Remembering two powerful feminist health advocates: Gena Corea and Susan Jenkins

We mourn the loss of two brilliant and consequential feminists who reshaped the healthcare landscape: writer Gena Corea and attorney Susan Jenkins. They were invaluable colleagues and friends of Our Bodies Ourselves. We honor their memory as we continue their work towards health justice for all.

Genoveffa Immaculata Corea was an influential author and investigative journalist.  Her many publications include the books "The Hidden Malpractice: How American Medicine Mistreats Women" (1978), "The Mother Machine: Reproductive Technology from Artificial Insemination to Artificial Wombs" (1985), and "The Invisible Epidemic: the Story of Women and AIDS" (1992). Her work with "Our Bodies, Ourselves" includes contributions to the new chapter on reproductive technologies for the 1984 edition.

Gena traveled the world exposing the ways in which women’s experiences in healthcare are marginalized, exploited, and dismissed. She wrote not to comfort, but to illuminate.

Her work endures as a testament to the necessity of listening and the power of truth-telling. Her family and friends remember her as a teacher of life and how to live it — with unmatched presence, compassion, and joy.

Gena’s final book, “Table in the Clearing: A Memoir of Sacred Jailbreaks,” will soon be published posthumously and embodies her commitment to compassionate listening and our interconnectedness. - from the Plymouth Independent

In an interview after her diagnosis with terminal cancer, Gena Corea reflected: “We live in a culture that does not want us to grieve. It wants us to be quiet and get through it and take two days or three days and then go back to work. It doesn’t want us to take the time the soul requires for grieving. So we’re hurried through it.” (Hannah Caple, “Compassion by Design: Supporting the Journey of Grief”)

The Veteran Feminists of America website includes a video interview with Gena Corea from December 2022.

Widowed at the age of 21, Susan raised her daughter as a single mother with the support of her matrilineal family structure, just as her mother had done… Susan’s passion as a lawyer was representing the underdog. Her legal specialty was in healthcare anti-trust, and the bulk of her storied career was made representing non-physician healthcare providers seeking to practice their craft alongside their medical colleagues. This included championing chiropractors, nurse-anesthetists, and other types of nurse-practitioners. As a proud feminist, she also fought hard for the rights of women, both as medical practitioners and as the patients whose wishes were often undermined by the medical system. In the second half of her career, she focused on representing midwives, and she became one of the most experienced and knowledgeable midwifery law attorneys in the country. - from Susan's obituary, EverLoved.com

Our Bodies Ourselves co-founder Judy Norsigian writes, “It is so hard for me to envision a world without Susan in it...especially as we have so many ongoing struggles in our longstanding efforts to secure access to midwifery care in out of hospital birth settings. Susan was both a friend and a colleague, and I sometimes stayed with her and Ernie while in Albuquerque, or before a visit to my sister in Santa Fe.  They were amazing, thoughtful hosts and could seamlessly combine the personal with the political. Susan made me laugh even in my most frustrated moments.

She was always full of possible solutions no matter what problem I posed, and during one trip, she even hosted a fabulous house party for Our Bodies Ourselves. The gathering of midwives, doctors and others who cared about women's health issues generated lively conversation and lots of food for thought (the tasty treats were delicious, too).

I always looked forward to connecting with Susan whenever I could. Her brilliant legal mind always came up with creative strategies for defending midwives of all kinds, especially in states quite hostile to midwifery care. I will miss Susan dearly."