| Acknowledgement 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:
- Judy Norsigian, Co-Founder,
Boston Women's Health Book Collective & Co-Author,
Our Bodies, Ourselves
Comments -
Secretary Donna E. Shalala
Discussion |
The
Women’s Health Movement From the 1960s to the Present,
and Beyond
Sheryl Burt Ruzek, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Author, Women’s Health: Complexities and Differences
Professor, Department of Health Studies, Temple University
The grass-roots women’s health organizations that grew
out of the women’s health movement of the 1960s-1970s must today negotiate roles and
relationships with the newer, more professionalized and disease-specific women’s
health organizations that have burgeoned in the 1990s. The proliferation of these newer
groups dilutes the role of grass-roots women’s health organizations as
"information brokers" for women in the U.S. and raises questions about who will
speak for women in the electronic age.
Women’s health in the United States truly is, as acclaimed health writer
and activist Barbara Seaman has called it, "an important history-bearing
movement". It is a privilege to witness today, in one room, the synergism between the
intersecting strands of women’s health activism that in our lifetimes have
transformed health knowledge, health politics, and the health care service systems of our
nation.
In this presentation, I want to reflect on how the women’s health movement
emerged and grew in the 1960s-1970s, highlight some of the key differences between older
grass-roots advocacy groups and those that have emerged in the 1990s, and finally raise
some questions about who will speak for women in the emerging global information era.
The 1960s-1970s |
