The History and Future of Women's Health
June 11, 1998
Seminar Highlights

Sponsored by the Office on Women's Health
and PHS Coordinating Committee on Women's Health

Welcome & Introduction

Two Centuries of Women's Health Activism

The Women's Health Movement From the 1960's to the Present, and Beyond

Response Panel:

• Mary Harper, Ph.D., D.Sc, R.N., F.A.N.N., LL.D.

• Judy Norsigian, Co-Founder, Boston Women's Health Book Collective & Co-Author,
  Our Bodies, Ourselves

• The Honorable Patricia Schroeder

Comments -
Secretary Donna E. Shalala

Discussion

Two Centuries of Women’s Health Activism
Carol S. Weisman, Ph.D.
Author, Women’s Health Care: Activist Traditions and Institutional Change
Professor, Department of Health Policy, School of Public Health, University of Michigan

If you are a baby boomer, you probably believe that our generation invented all forms of social protest, including the women’s health movement. You probably also learned in school that women’s health activism, historically, has been an offshoot or a footnote of the women’s rights movement — and not in itself a major force for social change. But in both cases you would be wrong.

Women in the U.S. have always been health reformers. In fact, women’s health is an enduring social problem that has been the focus of organized social movement activity since the 19th century.

Activism around women’s health has tended to occur in wavesand to coincide with other social reform movements, including peaks in the women’s right movements. Each wave in what I call the women’s health megamovement has used a range of organizational strategies to change health care. Women have formed self-help groups, influenced social policy through advocacy, and instituted new types of health delivery for women. Ultimately, the women’s health megamovement changed medical practice, reshaped health care institutions, influenced health care policy, and improved the social status of women in our country.

The Popular Health Movement