Harvard Authors Spotlight: Deborah Copaken

It’s not often that The Harvard Crimson Arts board has the honor of interviewing one of their own. Once a Crimson Arts writer and now a New York Times bestselling author, Deborah Copaken ’88 shares notes on her life through a viscerally honest memoir: “Ladyparts.”

On an academic level, “Ladyparts” uncovers the startling yet pervasive sexism of the American healthcare system. After battling breast cancer, the removal of her cervix and uterus, and multiple other health complications, Copaken explains how the lack of adequate knowledge of female anatomy led to life-threatening consequences. Despite the specific focus on her medical condition, this memoir touches on all aspects of Copaken’s life. In her own words, “Ladyparts” exhibits “a dash of sexual harassment, a cup of corporate indifference, and several morsels of middle-aged app dating in between.”

Copaken writes with unconventional honesty and confidence that make her work unlike most on the market. She refuses to rely on flowery language, poetic verse, and ethereal descriptions of life’s greatest hardships; the pages of “Ladyparts” are not bound by a need to please or sell. Instead, Copaken creates a candid flow of consciousness. She seeks to inspire future authors and journalists to prioritize truth over superfluous emotional appeals.

In place of figurative chapter titles, Copaken assigns each section of her book to a body part: Vagina, Uterus, Breast, Heart, Cervix, Brain, and Lungs. When asked about how she conceived of this anatomical framework, Copaken reflected, “It all came to me in the shower, when I was looking down at my scars… I have all these scars on my stomach, and they represent each horror that shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't have had to wait sixteen years for an adenomyosis diagnosis… I shouldn't have bled out after my cervix removal, because I went to the emergency room — I told them something was wrong, but they didn't have a speculum in the emergency room. I mean, think about that. Half the United States, half the people in New York have vaginas, and you don't have a speculum in the emergency room?”

Copaken also elaborated on America’s stigmatization of women’s bodies outside of a hospital setting: “We have to start talking about what happens to our bodies. Particularly in my generation, you didn't carry a tampon from the classroom to the bathroom — you hid it in your sleeve. You didn't let anyone know that you were bleeding. It's a particularly American way of looking at the body.”

In addition to highlighting the bleeding sexism of speculum-less hospitals, Copaken uncovers the burden that inaccessible healthcare places on all Americans. In “Ladyparts,” Copaken writes, “For a country founded on the ideals of freedom, liberty, and justice for all, having affordable health insurance tied to full-time employment is an ironic and often fatal prison of our own making. Not to mention an obvious hindrance to that other pillar of American pride, entrepreneurship. How many new ideas and cures and inventions have we missed out on because some cog in the wheel of a giant corporation couldn’t risk taking that leap of faith without a parachute of health insurance for them and their family?”

By U.S. standards, Copaken’s openness about her health issues and financial status may seem taboo, creating much criticism of her writing and specifically including pictures of her breast cancer biopsy in her memoir.

In a quasi-critical review, Jessica Bennett of the New York Times warns that these images are only for the “squeamish,” asking readers, “Is it sexist of me to be grossed out by such an image? Maybe.”

Copaken’s answer: “Yes; by asking that, you’re being sexist.”

But it seems that when there’s this passion, this intrinsic magnetism towards a certain topic, no criticism can stand in Copaken’s way.

The author began her career in high school, writing as a columnist for Seventeen Magazine. Harvard proved to be her first roadblock, dulling the author’s belief in her writing.

“I got to Harvard, and I failed spectacularly,” she said, reflecting on her college experience. “There was one creative writing course; I applied three times and I didn't get in. I got a C minus in freshmen Expos.... I loved to write but suddenly, once I was in Cambridge, I was not a good writer. And so when I left college, I spent 10 years not writing. I spent 10 years as a photojournalist, as a war photographer.”

While the photos sprinkled throughout “Ladyparts” provide an echo of her past career, Copaken eventually found her way back to her passion for writing. When asked to give a piece of advice to those experiencing the same sense of failure, Copaken responded, “Failure is fuel. Failure becomes your superpower.”

And where did this passion for writing begin?

“I think we should roll back to age four… at age four, I was given a book, Dr. Seuss’s ‘My Book About Me.’ And one of the pages was blank and it says, ‘write a story,” she said.

“It is the first time that I remember sitting down at my parents’ dining room table with a pen, not a pencil, a pen and this book, because I was like, ‘Oh, it's a book, I've got to make it permanent.’ And the joy of that I can still recall — the joy of having a blank page and filling it.”

When Copaken speaks of her writing as a four-year old — she makes a conscious note that she wrote her first story in pen. It is through this metaphor that Copaken reveals the permanence of writing. Despite the constant fluctuation of sexism and hardship in society today, Copaken identifies the power and inherent permanence of her own voice.

Copaken shared an inspiring message — that no matter the adversity one faces, “You can fight against it with your word, you can write about it.”

—Staff writer Sarah M. Rojas can be reached at sarah.rojas@thecrimson.com.