• Muckraking Wonders:Jewish Journalist-Activists of the US Women's Health Movement, 1969–1990
• Jillian M. Hinderliter (bio)

"Girlcott your gynecologist and save your uterus," women's health activist and journalist Barbara Seaman advised readers in 1972, "and if he tells you not to worry your pretty little head about something, pick up your pantyhose and RUN—to a doctor who'll take you seriously."¹ Behind Seaman's humor was a key tenet of the women's health movement: the days of patient passivity were over. As the movement grew out of second-wave feminism in the late 1960s, American women demanded to be respected as health care consumers and critics of male-dominated medicine. Feminists challenged doctors' "political influence, their economic power, and their cultural authority," while calling on women to take an active role in demystifying their own bodies.² In 1975, journalist Rose Kushner recounted her experience desperately seeking information after discovering a lump in her breast. "With appointments scheduled, a glimmer of plans made, books to read, at least I had my forefinger in my own destiny," she wrote in Breast Cancer: A Personal History and an Investigative Report. "I would be no slab of silly-putty to be manipulated helplessly by a pack of doctors."³ Kushner's pursuit of bodily autonomy was built on a foundation of proactive patienthood advanced in part by Seaman's work. As journalists-turned-activists, both Seaman and Kushner used the power of their writing and accessible platforms like newspapers and magazines to inform American patients about the tenets of the women's health movement. Their method and messaging had a long-term impact on the productivity and legacy of the health feminism.

American Jewish women like Seaman and Kushner shaped health feminism in tone as well as in strategy as they used investigative journalism [End Page 371] to shape health care and national health policy. Their work helped build the rhetorical and political strategies of the cause throughout the 1970s and make inroads for health feminists with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health. By the 1980s, they helped the movement mature and address new women's health concerns and treatments. Gloria Steinem later characterized Seaman as the "first prophet of the women's health movement."⁴ Kushner redefined the role of the patient expert through her breast cancer activism and her activist techniques influenced generations of activists, including those working on HIV/AIDS.⁵ Polls from the 1970s suggest that Americans felt "a complicated mix of admiration for and resentment of the medical profession."⁶ This mix often played out in the press as activists, patients, and physicians voiced their perspectives on reforming American medicine.

Directly engaging with Seaman and Kushner's Jewishness, despite their relatively secular lives, can enrich the history of the women's health movement. Inclusive and flexible, Jewishness as an analytical category allows historians to include a range of Jewish meaning, practice, and self-understanding. This essay argues that studying Seaman and Kushner's careers parallel to their life histories as American Jewish women offers an opportunity to interpret Jewish health activists both as feminists and as Jews. The women's health movement did not have to be a "Jewish" movement to be shaped by Jewish women's work and, by extension, Jewish women's personal frameworks of social justice.

By the late 1970s, activists who applied feminist reform politics and critiques to medicine and health care began to identify as "health feminists." Avenues for reform included reframing the patient-practitioner relationship, promoting access to quality medical information, ensuring safe medical products and pharmaceuticals, and supporting women's increased access to medical schools.⁷ Jewish women embraced roles as self-help authors, journalists, scholar-activists, underground abortion providers, and clinic organizers. They were well-represented in the leadership [End Page 372] of national women's health organizations and in community-level initiatives. Eight of the twelve founders of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, authors of groundbreaking health manual Our Bodies, Ourselves, were Jewish, as were four of the five founders of the National Women's Health Network, an advocacy organization cofounded by Seaman.⁸

Selecting Barbara...

• Muckraking奇迹：1969-1990年美国妇女健康运动的犹太记者-活动家
• Jillian M.Hinderliter（生物）

妇女健康活动家兼记者芭芭拉·希曼（Barbara Seaman）于1972年建议读者：“抵制妇科医生并保存子宫，如果他告诉您不要担心自己的小脑袋，请拿起连裤袜和RUN来找医生，”我会认真对待你的。” ¹ Seaman幽默的背后是妇女健康运动的主要宗旨：患者消极的日子结束了。随着1960年代后期第二波女权主义运动的兴起，美国女性要求受到尊重，成为医疗保健消费者和男性主导医学的批评家。女权主义者对医生的“政治影响力，经济实力和文化权威”提出了挑战，同时呼吁妇女在使自己的身体神秘化方面发挥积极作用。^2个1975年，记者罗斯·库什纳（Rose Kushner）讲述了自己的经历，因为她发现自己的乳房肿块后迫切地寻求信息。她在《乳腺癌：个人历史和调查报告》中写道： “安排好约会，计划一线，阅读书籍，至少我有自己的食指。” “我不会被一群医生无奈地操纵着。” ³库什纳对身体自主性的追求是建立在希曼工作的部分基础上积极进取的耐心的基础上的。当记者变成激进主义者时，希曼和库什纳都利用自己的写作能力以及报纸和杂志等可访问的平台，向美国患者宣传妇女健康运动的宗旨。他们的方法和消息传递对健康女权主义的生产力和遗产产生了长期影响。

美国犹太妇女，如希曼（Seaman）和库什纳（Kushner），在使用调查性新闻[End Page 371]来塑造卫生保健和国家卫生政策时，在语气和策略上塑造了健康女权主义。他们的工作帮助在整个1970年代建立了针对这一事业的修辞和政治策略，并通过食品药品监督管理局（FDA）和美国国立卫生研究院（National Institutes of Health）闯入了健康女权主义者。到1980年代，他们帮助运动成熟并解决了新女性的健康问题和治疗方法。格洛丽亚·施泰因姆（Gloria Steinem）随后将希曼（Seaman）形容为“妇女健康运动的第一位先知”。⁴库什纳通过她的乳腺癌行动主义重新定义了患者专家的角色，她的行动主义技术影响了几代激进主义者，包括从事艾滋病毒/艾滋病工作的激进主义者。⁵ 1970年代的民意测验表明，美国人感到“对医学专业的钦佩与不满的复杂结合”。⁶这种混合效应在媒体上经常出现，因为活动家，患者和医生表达了他们对改革美国医学的看法。

尽管生活相对世俗，但直接与希曼和库什纳的犹太人交往可以丰富妇女健康运动的历史。犹太性具有包容性和灵活性，作为一种分析范畴，它使历史学家可以包括一系列犹太人的含义，实践和自我理解。本文认为，研究希曼和库什纳的职业生涯与其在美国犹太妇女中的生活史相平行，这提供了一个机会，可以将犹太健康运动家既解释为女权主义者，也解释为犹太人。妇女保健运动不必一定是由犹太妇女的工作以及犹太妇女的社会正义个人框架所塑造的“犹太人”运动。

到1970年代后期，将女权主义改革政治和批评应用于医学和医疗保健的激进主义者开始被认定为“健康女权主义者”。改革的途径包括改组医患关系，促进获得优质医疗信息，确保安全的医疗产品和药品以及支持妇女增加进入医学院校的机会。⁷犹太妇女担任自助作家，记者，学者活动家，地下堕胎提供者和诊所组织者。在国家妇女卫生组织的领导层[第372页]和社区一级的倡议中，她们有很好的代表。波士顿妇女健康丛书的十二位创始人中有八位是开创性的健康手册的作者我们的机构，我们自己，都是犹太人，是由西曼（Seaman）共同发起的倡导组织国家妇女健康网络（National Women's Health Network）的五位创始人中的四位。⁸

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