Life Support – Olivia Plender

Jordan’s Thoughts:

I used this space as a participant in a Book Picnic before I fully understood the work that had been done to the space by Plender. I felt that it was a cosy space, and the big curtain gives the space a slight movement that makes it feel like it’s softly living. Although I didn’t know who the women depicted were, I felt that these were important folk, and that this was the kind of place that celebrated women.

Other than the curtain, it’s not hugely obvious the work that was done. I think this is one of the beautiful things about it. It doesn’t shout ART PROJECT, but rather gently holds you in a bright, warm, and caring space.

Now that I’ve used the space with more knowledge of the project (and seen the before and afters), I see how much care was put into each intentional decision, from the colour of the walls, to the softness of the space.

Olivia’s Thoughts

I wanted to include some material that represents health practices that are self organised. It also represents how people with chronic illness and disability can connect to each other and create solidarity, organise politically, as illness can be very isolating. Chronic pain is a feminist issue as it is more commonly suffered by women than men and is often dismissed by doctors as ‘all in your head’

Jordan’s Thoughts

As someone who has chronic pain, I found this zine very moving.

It’s sometimes very hard for me to find imagery and words that I can really relate to, but this was filled with pieces that spoke to me. The poem and image below so simply capture my feelings about being open about my pain, and feeling like my body is falling apart.

I think that it is very valuable to have extremely niche publications that speak to a small collection of people, as those people often feel isolated and under represented in the mainstream media. This is why Zines exist.

Olivia’s Thoughts:

I like the cartoon here. It’s an image of women sitting in a circle, which is such a classic feminist formation: self-organised and equal.

Jordan’s Thoughts:

This service “was set up because of the feeling among women (who tend to use the Health Service more often than men due to their more complex biology and their child care responsibilities) that often their health problems were either not taken seriously, not afforded credibility, or treated sympathetically, and that in many cases a course of treatment was not explained adequately. This appears to be especially prevlent when involving elderly or black women.”

This statement echos sentiments I heard very recently when transcribing Olivia Plender’s Our Bodies are Not the Problem workshops that she ran to follow on from the Life Support project. It seems that women are still experiencing these issues decades late. This flyer is undated, however a brief dive into the history of phone numbers leads me to believe it’s from 90s or earlier.

Jordan’s Thoughts:

There are numbers and meeting places for pubs, bookstores, theatres, etc that are accessible for disabled gays. Additionally, there’s recommendations for books, publications, and services, as well as clubs and groups.

This was owned by someone who has crossed out things and added new information over time in blue pen. This is a fascinating insight into how people accessed the queer/disabled community before the internet. How would people have known that these spaces existed without this booklet, and how would they have known about this booklet?

I love to see the interaction with the material from someone who owned it, how they kept track of spaces they liked, or if they had closed down, moved address, or changed their phone numbers.

This reminds me of the GWL Three Decade project GWL Origins: Pre-Internet Community Building that I heard our archivist Mae Moss speak about recently.

Jordan’s Thoughts:

This booklet is very indicative of its time, written and edited by men in the 1980s about ‘the menopause’. Interestingly, when pages provide medical advice, there is often a picture of a male doctor to accompany the text. I suggest that this was an attempt to provide and sense of trust and legitimacy to the advice, as the editors would have assumed that the image of a male doctor would be more likely to convey these things than a female doctor would.

Additionally, there is more than one section about how menopause effects the husbands of the women experiencing it, and how wives can help their husbands through this difficult time.

While this booklet has a lot of helpful and informative information, it takes a very heteronormative perspective. Not only assuming that women of menopausal age are married to men, but that people experiencing menopause identify as women, and that they have previously given birth and have raised children.

This is a great example of something written for women, by men, and the issues that arise when things are written about us, without us.

Olivia’s Thoughts:

I like this cartoon, as it sums up many women’s experiences of going to the doctor. There was an image of a male doctor sitting behind a desk which I included in the show (Living with The Menopause), which is in one of the publications produced by the mainstream health care system. When you put the two images side by side, this image satirizes the paternalistic and sexist norms and assumptions behind the other image.

Jordan’s Thoughts:

This broadsheet offers good critiques of the dominant views of the times. The two main narratives were that either women are being dramatic and using PMT as an excuse for ‘bad behaviour’, or they are so severely affected by it that they experience a period of madness or illness of which they have no control. However, this broadsheet offers that there are many varied experiences of PMT and acknowledges the complexities of the experience.

Interestingly, this broadsheet critiques the exact issues I have with the Living with the Menopause – Your Questions Answered booklet. They discuss how these types of literature are ‘sanctioned’ by men and centred around how women’s health affects their husbands.

This paper also has an article which questions whether we should view women’s cyclic changes as ‘illnesses’ at all. They suggest “we can accept that women are affected by our menstrual cycles in various ways, and that some of those effects may be unpleasant, without necessarily saying that we are therefore suffering from an illness and in need of treatment.” This article provides clear critiques of the societal view of menstruation and mood changes at the time. Overall, suggesting that we flow with the cyclic nature of menstruation, rather than pathologizing and struggling against it.

Overall, I think that this broadsheet is full of critical thinking, and progressive views that capture some of the complexities of Menstration from the perspective of people who actually experience it.

Olivia’s Thoughts:

I love the title of this zine, as it points to structural issues and how inequality and mususe of power can affect people’s health and it has a clever acronym.

Olivia’s Thoughts:

These newsletters are interesting as they show how organised the women’s health movement was at that time. The articles still feel very relevant. It is important to discuss how race and racism affect the health of women of colour and their experiences of healthcare. These discussions were very present during the Covid-19 pandemic, however we see here that there has been awareness of this problem within parts of the feminist movement for a long time.

Olivia’s Thoughts:

This is a feminist classic and has been very influential for the women’s health movement.

Olivia’s Thoughts:

There was a particular image in here that I used of a rather depressed looking mother with a baby in a pram on an estate. This image says a lot about assumptions regarding who does the childcare.

Olivia’s Thoughts:

It’s important to talk about how women’s health is also affected by the built environment. At the time architecture and town planning were totally male dominated professions, so women’s needs were rarely taken into consideration in the design process for cities.

Olivia’s Thoughts:

I wanted to include this as I felt that it was important to make clear that the definition of women that I believe in includes trans women. Some of the health activist material from the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s is very gender essentialist and there is a strong focus on reproductive rights. That is of course important, but women’s health is not only about reproductive rights.

Olivia’s Thoughts:

I wish I could do this course.