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
Eschewing the conventional wisdom that places the origins of the American women's movement in the nostalgic glow of the late 1960s, Feminism Unfinished traces the beginnings of this seminal American social movement to the 1920s, in the process creating an expanded, historical narrative that...
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 and Other Essays
Rebecca Solnit
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
The essential masterwork that has provoked and inspired generations of men and women. "From Eve's apple to Virginia Woolf's room of her own, Beauvoir's treatise remains an essential rallying point, urging self-sufficiency and offering the fruit of knowledge." --Vogue
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<...
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 madwoman in the attic : the woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination
Gilbert, Sandra M.
Paper Book
"A feminist classic."--Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Book Review "A pivotal book, one of those after which we will never think the same again."--Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Washington Post Book World A pathbreaking...
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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