New "Our Bodies, Ourselves" website

September 14, 2022 6:26 AM

The classic, groundbreaking, influential book "Our Bodies, Ourselves" has a new website with "updated, curated, and inclusive information about the health and sexuality of women and gender-expansive people .... features the best of the 'old' Our Bodies Ourselves as well as extensive new health content." Topics include "Sexual Anatomy and Common Medical Problems", "Trans Healthcare", and "Heart Health". In keeping with the book's inclusion of first-hand storytelling, the new site includes interview videos and transcripts.

The site includes curated links to other webpages on many topics; OBOS has a content expert team to "curate and vet resources to ensure they are trustworthy, up-to-date, and feminist." The OBOS team also publishes its own content, such as "Self-Exam: Vulva and Vagina", and republishes others' work with permission, as in this piece on crotch sweat.

Check out the past covers of "Women and Their Bodies", "Our Bodies, Ourselves" and related publications for a trip down memory lane.

posted by brainwane (15 comments total)

A friend of mine is on the team that made this! It looks great, can't wait to dig into it and share far and wide.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 6:47 AM on September 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

I was hoping for this very thing! Sad that we need it so much, and I will miss the printed book, which commanded authority with its weight.
posted by eustatic at 7:04 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

I wonder if there's a way that the site could be made so that you could render it into a PDF suitable for printing, or an EPUB, or something similar, so that you could have it as an actual "book" (or ebook)? Obviously you'd lose the video content (although in the case of an ebook, you could have links), but I agree a bit with eustatic that there was value in having it as a book.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:14 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

Something with this information that doesn't need to be accessed via the net is essential. Something that can be given to people who don't have computers, something that can be kept hidden until needed, something that is hard to deny access to. I hope they're working on it.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:23 AM on September 14, 2022 [9 favorites]

For printed books/PDFs, I look to the Hesperian health guides such as "Where There Is No Doctor" which include several books on reproductive health and which are available in a ton of languages.
posted by brainwane at 7:26 AM on September 14, 2022 [9 favorites]

I commented to the website on the need for a book.

But, if you have a young woman in your circle of care, who may be under hostile eyes, surely there are older copies circulating that have most of the uterus-relevant info, although less of the gender-relevant information that was not around in the 90's. (sorry about these terms)

I think having the book made a difference to people in my life. I know I bought several copies for particular people.

Thanks for reminding me about the Hesperian books! I also distributed a few of those back in the day.
posted by eustatic at 8:55 AM on September 14, 2022

My understanding is that it's pretty simple to make a website into an ebook, so hopefully someone will put that together. It really does need to be samizdat-compatible.

If you need a trans version of this, Trans bodies, trans selves is in a new edition.
posted by blnkfrnk at 10:07 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

Motivated perhaps by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
posted by Melismata at 10:07 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Fantastic news! I still have an old print copy of OBOS, I think it's the 2011 edition. I hope they come up with a print-on-demand option for those persons or organizations that would like to provide print copies for people in need.
posted by magstheaxe at 10:14 AM on September 14, 2022

Motivated perhaps by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Absolutely, Melismata — the original book was published in 1970, and Roe vs. Wade was decided in 1973.
posted by jamjam at 10:18 AM on September 14, 2022 [5 favorites]

Holy cats! I still have my copy of OBOS, I think the first big updated version (red title text, I think?)
posted by rmd1023 at 3:05 PM on September 14, 2022

This is fantastic. I work for a company whose mission statement is "All women and people born with ovaries deserve access to birth control." and I have a meeting tomorrow about what products we'll be selling going forward. Even though OBOS aren't selling the book now the site is a great resource. I'm going to bring this up as well as "The Menopause Manifesto."
posted by bendy at 9:15 PM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

This really made me think about the difference between a book and a website again.

Because of my own experience with the OBO book, I wanted to be able to flip through the content and find things by accident, the way I did as a teenager with the book. And that's not really possible with the website.

But this site is going to be used in a different way. People will be sharing links to specific articles in reddit posts, or finding appropriate information when googling. It's a completely different way of interacting with the content.
posted by Zumbador at 10:02 PM on September 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

I still have my copy of the original book, and having circulated it amongst friends back then - many of whom I believe bought their own copies - I think there is a lot to be said for physical copies. Yes, you can pass around links to specific parts but, especially in countries like the USA, some sections (eg contraception/abortion/pregnancy-related) are not the things you possibly want in your access history, especially where ISPs have the capability to track all pages their users request.
Very good to see an updated version though!
posted by Inanna at 10:56 AM on September 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

Their page of core values and guiding principles is quite excellent, IMAO.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:41 AM on September 16, 2022 [1 favorite]