Feminist Reads

Books dedicated to feminist history and ideals.
Updated September 30, 2022
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The feminine mystique
Friedan, Betty.
Paper Book
Landmark, groundbreaking, classic--these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name," that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women...
Feminism unfinished : a short, surprising history of American women's movements
Cobble, Dorothy Sue
Paper Book
The American women's movementhas been shrouded in myths, arguethree leading scholars in this bold andrevisionist history. Eschewing the conventional wisdom that places the origins of the American women's movement in the nostalgic glow of the late 1960s, Feminism Unfinished...
Good and mad : the revolutionary power of women's anger
Traister, Rebecca
Paper Book
***NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*** ***BEST BOOKS OF 2018 SELECTION BY*** * WASHINGTON POST * People * NPR * ESQUIRE * ELLE * WIRED * REFINERY 29 * "In a year when issues of gender and sexuality dominated...
Hood feminism : notes from the women that a movement forgot
Kendall, Mikki
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "The fights against hunger, homelessness, poverty, health disparities, poor schools, homophobia, transphobia, and domestic violence are feminist fights. Kendall offers a feminism rooted in the livelihood of everyday women." --Ibram X. Kendi,...
Men Explain Things To Me
Solnit, Rebecca.
Ebook
The National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author delivers a collection of essays that serve as the perfect "antidote to mansplaining" (The Stranger).   In her comic, scathing essay "Men Explain Things to Me," Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in...
The second sex
Beauvoir, Simone de
Paper Book
Newly translated and unabridged in English for the first time, and brilliantly introduced by Judith Thurman, Simone de Beauvoir’s masterpiece weaves together history, philosophy, economics, biology, and a host of other disciplines to analyze the Western notion of “woman” and to...
Sex object : a memoir
Valenti, Jessica
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller NPR Best Book of 2016 "Sharp and prescient... The appeal of Valenti's memoir lies in her ability to trace objectification through her own life, and to trace what was for a long time her own obliviousness to it...Sex Object is an antidote to...
We should all be feminists
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The highly acclaimed, provocative essay on feminism and sexual politics--from the award-winning author of Americanah "A call to action, for all people in the world, to undo the gender hierarchy." --Medium<...
Women, race & class
Davis, Angela Y.
Paper Book
From one of our most important scholars and civil rights activist icon, a powerful study of the women's liberation movement and the tangled knot of oppression facing Black women. "Angela Davis is herself a woman of undeniable courage. She should be heard."-The New York...
A vindication of the rights of woman
Wollstonecraft, Mary
Paper Book
First published in 1792, this book was written in a spirit of outrage and enthusiasm. In an age of ferment, following the American and French revolutions, Mary Wollstonecraft took prevailing egalitarian principles and dared to apply them to women. Her book is both a sustained argument for...
Sister outsider : essays and speeches
Lorde, Audre
Paper Book
Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. "[Lorde's] works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive,...
Ain't I a woman : black women and feminism
hooks, bell
Paper Book
A classic work of feminist scholarship, Ain't I a Woman has become a must-read for all those interested in Black womanhood. Examining the impact of sexism on Black women during slavery, the devaluation of Black womanhood, Black male sexism, racism among feminists, and the Black woman's involvement...
The sacred hoop : recovering the feminine in American Indian traditions : with a new preface
Allen, Paula Gunn
Paper Book
This pioneering work, first published in 1986, documents the continuing vitality of American Indian traditions and the crucial role of women in those traditions.
Bad feminist : essays
Gay, Roxane
Paper Book
"Roxane Gay is so great at weaving the intimate and personal with what is most bewildering and upsetting at this moment in culture. She is always looking, always thinking, always passionate, always careful, always right there."  -- Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be...
A room of one's own
Woolf, Virginia
Paper Book
"I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman." In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister--a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, and equal in genius, but...
Bodies that matter : on the discursive limits of "sex"
Butler, Judith
Paper Book
Major book by one of the world's leading theorists, published to great acclaim One of the first theory books on the body, which has since become a huge topic Complements Gender Trouble which is already in the Classics series

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