THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Joanne Gates Fiore

“Each time we had to revise Our Bodies, Ourselves…we met in some farmhouse in Massachusetts … we all talked about what the significance was in our life having been part of this.”

Interviewed by Judy Waxman, Oral Historian, January 2026

JW:  Would you introduce yourself, please, with your full name and when and where you were born?

JF:  My full name is Joanne Gates Fiore, and I was born March 29, 1945, in Brooklyn, New York.

JW:  Great. So briefly, can you describe your life before you got involved in the women’s movement? Ethnic background, siblings, that kind of thing?

JF:  Yes. I have a twin sister who you interviewed, Andy Epstein. And we came from a Jewish background. We were, as they say, red diaper babies. My parents were very politically aware. And I don’t know if this is too much information, but my name, Joanne, is named after Joseph Stalin. Go figure. And my sister Andy was after the Adrian Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

However, in all fairness to my mother, this was before the denunciation of Stalin and she left the party in ’56. She was socially conscious. She was in Women’s Strike for Peace. We would go for demonstrations, we’d go marching, you know, fight for integration.

She told us not to get under the desk when there was the ‘duck and cover’ drill because that was giving a bad information about, like, how serious the nuclear bomb was. So my sister and I would be hauled off to the principal’s office. And the principal was particularly kind to us, only to learn that he also was in the party. So it was an interesting childhood, but that was the background.

JW:  Any other siblings?

JF:  No, just the two of us.

JW:  Just the two of you. So when did you get involved in the women’s movement?

JF:  I remember going to these consciousness raising groups. It was in different people’s houses, and it was very enlightening. I think at that time there was Sisterhood is Powerful, Gloria Steinem. I had to do a deep dive. I found this, the Gloria Steinem book. I thought that was very interesting. Everything that I did had to do with people helping people. That was what my degree was in.

JW:  So what kinds of things were you active in, specifically?

JF:  I went to City College, and I got a degree in psychology. I was a caseworker for the Bureau of Child Welfare. I worked in the first feminist abortion clinic when it opened July 1st, 1970. I was a physician’s assistant, and it was called the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health. And it was actually created in a defunct garage on the East Side in New York City.

Roe v. Wade didn’t happen at that point. So July 1, 1970, in New York City, all these abortionists came up, and we were running around the clock. And all these people would come in, a lot of young women who had no clue as to how they got pregnant. My job was to interview them and explain what the procedure was. I would assist the physician by hand instruments and stuff like that.

So at that point, I became very aware of the need for education for teenagers. I always liked to work with teenagers. I wrote a course based on Our Bodies Ourselves, which I was very influenced by. And I did a course in sex education at a local high school, an alternative high school. I was a counselor at Satellite Academy for Career Education.

Many of the kids were parenting teens, who didn’t make it in the regular high school. So they came, and for a couple of weeks they would have classes, then they would go and work. I also worked at a place called The Door, A Center of Alternatives for Adolescents. Aa a sex and family planning counselor. I worked with parenting and pregnant teens. And then when I worked there, because I had had my daughter – she was born in ’74 – I only worked half time.

The other person that worked when I wasn’t working there was a woman by the name of Betsy McGee who was part of the Boston Women’s Health Collective. Because she was part of Our Bodies Ourselves, there was a woman by the name of Ruth Bell who recently passed, unfortunately, but she got the contract from Random House to do an Our Bodies Ourselves for Teens. And she was thrilled until she realized what a job this was.

I was recommended to be one of the authors of that. My section was “So You Think You Might Be Pregnant.” And that was revised several times. It came out in 1980. Then we revised it again in ’88 and in ’93. And at that point I was under the name of Joanne Gates, which was my maiden name. All my degrees unfortunately were under the last name of a former husband. So I was Joanne Wallace.

I didn’t realize that until I started looking at my credentials and I said, oh my God. That blossomed into a bunch of things. I did a lot of media stuff. There was a 25-minute film that was from the New York State Council of the Arts called How About You? And I was the lead. I, it was me talking to teenagers for 25 minutes. It actually played at the Museum of Modern Art. That was in ’72. And then in ’73 I did a lecture at Staten Island Community College.

Then I did a course, Teenage Health and Sexuality. And I presented it through the Women’s Health Forum. And in ’74 there was a five-part cable television show. That’s when cable television first became a thing. I had never heard of it before. A guy had a studio in the Village and it was six one hour shows of me talking to teenagers.

I later went on to get a six year program and I became a psychotherapist/psychoanalyst with the American Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. I was in private practice for 25 years until my husband passed. He had a moving company, so I inherited his moving company. I ran it and my son, who was 14 at the time that his dad died, sort of grew up in the business and I just handed it to him. I gave him the whole business. He’s running it and I work for him. That’s in a nutshell.

JW:  So how old is he now?

JF:  He is 37. The difference in age between my two children is 14 years and one week. So I have a daughter who’s 51 and he’s 37.

JW:  So did you continue to work on women’s issues once you became a psychologist?

JF:  I did. First of all, I was very involved with Planned Parenthood. In terms of the ongoing professional training in ’78, I went to an advanced counseling techniques with Planned Parenthood Training Institute, a two day intensive. Then I went back to family planning regional training for a one week intensive in ’79, back to Planned Parenthood training institute for a three day workshop in Baltimore, Maryland, supervision and training workshop. Then a thing on repeat abortions and multidisciplinary approach at New York Cornell Hospital. And then adolescent intervention strategies. That was a one week thing. And then women in treatment and then developing techniques, family systems.

I did a lot of that. And each time we had to revise Our Bodies, Ourselves, because it was interesting at a certain point, since there were 10 of us who wrote it, we met in some farmhouse in Massachusetts and it was being filmed. And we all talked about what the significance was in our life having been part of this. And then we took down our books and we talked about it. And we realized, we talked about, you know, what, what we had written.

And we realized to our horror that the message, the initial one, was whatever felt good. Then there was herpes and AIDS and all that. So we were given the contract again to… we had to go back to Random House. We had to revise it. Everything was different, whether it was abortion, adoption, it was all different. So I had to do research. I did a lot of research.

JW:  Tell me about a little more. What was different? Why was it different?

JF:  Oh, because initially when we wrote it, the message was in terms of sexuality, do whatever feels good. Then of course you had herpes and AIDS and you had to be very careful. In So You Think You Might be Pregnant, it also talked about adoption. That was different because at that point it was closed adoptions, and then it became open adoptions. If you wanted to adopt a child, you had to put together a little booklet of who, why you were going to be such a good parent and the parents would choose, you know, so that was thing.

JW:  So things evolved, in other words. So once you became psychologist, did you work with teens, too?

JF:  I did a lot of work with teens, yes.

JW:  Oh, okay. But the reason I asked about teens is I wonder if you get into these same topics and you notice a difference in attitude or knowledge or anything like that.

JF:  Yes, initially, when I was involved with teens, especially in that first feminist abortion clinic, these kids were clueless. And the message was, don’t tell them about, like, give them this information, then they’ll want to do it. You know, it was crazy. So then once they became aware of their bodies and how to prevent pregnancy and all that they, you know, just like Our Bodies Ourselves for grownups, you know, changed the playing field. So did Changing Bodies, Changing Lives.

JW:  Would you say things improved?

JF:  Oh, yes. Because now, you know, like, they’re taking away Roe V. Wade. Don’t get me started.

JW:  Well, no, no, we do need to talk about now. I mean, I. Working with young women on project I won’t go into, but I feel like. I feel hopeful we will get all this back. I mean, I’m hoping this is a blip. There’ll be a lot of harm in the meantime. But I believe on reproductive health, things will improve. I can’t help it. I have to. But I do really believe that.

JF:  Oh, well, that’s helpful because, way back then I felt powerful. And now it’s like, oh, my God.

JW:  Right, right. It’s hard to…

JF:  I mean, I march with the pussy hats, but it feels frustrating.

JW:  Yeah. Really frustrating. But. So what kind of marches have you been in then? Let’s hear about that.

JF:  Well, when Trump won, there were the marches with the pussy hats. And now, anytime there’s a march, I’m there.

JW:  So how would you say being involved in the women’s movement early on affected your whole life?

JF:  Oh, absolutely, absolutely. When I was Joanne Wallace – as soon as we got divorced, I took back my name as Joanne Gates. And then I was with my real husband, my, you know, my love of my life kind of husband. His name was Steven Fiore, and I was Gates, he was Stephen Fiore. Our kids Gates is their middle name, Fiore last name. And my son, Matthew Gates Fiore. And they kept saying, ma, that’s not a middle name. I said, it’s your middle name.

So then when my husband. My husband died when he was just turned 55. He was a big athlete. My son is a big athlete. And they would go out to the park and, you know, throw the ball. He was a catcher. And my husband came home and he said, my elbow is killing me. And I said, oh, honey, just a little ice, a little Advil, don’t use it. It’ll get better. We’re old.

And turns out he had undetected lung cancer that had spread to the bone. And that’s what it was. And he died six months to the day and I was devastated. When he was dying. I wanted to have the same name as my kids, so I became Joanne Gates Fiore.

JW:  This name thing, it’s a problem for women. Still is. Interesting. Well, so what kind of final words would you have about your time then? Your time now? Anything you’d like to sum up?

JF:  I’m 80. I will be 81 in March, and I’m in pretty good health. My one thing, I was hiking in the Canadian Rockies in 2000, and I had an accident. So I have a thing with my knee. So I get a gel shot in there. But I keep active. I’m a poet. I’ve been writing. I live near Columbia University. For the last eight years, I’ve been auditing classes there, and I’m on several poetry zooms, and I’m very active. That is what keeps me going.

JW:  I’m going to believe; you’re still talking the feminist talk.