Print Resources

The NWHN is committed to providing women with health information and resources, including in print format. This list of books that features work by and about the NWHN highlights some of our most important work. Click the title links to purchase the books and get a chance to read all about the range of issues presented.

A New View of Women’s Sexual Problems

By Ellyn Kaschak and Leonore Tiefer, The Haworth Press, 2001. The book opens with an analysis of the cultural influences on women’s perception of sexual problems by an ad hoc working group including the NWHN. The concluding chapter, “Orgasms for Sale: The Role of Profit and Politics in Addressing Women’s Sexual Satisfaction”, was written by NWHN Program Director Amy Allina.

The Truth About Hormone Replacement Therapy: How to Break Free From the Medical Myths of Menopause

By the National Women's Health Network, Prima Publishing 2002 | Written by NWHN staff and board members, this book was the culmination of a decades-long campaign to push for studies of the long-term effects of menopause hormone therapy, and to help women sift through the messages generated by Pharma’s campaign to market menopause as a “deficiency disease” and hormones as the “replacement”. In 2002, the NIH-funded Women’s Health Initiative answered questions posed by the NWHN and ushered in a new era of caution regarding the use of HT for prevention. The NWHN happily retired from book-writing after this victory.

Women's Health: Readings on Social, Economic, and Political Issues

By Dawna M. Thomas, Kendall-Hunt Publishing 2017 | This college text book was originally edited by NWHN board members Nancy Worcester and Mariamne Whatley. The current edition includes over a dozen articles originally published in the NWHN newsletter, including “Hormone Risk Throughout the Lifespan” by Christina Cherel, “Why Women Are Afraid of Giving Birth?” by Kate Ryan, “Mammography for Black Women: Why I Won’t Be Silent Anymore” by Tracy A. Weitz, “KEEPS on Keeping On” by Adriane Fugh-Berman and “The Marketing and Politics Behind the Promotion of Female Sexual Dysfunction and its ‘Pink Viagra’”, by the NWHN.

Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice

By Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena R. Gutierrez, South End Press 2004 | Chapter 4 includes an account of the NWHN’s role in the founding of the Black Women’s Health Imperative by board member Byllye Y. Avery. Chapter 15 draws the connection between NWHN’s decision to make “the politics or race/ethnicity and class integral” to the organization and its early support for the women of color activists and organizations featured in the book.

In Our Own Hands

By Sandra Morgen, Rutgers University Press 2002 | Chapters 2 and 3, “Foundational Stories and Movement Making” and “On Their Own: Women of Color and the Women’s Health Movement” discuss the issues NWHN and its founders worked on in the 1970s, including the safety of DES and the Pill; the founding of the NWHN; and the creation of the National Black Women’s Health Project, now known as the Black Women’s Health Imperative.

Moving the Mountain: The Women's Movement in America Since 1960

By Flora Davis, University of Illinois Press 1999 | Chapter 12 “The Women’s Health Movement” includes a description of many of the issues the NWHN worked on in the 1970s and 1980s, including DES, childbirth, dangerous contraceptives, and unnecessary hysterectomies.