Kelly O'Donnell, Yale University
Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, Seminar Series
Time and Location:
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM
Claire Fagin Hall, Room 435, Floor 4
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Abstract: In 1975, a group of feminists held a mock funeral outside of the FDA's Maryland headquarters, protesting the agency's complicity in the deaths and harming of women by synthetic hormone based pharmaceuticals. It was the "inaugural protest" of the recently founded National Women's Health Network (NWHN). Originally known as the Women's Health Lobby, this organization represented attempts by feminist health activists to bring the women's health movement to Washington, D.C., as a way of centralizing their efforts and keeping track of the lawmakers and regulators with power over women's health policy.
This talk follows the efforts of Barbara Seaman, author and co-founder of the NWHN. I use Seaman’s published and unpublished writings as a window into the broader women’s health movement. Looking at Seaman and the pre-history of the NWHN, I show that while the feminist health activism of the 1970s is now best remembered for the “body politics” of texts such as Our Bodies, Ourselves, a major focus of its efforts was to change the politics of women’s health at the level of the federal government.
Bio: Kelly O'Donnell is a PhD Candidate in the Program in the History of Science and Medicine at Yale University, where she focuses on the history of women's health and health activism. She is completing a biography of the author Barbara Seaman, which reimagines the American women's health movement of the 1970s and is the founder of the blog Gossiping about Dead People, a satirical look at history.