When we started talking about writing a blog together, we deliberately and happily decided to focus on “style” and to leave all notions of dating, sex, and relationship questions to others far more skilled.

We grew up in the 60’s in and around Cambridge Ma in a community that nurtured some of the earliest longings for a world where peace and love, feminism and conservation became the pillars of a revolution that soon swept through a whole generation of young women and men.  And in the wave of empowerment that followed and heralded the introduction of the birth control pill (Lucy actually went to a party to meet Dr. Rock, the father so to speak, of this little pill), the world view would forever change  what “good girls” could do.

Early version as a pamphlet

Which gets us to a landmark book, Our Bodies, Our Selves. The book came out of a group of women who had met at a women’s liberation conference at Emmanuel College in 1969 and later became known as the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective.

The groundbreaking work, which began as a 35-cent pamphlet, was published by Simon and Schuster, translated into 31 languages, revised in 9 editions, and sold over 4 million copies. It’s considered one of the most influential books of the 20th century.

Everyone I knew bought the book and read it cover to cover, picture to picture, word for word. And so it was with a heavy heart that we learned that this icon of our coming of age will for all intents and purposes cease publication.

This was our bible

But as much as the political climate has changed and we have lived long enough to see the country cycle back again to some earlier more conservative views, so has the sexualization of almost everything we see and hear. The internet has created a vast universe of “knowledge” that also reveals that there is no topic too taboo and for every “thing” there are literally millions of pages to explore, or not.

We had a bible in those days. One that spoke the simple plain truth in 276 pages. And now, we can’t help but feel a longing for a time when some young and resourceful women took a whole generation under their wing to explain the facts of our bodies and our selves that has endured for 50 years.

Speaking of feminism for those who not remember there was a phase when burning your bra seemed like the right thing to do. Lucy did it and then realized that she actually didn’t own that many bras and wondered if she had really taken a stand.   But, in fact, we did take a stand as a generation of women then and it is looking like  we may have to do it again, if the forces that seek to diminish women’s right continue to exert pressure on our freedoms.

Girdles yes, get rid of them (Sorry Mom)   – but now we have Spanx so there!

Here we are with a slightly political and maybe even sexual but definitely nostalgic glance back at the way we were. This is a charming story of our lives as seen through our bras:

https://www.manrepeller.com/2017/06/what-your-bra-says-about-you.html?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mr_owned

Here is to us women. Cheers!

Lucy and Claudia