Lifestyle
Norma Swenson, ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ Co-Author, Dies at 93
Norma Swenson was working to educate women about childbirth, championing their right to have a say about how they delivered their babies, when she met the members of the collective that had put out the first rough version of what would become the feminist health classic “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” It was around 1970, and she recalled a few of the women attending a meeting she was holding in Newton, Mass., where she lived.
It did not go well. One of them shouted at her, “You are not a feminist, you’ll never be a feminist and you need to go to school!”
“I was stricken,” Ms. Swenson remembered in a StoryCorps interview in 2018. “But also feeling that maybe she was right. I needed to know more things.”
She did, however, know quite a bit about the medical establishment, the paternalistic and condescending behavior of male doctors — in 1960, only 6 percent of incoming medical students were female — and the harmful effect that behavior had on women’s health. She had lived it, during the birth of her daughter in 1958.
Despite the initial tension — the woman who had berated Ms. Swenson felt her activism was too polite, too old-school — the members of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, as they called themselves, invited Ms. Swenson to join their group. She would go on to help make “Our Bodies, Ourselves” a global best seller. It was a relationship that lasted for the next half-century.
Ms. Swenson died on May 11 at her home in Newton. She was 93.
The cause was cancer, her daughter, Sarah Swenson, said.
It was during a women’s liberation conference in Boston in 1969 that a small group began sharing stories of their fraught experiences with doctors. They told of their frustration with the sexism of the medical establishment and of how confounded they were by the lack of knowledge they had about their own bodies. So they set out to learn for themselves, and in so doing they began to assemble a candid and humane encyclopedia of women’s health — by women, for women.
In 1970, the New England Free Press published their first rough version. It was an immediate underground success, with some 225,000 copies eventually sold. The publisher couldn’t keep up with the demand.
Ms. Swenson joined the group in 1971, when commercial publishers were courting the group’s members. After Simon & Schuster published the book in 1973, much gussied up and expanded, it became a juggernaut.
It covered topics that were then considered unmentionable and, in the case of abortion, illegal: sexuality, masturbation, abortion and birth control. There were chapters on body image, rape and self-defense; on heterosexual and lesbian relationships; on childbirth and its aftermath; and, in later editions, on menopause. There were detailed illustrations — including six variations of hymens — and photographs, including a helpful how-to for viewing one’s own vagina with a mirror.
When The New York Times’s chief book critic, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt — a man! — reviewed it, he explained his rationale for giving himself the assignment.
“I learned a great deal from this book that I did not know before, or had somehow forgotten,” he wrote. “And if the authors are correct in their belief that one of the major reasons why men oppress women is because ‘of the male fear and envy of the generative and sexual powers of women’ — and I think they are — why, then, it will do no harm at all for men to read ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ and expend a little rational thought on these powers.”
The book revolutionized how women’s health was discussed, and it quickly became a cultural touchstone. Reading it — often under the covers — was a rite of passage for many young women, who nicked it from their mothers’ bedside tables. More progressive moms gave it to their daughters in lieu of “the talk.”
Barbara Ehrenreich called it a manifesto of medical populism. The Moral Majority deemed it obscene. It even had a cameo in “Heartburn,” Nora Ephron’s 1983 revenge novel about the breakup of her marriage.
But the book was always a labor of love. And as the royalties poured in, the Obos, as they called themselves, used the money not to pay themselves but to create a nonprofit that made small grants to women’s health groups.
In 1977, Ms. Swenson and Judy Norsigian, another core member of the collective, teamed up for a tour of 10 European countries to meet with women’s groups who were putting together their own versions of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.” Ms. Swenson would later help to oversee the international editions and adaptations, and would lecture around the world, particularly in developing countries.
“Norma was always committed to an intersectional approach,” Ms. Norsigian said. “She made sure the activism could fit people’s lifestyles. How they could do things with limited resources. How to tailor the work to specific communities in less industrialized countries. She helped breastfeeding support groups in the Philippines, for example, and met with a doctor in Bangladesh who was advocating for indigenous production of essential drugs.”
“Feminism,” Ms. Swenson once told a group of doctors, “is just another name for self-respect.”
Norma Lucille Meras was born on Feb. 2, 1932, in Exeter, N.H., the only child of Halford Meras, who owned the town’s furniture store, and Nellie (Kenick) Meras, who worked as the store’s bookkeeper.
When she was 9, the family moved to Boston. She attended the prestigious Girls’ Latin School (now Boston Latin Academy), graduating in 1949 and studied sociology at Tufts University. She graduated in 1953 and, three years later, married John Swenson, a decorated World War II pilot — he was a member of the 100th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, also known as the Bloody Hundredth — who worked in insurance and for the Post Office.
It was her daughter’s birth that had made Ms. Swenson an activist. She wanted to deliver the baby naturally, without medication. Her decision was such an anomaly that residents at the Boston Lying-In Hospital gathered to watch her labor. It went swimmingly.
But Ms. Swenson, who was in a 12-bed ward, was surrounded by women who were suffering. They were giving birth according to the practices of the era: with a dose of Scopolamine, a drug that induced so-called twilight sleep and hallucinations, followed by a shot of Demerol, an opioid.
She remembered the women screaming, trying to climb out of their beds, calling for their mothers and cursing their husbands before being knocked out by the Demerol, their babies delivered by forceps.
It was barbaric, she thought. “These women weren’t being helped,” she said in 2018, “they were being controlled.”
She became president of the Boston Association for Childbirth Education, which focused on natural childbirth, in 1964, and later served as president of the International Childbirth Education Association. She earned a master’s degree in public health from Harvard in 1973.
Mr. Swenson died in 2002. Ms. Swenson’s partner for the next decade and a half, Leonard van Gaasbeek, died in 2019. Her daughter is her only immediate survivor.
For most of her life, Ms. Swenson traveled the world as an expert on reproductive rights and women’s and children’s health, advising women’s health groups and helping to connect them with policy and grant makers. She taught at the Harvard School of Public Health and served as a consultant to the World Health Organization and other groups.
“Our Bodies, Ourselves,” last updated in 2011, has sold more than four million copies and been translated into 34 languages. The nonprofit behind the book, which provides health resources to women, is now based at Suffolk University in Boston.
“It’s not that things have so dramatically improved for women,” Ms. Swenson told The Times in 1985. “But they’d be much worse if it were not for the pressure of the women’s health movement. We are a presence now that cannot be made to disappear.”
She continued: “Women’s voices are being heard, speaking about their needs and their experiences, and they are not going along with having decisions based simply on what the medical profession needs or what the drug industry needs. I find that enormously exciting.”
Why aren’t we talking about colorectal cancer?
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If more and more young people are dying of colorectal cancer, why aren’t we talking about it? Is it because we’re too ashamed of our bodies?
Rates of colorectal cancer are rising, especially for people under 50. But it’s hard to raise awareness for a cancer that a lot of us find hard to talk about. In a recent essay for The Cut, writer Laurie Abraham described her experience of colon cancer, which included a lot of embarrassment. Talking about your bowel movements is…not fun. Can you relate?
Today, Brittany is joined by Laurie and Dr. Kimmie Ng, Co-Director of the Colon and Rectal Cancer Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, to get into the cultural shame around how we talk about colon cancer – and how that extends to a lack of funding and research.
Follow Brittany Luse on Instagram: @bmluse
For handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR’s Pod Club newsletter at npr.org/podclub.
This episode was produced by Corey Antonio Rose and Liam McBain. It was edited by Neena Pathak. Engineering support came from Becky Brown. Our Supervising Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our Executive Producer is Veralyn Williams. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
In an overstuffed workshop in East L.A., Chris Francis reached out a heavily tattooed arm and pulled a single shoe box from one of the floor-to-ceiling shelves lining the walls.
“Anjelica Huston,” the shoemaker and artist said. “Let’s see what’s in here.”
Removing the top of the box, he revealed two carved wooden forms known as shoe lasts that cobblers use to make their wares. Beneath those were strips of yellowing shoe patterns and a tracing of the actor’s foot with a note written in loopy cursive:
To Pasquale
My happy feet shall thank you
— Anjelica Huston
The Di Fabrizio collection includes shoe measurements for stars like Nancy Sinatra, Kim Novak, Joe Pesci and Madeline Kahn, all adorned with green, white and red striped ribbon.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“Cool, huh?” Francis said, gazing reverently at the box’s contents. “Every time I open one it’s amazing. It’s like Christmas all the time.”
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For the last three years, Francis has been surrounded by a sprawling archive of famous feet originally amassed by Pasquale Di Fabrizio, the late shoemaker to the stars. From the early ‘60s to the early 2000s, Di Fabrizio created custom footwear for the rich, famous and notorious out of his humble shoe shop on 3rd Street.
The shoes went to his customers, but his voluminous collection includes shoe lasts, patterns, drawings, correspondences, leather samples and handwritten notes from thousands of clients, all stored in cardboard shoe boxes that the Italian immigrant trimmed with green, white and red striped ribbon.
The names, written in bold Magic Marker on the front of each box are a who’s who of entertainers from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and beyond: Liza Minnelli, Tom Jones, Richard Pryor, Robert De Niro, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bea Arthur, Arsenio Hall, Nancy Sinatra, Ace Frehley. The list goes on and on.
Francis found foot measurements, wooden shoe lasts and a shoe in progress that Pasquale Di Fabrizio made for Ginger Rogers in a box marked with her name.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“Shoe Machine” is one of Chris Francis’ art pieces that he has shown at museums.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“So many great people stood on these pieces of paper,” Francis said, looking at the stacks of boxes around him. “Roy Orbison. Eva Gabor. Stella Stevens. Lauren Bacall. I could pull these down all day.”
Francis never met Di Fabrizio, who died in 2008, but in 2022 he traded two pairs of his sculptural shoe-art pieces to Di Fabrizio’s friend and fellow shoemaker Gary Kazanchyan for the entirety of the Italian shoemaker’s archive. Three years later, Francis is still making his way through it all.
The amount of material is overwhelming, but he is committed to preserving Di Fabrizio’s legacy. Ultimately, he wants to find a space where he can share it with others.
“I never want to be without it, but I’m realistic that it deserves to be appreciated by more than just myself,” he said. “If my life’s work ended up in somebody’s hands, I don’t think I’d want them to just keep it for themselves forever.”
A shoemaker’s journey
Francis isn’t just cataloging L.A.’s shoemaking history, he’s helping to keep it alive.
Over the last decade and a half he’s made a name for himself as a custom shoemaker, creating handmade bespoke footwear for rockers like former Runaways guitarist Lita Ford and Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, as well as sculptural art shoes that are displayed in museums like the Craft Contemporary, the Palm Springs Art Museum and SCAD FASH in Atlanta.
Wooden shoe lasts hang from the ceiling as Chris Francis works on a shoe for the singer Lita Ford in his garage.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
In his East L.A. workshop, he eschews modern technology, focusing instead on traditional methods of shoemaking, often with hand tools.
“The handmade shoe is alive and well in this shop,” he said, dressed in pressed black slacks and tinted sunglasses, chunky gold rings gleaming on his fingers. “There’s no computer here, and even the records half the time are vinyls or 78s.”
Making shoes by hand is time-consuming and expensive work — Francis doesn’t sell a pair of shoes for less than $1,800 — but for his mostly musician clientele, a sturdy, custom-made, comfortable shoe that also boasts over-the-top style is well worth the price.
“At my price point, my customers are buying something that’s really a tool,” he said. “It’s part of their look, but it also has to hit 27 guitar pedals, keep all of its crystal, be beautiful, last multiple tours and they have to be able to stand in it all night.”
Francis, who has a certain aging-rocker swagger himself, never expected to become a shoemaker.
After going to art school and hopping freight trains for several years, he moved to Los Angeles in 2002 originally to join the Merchant Marines. Instead he found work hanging multi-story graphics and billboards on the side of hotels and high-rises on the Sunset Strip and at casinos in Las Vegas. “That gave me the same thrill of riding a freight train,” he said. “Being on a high-rise building and rappelling down.”
Francis found fabric samples and designs for shoes that Pasquale Di Fabrizio made for a Broadway production of the musical “Marilyn: An American Fable.”
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Shoemaker and artist Chris Francis makes shoes the traditional way in his workshop in East Los Angeles.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
He discovered he had a knack for pattern making in 2008 when he began creating hand-stitched leather jackets to wear to the Hollywood parties he had started attending with his now-fiancee. One day a stranger approached him and said she knew someone who would appreciate a jacket like the ones he was making. She was a stylist for Arnel Pineda, the lead singer of Journey. Commissions from Mötley Crüe and other rock bands followed.
A few years later he became interested in making shoes, but although he knocked on the door of several shoe shops in town, he couldn’t find a mentor.
“They didn’t have time, or they’d say, ‘You belong in a rock and roll band, you’re not one of us,’” he said. “But I would say, ‘Just teach me one thing, one trick.’ And everyone had time to teach one trick.”
It was an education in much more than shoemaking.
“Almost every shoemaker I met had immigrated to the country,” he said. “So I learned how to make shoes from the Italians, from guys from Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Syria, from everybody. And while doing so, I learned about all these different cultures.”
‘He was the king’
As Francis dove deeper into the history of shoemaking in Los Angeles, one name kept coming up again and again: Pasquale Di Fabrizio.
The late Pasquale Di Fabrizio, a cobbler to the Hollywood elite, photographed in front of his collection of shoe lasts, circa 1982.
(Bret Lundberg / Images Press / Getty Images)
“I started asking other makers about him, and they were like, ‘Oh yeah, we remember him,’” Francis said. “He was the king.”
For more than 50 years Di Fabrizio was the most sought after shoemaker in Los Angeles. He made Liberace’s rhinestone-encrusted footwear and shod Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck for touring productions of Disney on Parade. He was the go-to shoemaker for country western stars, Vegas showgirls, Hollywood movie stars, gospel singers and casino owners. The Rat Pack helped put him on the map.
“My best customer is Dean Martin,” Di Fabrizio told The Times in 1972. “He buys 40 pairs a year.”
Sporting a thick, bristled mustache and oversize glasses, Di Fabrizio had a tough reputation. He once kicked a movie star out of his shop because the star brought back a pair of patent leather shoes that he claimed were defective. Di Fabrizio accused him of missing the urinal and peeing on them at the Oscars.
“Never come back here again,” he said in his thick Italian accent.
The shoemaker occasionally made house calls, but his customers mostly came to him. In his workshop on 3rd Street near Crescent Heights, he would trace their bare feet on a piece of paper and measure the circumference of each of their feet at the ball, around the arch, the heel and the ankle. Then he would customize a pre-carved wooden last from Italy, adding thin pieces of leather 1 millimeter at a time to more perfectly mimic the unique shape of the client’s foot.
The size and shapes of the lasts varied wildly. He once told a reporter that it took “half a cow” to make shoes for Wilt Chamberlain, who wore a size 15. In his archives, Francis found a petite high heel shoe last roughly the length of his hand.
Francis holds a foot tracing and shoe lasts made for Robert De Niro by Pasquale Di Fabrizio.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“Di Fabrizio did lots of shoes for little people,” Francis said. “He really offered an important service for that community. They could have formal footwear rather than having only the option of wearing kids shoes.”
The same lasts could be used over and over again to make several pairs of shoes, as long as the heel height was the same. Each last went in its own box decorated with a ribbon in the colors of the Italian flag.
“It’s so simple, but he claims his territory with that ribbon,” Francis said. “He cared enough to take one extra step. It’s what really made that collection iconic.”
A legacy preserved
Francis first encountered Di Fabrizio’s archives in 2010 when Kazanchyan offered him a job at Andre #1 Custom Made Shoes on Sunset Boulevard. Kazanchyan inherited the shop from his uncle, Andre Kazanchyan, who once worked with Di Fabrizio and became his good friend.
Gary Kazanchyan and Di Fabrizio were close as well. When Di Fabrizio retired in the early 2000s, Kazanchyan hired all of the guys who worked at his shop. Di Fabrizio was at Kazanchyan’s wedding and when the older shoemaker was in a nursing home at the end of his life, Kazanchyan visited him every day.
For years Kazanchyan stored as many of the ribbon-trimmed boxes as he could fit in his Hollywood shop, but just before COVID he moved his shop to his garage in Burbank and transferred Di Fabrizio’s archives to his backyard. “At one point, my whole backyard was this mountain of shoe lasts,” he said.
Chris Francis, left, and Gary Kazanchyan at Palermo’s Italian Restaurant in Los Feliz.
(Deborah Netburn / Los Angeles Times)
Kazanchyan started a renovation on his house in 2022 and could no longer store Di Fabrizio’s archive in his backyard. He’d sold some of the most famous shoe lasts at auction — a bundle of Di Fabrizio’s shoe lasts for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. went for $4,375 in 2013 — but he still had several tons of material stacked on pallets and covered in tarps. He remembered that Francis loved the collection, so he called him and asked if he wanted it. Francis did.
Francis didn’t have the money to purchase the collection in cash, but he offered Kazanchyan two art pieces that he’d exhibited and Kazanchyan accepted. The first carload of boxes Francis took to his studio included lasts for Wayne Newton, Paula Abdul, Ginger Rogers, Burt Reynolds and Sylvester Stallone.
“My excitement was on fire,” he said.
Francis spent a few weeks sorting through the archive and discarding lasts and shoe boxes that were too covered in mold or deteriorated to be worth keeping. Just before a rainstorm threatened the rest of the collection, he brought thousands of shoe lasts to his studio but even now regrets that he was unable to save it all.
“I tried to grab the big names, but there was so much I couldn’t keep,” he said. “It was heartbreaking.”
The boxes hold stories — and life lessons
Living and working among the Di Fabrizio collection has taught Francis a lot more than just the art of making shoes.
“I’m constantly seeing the obituary of a celebrity who has passed and I go to the workshop and there’s their box,” he said. “It really lets you know that life is for the living. It’s up to you to be responsible and live your life when you’re alive. Be yourself, teach others, leave something behind.”
Hanging onto the collection has not been easy — but Francis believes he was chosen from beyond to care for Di Fabrizio’s archive and to share it with others responsibly.
He’s still not sure what that will look like, but he’s determined to try.
And in the meantime, he is also determined to keep the traditional art of shoemaking alive in Los Angeles.
If you look around his workshop, you’ll spot several boxes adorned with red, white and blue striped ribbon.
Francis is making those boxes his own.
Working with hand tools, Chris Francis makes a custom pair of shoes for musician Lita Ford.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
A note from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: Bobbi Brown’s massively successful career started because of two words, “Why not?” Why not cold call a bunch of famous make up artists to get her first job in the industry? Why not make her own make up? Why not go into business with a global cosmetics brand, then break up with them decades later? Why not start over in her sixties, launch a new company and become a TikTok star in the process?
When Bobbi Brown asks “Why not?” it’s like she’s daring someone to answer. Daring someone to curb her ambition or thwart her dreams. Which is impossible since she has already made up her mind to go for it.
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