International Women's Day 2025 - Nonfiction for Adults

March 8 is International Women's Day! The theme for 2025 is "Accelerate Action!," so get yourself moving with these great reads about women's roles in important events throughout history.

Updated February 18, 2025
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The abortion caravan : when women shut down government in the battle for the right to choose
Wells, Karin
Paper Book
In the spring of 1970, seventeen women set out from Vancouver in a big yellow convertible, a Volkswagen bus, and a pickup truck. They called it the Abortion Caravan. Three thousand miles later, they "occupied" the prime minister's front lawn in Ottawa, led a rally of 500 women on Parliament Hill,...
Compelled to act : histories of women's activism in western Canada
Carter, Sarah
Paper Book
Compelled to Act showcases fresh historical perspectives on the diversity of women's contributions to social and political change in prairie Canada in the twentieth century, including but looking beyond the era of suffrage activism. In our current time of revitalized activism against racism,...
Demanding equality : one hundred years of Canadian feminism
Sangster, Joan
Paper Book
For one hundred years women fashioned different dreams of social transformation in their search for equality, autonomy, and dignity; yet what is Canadian feminism? Demanding Equality offers illustrations of feminist thought and organizing from mid-nineteenth-century, Enlightenment-inspired...
Fairly equal : lawyering the feminist revolution
Dranoff, Linda Silver
Paper Book
Lawyer, activist, and former Chatelaine legal columnist Linda Silver Dranoff details her trailblazing journey from a traditional 1950s childhood to the battlegrounds of the courts of law and the halls of power where she and a generation of women lawyers, supporting a larger feminist movement,...
Feminism's fight : challenging politics and policies in Canada since 1970
Cameron, Barbara
Paper Book
Feminism's Fight explores and assesses feminist strategies to advance gender justice for women through Canadian federal policy over the past fifty years, from the 1970 Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women to the present. The authors evaluate changing government...
Feminist acts : Branching Out magazine and the making of Canadian feminism
Jordan, Tessa
Paper Book
The history of Branching Out, Canada's first national second-wave feminist magazine, is the story of an upstart publication from the prairies that was read from coast to coast. It is also a story of political activism and community building. When it ceased publication in 1980, Branching Out had...
Flowers of fire : the inside story of South Korea's feminist movement and what it means for women's rights worldwide
Jung, Hawon
Paper Book
Listed in the best books of 2023 by The Economist "Invigorating debut . . . [a] full-throated rallying cry." --Publishers Weekly One of Ms. Magazine's "most-anticipated feminist books of 2023" An eye-opening firsthand...
A house in the mountains the women who liberated Italy from fascism
Moorehead, Caroline
Paper Book
"Dramatic, heartbreaking and sweeping in scope." --Wall Street Journal The acclaimed author of A Train in Winter returns with the "moving finale" (The Economist) of her Resistance Quartet--the powerful and inspiring true story of the women of the partisan resistance who fought against...
Just watch us : RCMP surveillance of the women's liberation movement in cold war Canada
Sethna, Christabelle
Paper Book
From the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, in the midst of the Cold War and second-wave feminism, the RCMP security service - prompted by fears of left-wing and communist subversion - monitored and infiltrated the women's liberation movement in Canada and Quebec. Just Watch Us investigates why and how...
Light the road of freedom
Al-Barbari, Sahbaa
Paper Book
Sahbaa Al-Barbari's story provides a unique perspective on Palestinian experiences before and after the 1948 Nakba. Born and educated in Gaza, Al-Barbari was an activist in her community. When Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, Al-Barbari and her husband Mu'in Bseiso became refugees, stripped...
Making space for Indigenous feminism
Starblanket, Gina
Paper Book
The third edition of the iconic collection Making Space for Indigenous Feminism features feminist, queer and two-spirit voices from across generations and locations. Feminism has much to offer Indigenous women, and all Indigenous Peoples, in their struggles against oppression....
No second chances : women and political power in Canada
Graham, Kate
Paper Book
As of September 2021, only thirteen women had reached Canada's top political posts: elected or appointed provincial premier or prime minister. They have represented three major political parties and served across provinces and territories from coast to coast to coast. But, as professor and...
Outspoken : my fight for freedom and human rights in Afghanistan
Samar, Sima
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS NATIONAL BESTSELLER The impassioned memoir of Afghanistan's Sima Samar: medical doctor, public official, founder of schools and hospitals, thorn in the side of the Taliban, nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, and...
Personal and political : stories from the women's health movement, 1960-2010
Greaves, Lorraine
Paper Book
Women's Health expert Lorraine Greaves details the innovative, courageous, and creative activism of the "second wave" women's health movement in Canada between 1960 and 2010. This activism (re)claimed women's bodies, created women-centered spaces and services, and challenged the medical model....
Runaway wives and rogue feminists : the origins of the women's shelter movement in Canada
Goodhand, Margo
Paper Book
In the supposedly enlightened '60s and '70s, violence against women was widespread. It wasn't talked about, and women had few, if any, options to escape their abusers. Yet in 1973 -- with no statistics, no money and little public support -- five disparate groups of Canadian women quietly opened...
University women : a history of women and higher education in Canada
MacDonald, Sara Z.
Paper Book
Bessie Scott, nearing the end of her first year at university in the spring of 1890, recorded in her diary: "Wore my gown for first time! It didn't seem at all strange to do so." Often deemed a cumbersome tradition by men, the cap and gown were dearly prized by women as an outward sign of their hard...
We will be jaguars : a memoir of my people
Nenquimo, Nemonte
Paper Book
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK Named one of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Year by Library Journal "An unforgettable memoir about fighting for your home and your heart." --Reese Witherspoon (Reese's Book Club November '24 Pick) ...
What women represent : the impact of women in Parliament
Rayment, Erica
Paper Book
Political equity advocates and academics often argue that we must elect more women, but what difference does it make if we do? What Women Represent shows that women can and do influence the issues raised and the decisions made in parliamentary debate and decision-making. Using a new...
I Will Scream to the World : My Story. My Fight. My Hope for Girls Everywhere
Dukureh, Jaha Marie.
Paper Book
This extraordinary memoir details the monumental journey of one young Gambian woman from survivor of FGM and forced child marriage, to global activist and political leader who became UN Women's first Goodwill Ambassador for Africa, one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People, and...
Women on ice : the early years of women's hockey in Western Canada
Norton, Wayne
Paper Book
Women on Ice opens up the almost unknown story of women's ice hockey in western Canada during the First World War and the 1920s. The Vancouver Amazons, with their championship laurels and a close association with hockey's famous Patrick brothers, were perhaps the most famous, but they were only one...
Women winning office : an activist's guide to getting elected
Nash, Peggy
Paper Book
When Peggy Nash first decided to run for elected office, she had no idea where to start, who to contact, or what the rules were. For those who are underrepresented in political life, politics can seem like a secret society designed to shut them out. Women Winning Office is a practical...

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