Women's Health in
Women's Hands
Women's Hands
Remaking the World with a
Feminist Vision
Feminist Vision
Chico FWHC
Taking Back Our Lives
Seated Woman w/Visible Uterus
Woman Pumping Her Own ME
WOMEN'S HEALTH IN WOMEN'S HANDS
2250 Fair Park Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90041 (323) 960-5026 Fax (323) 960-5026 whwh@womenshealthinwomenshands.org
Resources
Staff of WHS Redding, CA
Through the Speculum
Self-Help in Groups
5 Weeks 2 Days
Resources
A New View of a Woman's Body
The Clitoral
Truth
Truth
The self-help branch of the women's health movement started in 1971 in Los Angeles, California.
A woman in Northern California looked at her cervix with a speculum, hand mirror and a digital camera! She has posted a beautiful collection of her and other women's cervixes on the My Beautiful Cervix Project web site. Click on photo to see.
Women's sexuality has been repressed by law and custom. It is our human right to experience joy from physical pleasure and intimacy. Knowing about our bodies' healthy functioning helps us to attain our rights. Drawing by Suzann Gage.
National women's organizations brought together an estimated 1.15 Million women to protest the gradual erosion of abortion rights over the thirty years since Roe v. Wade. Click on photo for Abortion Speak-Out Campaign.
March For Women's Lives, 2004
The Chico Feminist Women's Health Specialists in California was started by 9 women in 1975. Today, now the Women's Health Specialists, despite anti-abortion violence, state harassment, opposition from local anti-abortion doctors, it's grown to 4 clinics in Northern California. The WHS travels internationally to spread self-help. Click on photo of FWHC for more.
Eight staff members of Women's Health Specialists in Redding California sends their greetings to you to say, "Happiness is Knowing Your Own Cervix!"
Our Reproduction & Sexuality
We show how to do vaginal self-examination by yourself or with others. This woman is seeing her cervix for the first time with friends.
We are BREAKING THE TABOO of looking at our and each other's genitals, respecting OUR gender and body diversity and honoring each woman's experiences.
We now have a COMPLETELY NEW BODY OF KNOWLEDGE about our healthy body's functions and CELEBRATE our right to sexual pleasure.
We 1) INVENTED menstrual extraction, 2) REDEFINED the clitoris, 3) INFLUENCED non-traumatic, respectful abortion care in the United States, and 4) HUMANIZED adoption practices.
We continue to EXPOSE and OPPOSE 1) dangerous drugs and devices for birth control or HPV prevention and hormone replacement "therapy" 2) myths of menopause, and 3) brutal obstetrical practices. We EDUCATE about the motives and practices of population control forces; we daily FACE DOWN the anti-abortion forces.
We now have a COMPLETELY NEW BODY OF KNOWLEDGE about our healthy body's functions and CELEBRATE our right to sexual pleasure.
We 1) INVENTED menstrual extraction, 2) REDEFINED the clitoris, 3) INFLUENCED non-traumatic, respectful abortion care in the United States, and 4) HUMANIZED adoption practices.
We continue to EXPOSE and OPPOSE 1) dangerous drugs and devices for birth control or HPV prevention and hormone replacement "therapy" 2) myths of menopause, and 3) brutal obstetrical practices. We EDUCATE about the motives and practices of population control forces; we daily FACE DOWN the anti-abortion forces.
The woman receiving the Menstrual Extraction" controls the procedure. She inserts her speculum, then after another member of the group inserts the sterile cannula and crimps or pinches the tubing between the collection jar and the cannula, she pumps the syringe to build up a vacuum. The other members attend her, listening for her reactions and instructions. Click on "Our Periods" to learn about why and how women sometimes extract their menstrual periods.
IN THE NEWS
Lana lived in Long Beach during the 60's and 70's. She and Pat Maginnis and Rowena Gurner travelled around the country, holding town meetings to teach self-abortion. They often arrived at the meeting hall to find the doors locked and the town police chief and the Catholic priest standing outside the door. Since abortion was then legalized, she was not as active as she had been. She donated her records to an archive. Lana may not be as well known in the women's movement as Pat, who has remained active, and the Los Angeles NOW probably doesn't remember Lana's activism in the early NOW chapter. She was the chair of the abortion committee in 1969 and headed up the speakers' bureau on the subject of abortion and spoke widely and often on the subject. She mentored me.
Younger women in the feminist movement need to know more about Lana's and Pat's work. Perhaps they have seen Dorothy Fadiman's films. Anyone who is interested in working with me or others to plan a future memorial, or who is already working on one, please contact me.
We have lost a courageous, smart feminist who was warm and witty.
Younger women in the feminist movement need to know more about Lana's and Pat's work. Perhaps they have seen Dorothy Fadiman's films. Anyone who is interested in working with me or others to plan a future memorial, or who is already working on one, please contact me.
We have lost a courageous, smart feminist who was warm and witty.
Lana Clarke Phelan-Kahn died June 13th of a stroke. (1921 - 2010)