Feminist Reads

Books dedicated to feminist history and ideals.
Updated September 30, 2022
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The Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan
Paper Book
Landmark, groundbreaking, classic--these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of The Feminine Mystique. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of "the problem that has no name": the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women's...
Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger
Rebecca Traister
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
Mikki Kendall
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
Paper Book
"The most clarifying, soothing, and socially aware document I've read on the topic this year." --Lena Dunham, Wall Street Journal "Trenchant and timely reflections on persistent inequality between women and men and gender-based violence." --New York Times In her...
The Second Sex
Simone de Beauvoir
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...
We Should All Be Feminists
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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<...
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
The perfect books for the true book lover, Penguin's Great Ideas series features twelve more groundbreaking works by some of history's most prodigious thinkers. Each volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-driven design that highlights the bookmaker's art. Offering great literature in...
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
Audre Lorde
Paper Book
The leader of contemporary feminist theory discusses such issues as racism, self-acceptance, and mother- and woman-hood.
Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism
bell hooks
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
Paula Gunn Allen
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
Roxane Gay
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
Virginia Woolf
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...
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
Patricia Hill Collins
Paper Book
In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought,Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African...

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