'Our Bodies, Ourselves' Marks 40th Anniversary With Updated Edition

October 4, 2011 — This fall, the women's health book "Our Bodies, Ourselves" will mark 40 years and more than four million copies sold with the publication of an updated edition, the Washington Post reports.

The Post describes the book as a "user's manual" to sex education and women's health, weaving "unabashed anatomical information with stories from real people" and "in-your-face politics." The book encourages women to examine their anatomy, explains the importance of abortion rights to women's empowerment and critiques society's emphasis on body image. The new version includes information on subjects that were not widely discussed in the 1970s, including HIV/AIDS, environmental health risks, sexual orientation and gender identity, menopause and hormone treatment.

According to the Post, the "feminist classic" evolved from a pamphlet titled "Women and Their Bodies," written in 1970 by 12 Boston-area women who later formed the Boston Women's Health Book Collective. Earlier this year, Time listed "Our Bodies, Ourselves" as one of the 100 "best and most influential" non-fiction books of all time (Weiss, Washington Post, 10/3).