can use it and they do and I encourage people to use it and you know people who know me say, well, I know the person who was the founder of our bodies ourselves I said go for you can help us eyes are book anytime you want.

01:34:17 There's something you said a little earlier and bring them that like just said off of thing and I don't want to put you guys on the spot, but I'll go right ahead.

01:34:32 Book

01:34:34 Any line or anytime after that specifically like

01:34:39 Call to you.

01:34:42 Well, if there are I don't remember them at the moment, I think the the point was really that people are.

01:34:54 Have been influenced deeply by the book.

01:34:59 Buy the material and in a way

01:35:03 That they come back and give very specific comments.

01:35:08 And I'm struck by that isn't like all your book help me. It's like this part of the book help me.

01:35:18 For you, is there a line? You're really really proud of or a chapter that?

01:35:27 For both of you

01:35:31 I think you know in the first book the chapter. I'm proud of it all I really you know over the years. It's I worked on lots of different chapters and in the last books, I haven't worked at all on the book.

01:35:46 But

01:35:48 The first

01:35:52 I'm really proud of us being able to integrate those three threads of the evidence Base information women's experience and political analysis. I'm really proud of us keeping a political analysis current.

01:36:07 And in the very first book, I was probably most proud of the sexuality chapter because it was

01:36:14 You know was a book buying for women about our sexuality and reproductive health, and this was a Top Again.

01:36:30 I'll stop and talk again about it or you want me to start from the sex?

01:36:38 Really? I

01:36:40 I know it's okay. I'm stuck.

01:36:51 I don't hear it. I think I've tuned it out cuz of our conversation.

01:37:04 Ice cream man

01:37:06 I do maybe it's he's returned but you didn't buy enough pops for him coming back. He's going to sell you some more.

01:37:14 He left his his tune was a Yankee Doodle and we asked him do you ever get sick of this?

01:37:23 00

01:37:28 No hear

01:37:37 It's amazing having this conversation that all the years.

01:37:42 Cuz some of them run together and some of those think

01:37:47 Oh now it's really late. Is that an ice cream truck? That's the guy side.

01:38:10 Do that weird Doppler effect word like sounds different.

01:38:16 I think we're good.

01:38:18 Thank you. See you mentioned the very first edition. Yeah, the thing that I'm most stands out as the sexuality chapter because it was the first time we were writing about our

01:38:30 Sexuality in our

01:38:33 And me and providing information about sexual so our sexuality and basically really opening up permission for other people to talk other women to talk more openly about their sexual experience.

01:38:50 I mean I was struck in 1968 when I heard an coif give the paper the missus vaginal orgasm.

01:38:57 Which to have that as information for people?

01:39:02 And for women to be able to talk about their experience of not having orgasm and learning how to make sure that they did have orgasm.

01:39:12 And the clitoris was involved and not just the vagina.

01:39:17 You know, I just felt really happy.

01:39:20 That we could

01:39:22 Contribute to our own and others sexual pleasure cuz sexuality and sexual expression is just a wonderful joyous part of life.

01:39:37 Yeah.

01:39:41 Well just on that. I mean not to the Aging works that I do with the continuation of that kind of stuff that you know, women can be sexually through their whole life and we have to Define it in a much broader way will that but I think it's going to be still a lot of prejudice and ignorance about that and for me I can't and basically for me I have this deep sense that I grew up with it, you know it in the early chapters, it was submissive that women and changing sense of self. I was very interested in sex with him as it impacts woman's identity and then around the deciding to have children then it was deciding to have children than working on that in the car by ourselves and our children and then aging and menopause and I'm working on the Aging issues. So for me, I just feel it's been in organic interplay between my life and the oboe story and my work and my feels disgraceful.

01:40:41 So and that the heart and soul of keeping feminist values vital and it's just everyday life is so impacted by that and it's just common sense that everyone needs to know about and this book in a wheelie says that in so many ways and means some of the material is just Timeless. So the other thing for me and for others of us, do you know as we've gone and explored other careers are other aspects of our leadership and I called him our leadership Journeys.

01:41:14 Is when I tell people are people in their heads to tell other people that I'm one of the founders it gives me a level of

01:41:24 Entree and credibility into situations that I

01:41:29 Into a variety of situations that have nothing to do with the book. I'm doing a lot of coaching and Consulting and Academia now with high-level administrators.

01:41:41 And people know about our bodies ourselves and it's like

01:41:47 People stop will stop and listen to what I have to say about coaching and Consulting because of our bodies ourselves because I have that credibility.

01:41:59 And that's very nice for all of us. You know, it gives us

01:42:03 Entree and two other venues

01:42:07 And the I feel very proud of our Legacy, it's it's our Legacy.

01:42:13 Even if we did not another thing.

01:42:17 The difference it's made for us and our families and for other people.

01:42:24 All those people that have bodies which means all of us anyway.

01:42:31 View, you know final follow-up questions, but I also want to leave room for you guys to talk about like the legacy of this in the wisdom you want to pass on and one of the one of the questions is the height of men in your life react to this work.

01:42:52 They drove truck. Sorry, honey. I'll call you.

01:43:03 All right, go ahead.

01:43:06 The men in my life were very encouraging and very supportive.

01:43:12 But they wouldn't have been in my life if they weren't.

01:43:16 And yeah, they were definitely advocates for the work.

01:43:24 Including my father including my brother including my two husbands.

01:43:31 Including my son's my set. My oldest son Josh who is now 53 was

01:43:38 The senior in college was a Chiang Mai University in Thailand.

01:43:43 And he got to know that he

01:43:49 Met a group of women who were interested in our bodies ourselves or somehow. I don't know exactly I don't remember the story exactly. But basically he put them in touch with our bodies ourselves and there's a tie Edition out there because of Josh

01:44:08 Yeah, and okay.

01:44:32 Yeah, no matter very support. My husband actually is a doctor. He's reached I heard he's always been very supportive of the contribution of the positions, but I totally proud totally enthused and feels I have helped make the world a better place and he's in a totally respect that and my kids as well very very supportive and has been wonderfully terms over the years in terms of what he was practicing more medicine when we had some of us have questions. He was very willing to share his medical expertise was very

01:45:23 I don't think any of our the men associated with us have been anything but supportive.

01:45:30 I mean they have may have a x resented all our meetings. Yeah, but that isn't because of the worth it with us and we could have been doing other things.

01:45:50 My last question, I think I would be for you to reflect on how your relationship together. Can I have has grown over the years through this? Oh my God. I'm going to start to cry.

01:46:09 My husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2012.

01:46:14 And he passed last year in 2017.

01:46:21 And Joan and Bruce have been two of the most loving and supportive people are both of us.

01:46:30 Our relationship is grown in deep into

01:46:34 Really really hard times

01:46:45 I think we're there for each other regardless, what what's going on?

01:46:52 We've had wonderful satyrs together and including some of her children and my children and

01:47:04 And I feel like I can call you at any point that I need some help and support and just listening and you can do the same.

01:47:16 Yeah, I know very much. So I mean it's just we're suited very deep and loyal friends to one another and are there for one another and also we both I mean Marion was a little bit of variety.

01:47:35 Oh, oh, oh, you know I've been one of my missions in the last 2 years has been to really get the founders group together and really be in communication cuz they've been a lot of organizational decisions that have been necessary. And so I've been really involved in that and Miriam has been a real partner in that in a supportive having being involved in a lot of complicated things in her own life at the Marriott and I have been really been buddies through this and we both are passionate about keeping the Legacy going keeping the organ at the our bodies ourselves organization and found a group intact and it's as I said, it's friends. We're just totally loyal friends. Do I know anything can happen and me to call one another priority? So and the other thing is my my son who lives in town.

01:48:31 Refuse like my trip my one child whose nearby and sees us a lot.

01:48:38 Cease, you know acknowledges our friendship and you are Bruce's contribution to us and that's wonderful to have your children.

01:48:50 See

01:48:52 The closest of your friends and my daughter at one point said to me she lives in, Ohio.

01:48:58 She said, you know.

01:49:00 I'm you have such a wonderful community of people and she said I am not sure as I age that I'm going to have that in the same way that you do.

01:49:11 I'll let you know we talked about building, you know, how you build community and stuff, but my children recognize.

01:49:19 The specialness of you are in my relationship and and the community that has supported us. I mean, I would not have been able to

01:49:31 Thrive through these last four or five years without the support of our bodies ourselves.

01:49:38 And you in particular?

01:49:45 I was wondering if you guys wanted to ask him to his own the last questions on your list.

01:50:06 You mean the last question I could ask my the back lashes.

01:50:13 You mean answer?

01:50:14 I don't know.

01:50:17 But like what do you what do you how do you

01:50:22 You know as soon as we know the organization, we've made some decisions some choices.

01:50:29 Tonight

01:50:32 Do another print edition?

01:50:35 And the book in the in the flesh. So to speak has made a lot of difference to people no Malone no longer paying for the book if that book. How do you imagine our work continuing beyond the print Editions?

01:50:54 You're asking me. Yeah you honey, you're sitting across from your sister. We really don't I mean, I guess in my mind that we have an amazing Legacy and that's one thing that we just have to preserve it to share it to pass on and tell stories about it and that to me is ongoing forever. And as far as we in a we don't know the future yet. I mean, maybe we will do pamphlets Maybe.

01:51:31 Mimeograph again, but we're going to continue is an advocacy organization and we will celebrate our fiftieth anniversary and we're getting another gross time. We don't really know the few Tire exactly, but we know did you know and it will evolve and some organic way.

01:51:50 So for me my thoughts about that are one is I'm intrigued by the idea Norma's idea of doing a road trip and I was invited.

01:52:03 Buy a group of women Executives to do a talk on that. They wanted one of the founders they found me through the internet as one of the founders of our bodies ourselves, and they wanted me to do a talk on

01:52:18 They were doing a conference on women's leadership for the first time for this organization. They wanted to do what it took a title of one of my programs called Vision voice and Victory.

01:52:31 The emergence of women's leadership or something and what I did with this group was I shared my leadership Journey, you know going from being an activist and Community organizer to being a social worker to being a therapist and having a private practice and then developing into a coaching business and now working with academics and

01:52:55 Having a stent in business and doing busy no doing sit developing to other businesses, you know, just a lot of the tributaries of my career.

01:53:06 And and where our bodies ourselves fit into that and how it was a flow through.

01:53:13 Thread

01:53:14 And really encourage people to say, okay.

01:53:18 Talk with one another and Smythe had them break into small groups and talk with one another about their leadership journey and what they were going to take what one next step they could take on their Journey.

01:53:30 Either to actually move their Journey forward or to have you no raise questions.

01:53:36 And then ask them to make a commitment to talk to somebody within 24 hours about what they were going to do so they could hold themselves accountable and people really were very engaged in that so I you know imagine that and you do the talks you do around ageism and I think their ways in which

01:53:57 Things that we're passionate about that.

01:54:01 Maybe grew out of our work with our bodies ourselves or our feminism or our leadership.

01:54:08 You know, we'll be able to continue.

01:54:11 And I want to find also ways to

01:54:18 Really continue to educate and to continue to share what we've learned.

01:54:25 With our grandson with my granddaughter say people my granddaughter sage and Grandson Sage.

01:54:33 You know that are not familiar with our bodies ourselves, but the issues behind it are still relevant as we talked about earlier.

01:54:44 Empower them to be catalyst

01:54:48 Hello, I also feel you know, I know I've said this you before it's like

01:54:53 Okay, I'm 75 years old. I have certain experiences and certain wisdom. And if I don't share it now what you know, what am I waiting for? I know life is very informative than watching Jeffrey transition, you know, he was a spiritual teacher and he was a meditation teacher and he was stayed around to be sure that we all learn the lesson of all we have is the present moment and just be powerful in that prison moment.

01:55:27 And so are you know really part of our going forward you and I and other people in the group is really just encouraging people to share their experience and wisdom.

01:55:40 It will be useful to some people and not to others and so what?

01:55:46 Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm in the wisdom. The story is so important and I love is Miriam says I do women growing older workshops and I just feel passionate about being aging a activist and embrace, you know, the aging process and I feel our found a group is a wonderful example of women who are aging well with passion and purpose and meaning and so and we've done workshops we set up through some of the council's on Aging, you know, our bodies ourselves then and now could women wanting to learn about the story both older women and we've done a lot of talks and universities to the sharing the story about the whole our bodies ourselves story and I just feel it's very important and celebrate and celebrating our personal agent. Yeah, we have you and I've had 75th birthdays and 80 we're going to have an 80th birthday coming up. We just had a 70th with Judy and then he is coming up with Paula and

01:56:46 I feel absolutely I love to have celebrations and especially of love one another and so we are been very diligent in celebrating one another's life in a life milestone birthdays, and I Encino their opportunities for us just to get together and enjoy one another.

01:57:13 We are unfortunately at the at the end of our time.

01:57:23 Okay.

01:57:33 Oh, yeah, I know. This is been wonderful. I mean it's just so so marvelous to just share these stories involving are involving friendship in history in the history of this project and I feel forever grateful to have been part and ongoing will be part of this and to have a friend for 50 years into have work for 50 years of it. It's really making a difference in the world. I mean our parents are wherever they are at energetically.

01:58:10 And your grandpa to who made who made trays for us everyone at one point when he was a hundred right for everyone in the in the collective. I still have my Mosaic tray.

01:58:28 And thank you for inviting you. This is Ben storycorps, as you know, something that I've listened to many many years and actually my brother was going to take my mother to the storycorps booth in Grand Central and never and never I don't think they ever did that but