{"id":545,"date":"2016-07-28T17:46:19","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T21:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/?p=545"},"modified":"2016-09-06T14:18:53","modified_gmt":"2016-09-06T18:18:53","slug":"the-womens-health-movement-comes-to-purdue-discovering-the-sisters-for-health-education-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/asc\/2016\/07\/28\/the-womens-health-movement-comes-to-purdue-discovering-the-sisters-for-health-education-records\/","title":{"rendered":"The Women\u2019s Health Movement Comes to Purdue: Discovering the Sisters for Health Education Records"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1979, at the height of the Women\u2019s Movement,<\/a> three women at Purdue University formed the Sisters for Health Education (S.H.E.), a student organization founded on the principle that \u201cevery woman has the right to understand and control her own body\u201d (“History of S.H.E.,” Box 1, Folder 1). For the next few years, they set out to single-handedly educate themselves, and the women of Purdue, about their bodies in an effort to put back into the hands of women the knowledge to care for themselves, their children, and their communities.<\/p>\n

In 1981, Purdue had no gynecologist on staff and lacked express resources for its women students in the areas of birth control, unwanted pregnancy, and sexual assault. In a letter to Ms. Dunkle, Director of the Health Equity Project, dated June 18, 1981, S.H.E. founding member Marcia Whisman relates several stories of women who came to S.H.E. in search of support and information after bad experiences with the sole nurse on staff at the student health center who handled \u201csexual matters\u201d:<\/p>\n

She should have her certification to practice taken away from her….[she] is opposed to abortion, doesn\u2019t seem to have a very good attitude about sexuality in general, doesn\u2019t like to deal with sexual matters, and is very inept with examinations to the point of hurting a friend of mine when she was examining her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another student was referred to the staff nurse\u00a0for vaginal infections and was told to \u201cquit fooling around\u201d though she was not sexually active. Yet another requested a pregnancy test but never heard back from the staff nurse\u00a0regarding the results. When she finally called, the nurse\u00a0scolded her: \u201cI have known for several days that you were not pregnant, but I thought I would let you worry\u2014have you learned your lesson?\u201d<\/p>\n

In relating these stories, Whisman reveals the difficulties that women students faced in attempting to access unbiased healthcare in order to make informed decisions about their bodies \u2013 decisions that would also impact their education. Letters and articles describe the pushback encountered by Purdue staff who had previously advocated for a women\u2019s center (one was short-lived, but the campus currently lacks one). Knowing this, S.H.E. proceeded with caution when petitioning the university for funds as a student organization, choosing their words carefully to \u201csanitize\u201d their mission to counsel women on matters of birth control and abortion.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>

An early flyer distributed by the Sisters for Health Education invites Purdue students to a feminist consciousness raising meeting focused on women\u2019s health (Sisters for Health Education Records [S.H.E.], MSP 150, Box 1, Folder 1).<\/p><\/div>\u201cKNOWLEDGE IS POWER\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite institutional resistance, S.H.E. was operational by 1980; eventually they acquired a space in the Wesley Foundation and opened their \u201cclinic\u201d on March 2, 1981. They were soon busy hosting educational workshops, advising women over their hotline, and disseminating calls to action to protect women\u2019s reproductive rights at the national level.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A collection of pamphlets addresses puberty, sexism, and teen pregnancy, and advises parents how to talk to their children about sex (Sisters for Health Education [S.H.E.] records, MSP 150, Box 3, Folder 11).<\/p><\/div>Fed up with the ways that sexism and racism shaped interactions between medical professionals – almost exclusively men at that time – and their patients, the Women\u2019s Health Movement aimed to put medical knowledge directly into the hands of women. S.H.E. correspondence captures a national dialogue among feminists working to put knowledge directly into the hands of diverse women and questioning the epistemological assumptions inherent in healthcare practices of the time (see Wendy Kline<\/a>\u2019s \u201c\u2019Please Include This in Your Book\u2019: Readers Respond to Our Bodies, Ourselves,<\/em>\u201d<\/a> Bulletin of the History of Medicine, <\/em>Spring 2005).<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>

A cartoon in a copy of Lesbian Health Issues brings a queer perspective, and some humor, to the Women\u2019s Health Movement (Sisters for Health Education [S.H.E.] records, MSP 150, Box 2, Folder 32).<\/p><\/div>Inspired by the movement\u2019s motto, \u201cKnowledge is power,\u201d S.H.E. researched not only debates surrounding the Pill\u2019s safety, but also mental health, fat-shaming, lesbian women\u2019s sexuality, the beauty industry, and food additives and natural remedies for common ailments like menstrual discomfort and bladder infections. They corresponded with feminist organizations and women\u2019s health clinics in solidarity around the country and ordered speculums directly from medical supply companies to distribute at workshops where they taught women how to view their own cervices.<\/p>\n

In addition, they brought together local resources for victims of rape and sexual assault, including a brochure (shown below) from the Indianapolis Police Department advising women to \u201cTrim bushes and shrubbery\u201d around their homes \u201cso no one can hide in them\u201d (Box 2, Folder 22), advice that now seems comically outdated.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

Brochures, Sisters for Health Education (S.H.E.) records, MSP 150, Box 1, Folder 7.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"A<\/a>

A booklet (front and back) doles out advice to women on how to protect themselves from rape; contemporary anti-violence activists and educators would now characterize this as victim-blaming (Sisters for Health Education [S.H.E.] records, MSP 150, Box 1, Folder 7).<\/p><\/div>S.H.E. members compiled and circulated lengthy lists of recommended reading that covered topics ranging from feminist theory to a history of midwives. Oft-referenced throughout is the Women\u2019s Health Movement bible, Our Bodies, Ourselves<\/em><\/a>, a self-help guide to women\u2019s health first published by the Boston Women\u2019s Health Book Collective in 1970. Updated and reissued every four to six years and now available in more than thirty languages, the text remains the gold standard for many feminists and health educators today.<\/p>\n

\"Brochures<\/a>

Brochures collected from various women\u2019s reproductive rights organizations offer information about U.S. eugenics-like programs targeting women of color under the guise of eliminating poverty (Sisters for Health Education [S.H.E.] records, MSP 150, Box 2, Folder 34).<\/p><\/div>What unfolds in this collection is nothing short of a dynamic portrait of a nation\u2019s healthcare practice under radical reform. Grassroots feminist health activists raised crucial questions about medical epistemology and literally rewrote how women understood and cared for their own health and for each other. This history, told through the correspondence and clippings of a small but dedicated group of Purdue feminists, continues to impact our healthcare today. Though the revolution may be incomplete, we see echoes of it in contemporary debates for reproductive justice and in renewed activism around home birth and midwifery, for example, the Big Push for Midwives <\/a>campaign and Ricki Lake’s hit documentary The Business of Being Born.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

THE GROWING BACKLASH<\/strong><\/p>\n

If the collection reveals the progress made by grassroots women activists, it also foreshadows a growing conservative backlash that would carry through the 1980s. S.H.E. members actively\u00a0 advocated for women’s right to access safe and legal abortion and protested the Human Life Amendment, wrote to prominent politicians at the state and national level, a precursor to today\u2019s fetal personhood amendments<\/a>. Though member’s letters are not included in the collection, the responses they received are, including letters from prominent politicians such as Richard Lugar and Dan Quayle. Newsletters penned by the then newly-founded Moral Majority defame the content of Our Bodies, Ourselves<\/em> and \u201cthe feminist agenda\u201d as a threat to the nation.<\/p>\n

\"Insert<\/a>

A copy of the proposed Human Life Amendment, annotated by a S.H.E. member (Sisters for Health Education [S.H.E.] records, MSP 150, Box 2, Folder 6).<\/p><\/div>

\"Insert<\/a>

Senator Richard Lugar’s response to a letter sent by a member of S.H.E. (Sisters for Health Education [S.H.E.] records, MSP 150, Box 2, Folder 6).<\/p><\/div>For contemporary readers, reproductive rights debates often seem a clear-cut dichotomy, a war between pro-life or pro-choice advocates. But the S.H.E. records expose much more nuanced and complicated perspectives on the issue than we might now imagine. Among proponents of the Women\u2019s Health Movement, many were involved in other causes, including the anti-war and burgeoning environmental movements. Feminist small presses exploded across the country in the 1970s, capturing the conversation of the Women’s Movement and its intersecting discourses with other social movements for justice and equality – and the members of S.H.E. were tapped in.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A copy of the feminist small press magazine Win demonstrates the growing intersection of causes (Sisters for Health Education [S.H.E.] records, Box 3, Folder 17).<\/p><\/div>\n

\"A<\/a>

A political cartoon accompanies a New York Times article on abortion from 1980, its critique surprisingly contemporary (Sisters for Health Education [S.H.E.] records, MSP 150, Box 2, Folder 6).<\/p><\/div>UNTIDY ENDINGS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ultimately, the collection ends abruptly and offers no explanation of what became of S.H.E. and its inspiring members. After the last materials dated 1982, there is silence. Earlier articles and letters hint at a struggle to maintain the flow of funds necessary to keep the resource going \u2013 the phone bill their largest expense. Marcia Whisman continued to send postcards and letters to her feminist sisters at S.H.E. even after she moved to Maryland to pursue graduate work. In a letter, she shares her intention to establish a similar resource at her next university, anticipating that women everywhere were in need of the knowledge to understand and care for their bodies.<\/p>\n

In fall of 2015, Purdue hit another major milestone in caring for its women students: after years of student activism amid a growing national discourse surrounding sexual assault on college campuses, Purdue University announced the establishment of C.A.R.E.<\/a>, the Center for Advocacy, Response, and Education, a relationship violence and rape crisis center slated to open at the start of the 2016-17 academic year.<\/p>\n

As one of the students who spent four years writing to university administration, organizing and speaking at Take Back the Night rallies<\/a>, and talking with local media about the need for this resource, I cannot help but wonder what the members of S.H.E. would think of this newest result of grassroots feminist efforts at Purdue.<\/p>\n

And I wonder, where did their feminist rabble-rousing take them and were they thanked enough for the work they did?<\/p>\n

The struggle continues, sisters. Fight on.<\/p>\n

P.S. Look for a newly donated collection on the years of student activism and advocacy that went into getting the Center for Advocacy, Response, and Education in the near future.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Note: <\/em>Dana Bisignani is a graduate assistant working in the Women’s Archives and an anti-violence activist and educator. A two-time recipient of the Berenice A. Carroll Award for Feminism Peace, and Social Justice, and former graduate instructor in Purdue’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, Dana left her doctoral program this year in order to pursue anti-violence education and prevention work full-time.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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