Last night the House of Representatives passed the healthcare reform bill in what is being called a historic victory for progressives and healthcare activists, despite the inclusion of abortion restrictions. Still, the bill will make healthcare accessible to many who could not afford it under the current system and will curb some of the most unethical practices of insurance companies, such as dropping coverage when a child gets sick.

These last several weeks, I (like other JWA bloggers) have walked around in a haze of frustration, rage, and despair over politicians' apparent blindness to the centrality of women's health to national health. As a historian, I can attest that as goes women's health, so goes the health of the nation.

I read this New York Times article about the role of pharmaceutical companies in creating a market for treating menopause at about midnight, and I was so appalled that the article doesn't mention journalist and women's health activist Barbara Seaman that I couldn't sleep and got out of bed at 1 a.m. to write this post.

Our Bodies, Ourselves has created the Women's Health HeroesAward and is seeking nominations! I'm so excited about this opportunity to celebrate the activists I admire and to learn about the women whose work I'm not yet familiar with.

On this weekend twenty six years ago, women paraded down New York's Fifth Avenue to mark the tenth anniversary of Women's Strike for Equality and the sixtieth anniversary of the women's right to vote.