Pamela Berger

With great sadness, we note the passing of Our Bodies Ourselves (OBOS) founder, Pamela Berger, at age 84, on August 31, 2024.

As a young wife and mother, Pam was one of the women who met at a workshop on "Women and their Bodies" during a Female Liberation Conference in Boston in 1969. The group continued to meet to share their personal experiences and information, eventually forming the Boston Women's Health Book Collective together, and writing the revolutionary feminist book, "Our Bodies, Ourselves."

Pam's work for OBOS applied her many wonderful qualities: her talent for close reading, intellectual curiosity, honesty, warmth, compassion, and creativity. She was both fierce and gentle, able to compromise without losing her strong moral compass.

Founder Wendy Sanford remembers how Pam "played a big role in our publishing decisions and in developing legal safeguards to make sure the book wasn’t sexualized or trivialized. Pam was both cogent and fierce in our dealings with publishers, helping us guarantee that our book would respect women and usefully inform them.”

Deeply committed to OBOS from the start, Pam balanced that role with equally deep commitments to her professional life, to her husband Alan, her children, and her extended family.

A medieval art historian and professor at Boston College (1974-2021), she wrote books including "The Goddess Obscured." In her 40s, she learned filmmaking in order to create "Sorceress." She later wrote, directed, and produced two other films, adapting one of them ("The Imported Bridegroom") into a stage musical.

Pam's wisdom, friendship, and guidance are sorely missed.