Girl Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Success, Sanity, and Happiness for the Female Entrepreneur


Cara Alwill Leyba - 2015
    It seems as though a growing group women entrepreneurs all around the world has discovered the secret to success and happiness in both their lives and careers. It's almost as though there is a hidden, underground world of power playing females who have all cracked a magical code: they think positively, they support one another, and they truly believe they can have it all -and you can, too. There is something dynamic that happens when women genuinely show up for each other. When we lose the facades, when we cut the bullsh*t, and when we truly have each others backs. When we stop pretending everything is perfect, and we show the messy, beautiful parts of ourselves and our work that all look awfully similar. When we talk about our fears, our missteps, and our breakdowns. And most importantly, when we share our celebrations, our breakthroughs, and dish on what works. There is no reason to hoard information, connections, or insight. Wisdom is meant to be shared, so let's start sharing what we've learned to make each other better. Let's start building each other up. Let's live up to our potential and start ruling the world. GIRL CODE is a roadmap for female entrepreneurs, professional women, "side hustlers" (those with a day job who are building a business on the side), and anyone in between who wants to become a better woman. This book will not teach you how to build a multimillion dollar business. It won't teach you about systems or operational processes. But it will teach you how to build confidence in yourself, reconnect with your "why," eradicate jealousy, and ultimately learn the power of connection. Because at the end of the day, that's what life and business is all about.

Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World


Lisa Bloom - 2011
    While American women excel in education at every level, they likewise obsessively focus on celebrity media. While women outperform their male counterparts in employment in urban areas for the first time in history, they simultaneously spend countless hours staring in the mirror contemplating plastic surgery. Lisa Bloom fears that women are in danger of spiraling into a nation of dumbed down, tabloid media obsessed, reality TV addicts. Too often, they outsource matters to "experts" and in doing so neglect to truly think for themselves.The solution:Lisa Bloom has the solution and it involves one simple word: Think.In this provocative, entertaining, educational, and thoroughly researched book, Lisa outlines the ways that we as a society, and particularly women, have fallen off the intellectual path, and, very specifically, points to how damaging this has been to us on many levels. Lisa shows us the fallout--but she also provides the solutions for "Reclaiming the Brain God Gave You" and seizing back control of your mind and your life. Think is delivered in a no-nonsense manner that will make you laugh, make you question yourself, make you squirm, but, most important, make you start thinking again.

Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws


Kate Bornstein - 2006
    A one-of-a-kind guide to staying alive outside the box, Hello, Cruel World is a much-needed unconventional approach to life for those who want to stay on the edge, but alive.Hello, Cruel World features a catalog of 101 alternatives to suicide that range from the playful (moisturize!), to the irreverent (shatter some family values), to the highly controversial. Designed to encourage readers to give themselves permission to unleash their hearts' harmless desires, the book has only one directive: "Don't be mean." It is this guiding principle that brings its reader on a self-validating journey, which forges wholly new paths toward a resounding decision to choose life.Tenderly intimate and unapologetically edgy, Kate Bornstein is the radical role model, the affectionate best friend, and the guiding mentor all in one.

Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health


Toni Weschler - 1995
    Weschler thoroughly explains the empowering Fertility Awareness Method, which in only a couple minutes a day allows a woman to:-Enjoy highly effective, scientifically proven birth control without chemicals or devices-Maximize her chances of conception or expedite fertility treatment by identifying impediments to conception-Increase the likelihood of choosing the gender of her baby-Gain control of her sexual and gynecological health

Leapfrog: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs


Nathalie Molina Niño - 2018
    Despite what every other business book might say, historical data show the real secret ingredients to getting ahead in business are being rich, white, and male.Until now. Leapfrog is the decades-overdue startup bible for the rest of us. It's filled with uncompromising guidance for winning at business, your way. Leapfrog is for entrepreneurs of all stripes who are fed up with status quo advice--the kind that assumes you have rich friends and family and a public relations team.Refreshingly frank and witty, author Nathalie Molina Ni�o is a serial tech entrepreneur, the founder and CEO of BRAVA Investments, and a proud daughter of Latinx immigrants. While teaching budding entrepreneurs at Barnard College at Columbia University and searching the globe for investment-worthy startups, she has met or advised thousands of entrepreneurs who've gone from zero to scalable business. Here she shares their best secrets in the form of fifty "leapfrogs"--clever loopholes and shortcuts to outsmart, jump over, or straight up annihilate the seemingly intractable hurdles facing entrepreneurs who don't have family money, cultural capital, or connections.

The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse


Ellen Bass - 1988
    Although the effects of child sexual abuse are long-term and severe, healing is possible.Weaving together personal experience with professional knowledge, the authors provide clear explanations, practical suggestions, and support throughout the healing process. Readers will feel recognized and encouraged by hundreds of moving first-person stories drawn from interviews and the authors' extensive work with survivors, both nationally and internationally.This completely revised and updated 20th anniversary edition continues to provide the compassionate wisdom the book has been famous for, as well as many new features:Contemporary research on trauma and the brainAn overview of powerful new healing tools such as imagery, meditation, and body-centered practicesAdditional stories that reflect an even greater diversity of survivor experiencesThe reassuring accounts of survivors who have been healing for more than twenty yearsThe most comprehensive, up-to-date resource guide in the fieldInsights from the authors' decades of experienceCherished by survivors, and recommended by therapists and institutions everywhere, The Courage to Heal has often been called the bible of healing from child sexual abuse. This new edition will continue to serve as the healing beacon it has always been.

Untamed


Glennon Doyle - 2020
    It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is.

Mistakes I Made at Work: 25 Influential Women Reflect on What They Got Out of Getting It Wrong


Jessica Bacal - 2014
    These innovators across a variety of fields – from the arts to finance to tech – reveal that they’re more thoughtful, purposeful and assertive as leaders because they learned from their mistakes, not because they never made any. Interviewees include:* Cheryl Strayed, bestselling author of Wild* Anna Holmes, founding editor of Jezebel.com * Kim Gordon, founding member of the band Sonic Youth* Joanna Barsch, Director Emeritus of McKinsey & Company* Carol Dweck, Stanford psychology professor* Ruth Ozeki, New York Times bestselling author of Tale for the Time BeingAnd many more Ideal for millenials just starting their careers, for women seeking to advance at work, or for anyone grappling with issues of perfectionism, Mistakes I Made at Work features fascinating and surprising anecdotes, as well as tips for readers.

We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere


Gillian Anderson - 2017
    It’s about transitioning from a me-first culture and imagining what a we-based world might look like. In We, Anderson and Nadel ask why so many women are locked in cycles of depression, addiction, self-criticism, and even self-harm. How much more effective and powerful would we all be if we replaced our current patterns of competition, criticism, and comparison with collaboration, cooperation, and compassion? Putting these values at the center of our lives allows each of us to be happier and more empowered, and to replace harmful habits with a more positive, peaceful, and rewarding way of being. We is a rallying cry for “every woman, everywhere on the planet. Open to any page. And there you will find a truth that can set you free” (Christiane Northrup, MD, author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom).

Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living


Jes Baker - 2015
    Among the many Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls that you don't want to miss:1. It's Possible to Love Your Body (Today. Now.)2. You Can Train Your Brain to Play Nice3. Your Weight Is Not a Reflection Of Your Worth4. Changing Your Tumblr Feed Will Change Your Life5. Salad Will Not Get You to Heaven6. Cheesecake Will Not Send You to HellWith her trademark wit, honesty, and rallying spirit, veteran blogger and advocate Jes Baker makes the case for embracing a body-positive worldview, changing perceptions about weight, and making mental wellness a priority. Alongside notable guest essayists, Baker calls on all people to reject fat prejudice, fight body-shaming at the hands of marketing and media, and join the life-changing movement with one step: change the world by loving your body. If you're a person with a body, this book is for you.

Hope in the Dark


Rebecca Solnit - 2004
    Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next.Originally published in 2004, now with a new foreword and afterword, Solnit’s influential book shines a light into the darkness of our time in an unforgettable new edition.

What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman


Danielle Crittenden - 1999
    To put things simply: If women today were happy, "Ally McBeal" would not be such a huge TV hit — a television phenomenon that not only provokes endless discussion nationwide but also has the distinction of mention in a Time Magazine cover story addressing the state of feminism.The anxiety-riddled character "Ally McBeal" has tapped into something simmering beneath the surface of today's professional, "successful" women. It's called misery. Worse, it's called misery without a comprehensible origin. It is this odd, pervasive unhappiness that Danielle Crittenden confronts in her fascinating, enlightening book What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us.The premise of What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us is that with all of the success of feminism — all of the doors that have been opened, all of the new freedoms women of this generation enjoy — "we may have inadvertently also smashed the foundations necessary for our happiness." Crittenden does not in any way suggest women revert back to the pre-Feminine Mystique days of suburban housewife malaise, but she does confront the possibility that there might have been some crucial good in many of the old patterns of living that women today reject entirely. Crittenden explains that women in the '90s have "heeded their mother's advice: Do something with your life; don't depend upon a man to take care of you; don't make the same mistakes I did. So they have made different mistakes. They are the women who postponed marriage and childbirth to pursue their careers only tofindthemselves at 35 still single and baby-crazy, with no husband in sight. They are the unwed mothers who now depend on the state to provide what the fathers of their children won't — a place to live and an income to raise their kids on. They are the eighteen-year-old girls who believed they could lead the unfettered sexual lives of men, only to have ended up in an abortion clinic or attending grade twelve English while eight months pregnant. They are the new brides who understand that when a couple promises to stay together 'forever,' they have little better than a 50-50 chance of sticking to it. They are the female partners at law firms who thought they'd made provisions for everything about their career — except for that sudden, unexpected moment when they find their insides shredding the first day they return from maternity leave, having placed their infants in a stranger's arms."What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us examines the new problems in today's society and outlines the erroneous ways of thinking that created these problems. With a lighthearted tone and good humor throughout, Crittenden intelligently leads readers through an exploration of love, marriage, motherhood, and even aging. Her examination of dating among women in their 20s and 30s is fascinating, harsh — and yes, depressing. She paints a stark portrait of women in their 20s who brush aside sincere suitors because they believe they're too young to consider marriage, only to discover in their mid-30s that the crowd beating down their door has thinned considerably — and perhaps irrevocably. There is perhaps no more salient truth in Crittenden's book than her statement, "It is usually at precisely this moment — when a single woman looks up from her work and realizes she's ready to take on family life — that men make themselves most absent." Further, it is impossible to deny that in terms of sexual appeal, men have a longer shelf life. A successful man can attract women of any age well into his 50s, 60s...or beyond. They can father children well into old age. And according to Crittenden, "this disparity in sexual staying power is something feminists rather recklessly overlooked when they urged women to abandon marriage and domesticity in favor of autonomy and self-fulfillment outside the home."According to Crittenden, even when a young woman today manages to get married, she is most likely not headed down the path to wedded bliss. In striving so furiously not to be taken for granted as wives were in previous generations, women today often err too far in the opposite direction. Crittenden makes ironic mention of Gloria Steinem's remark that women have become "the husbands we wanted to marry"; Crittenden suggests that perhaps women today are more likely to resemble the husbands we left behind: "balky, self-absorbed, and supremely sure that our needs should come before anyone else's." Crittenden warns that a sense of entitlement devoid of compromise is not likely to lead women into enduring, happy unions.But the most significant arena of mixed messages is the realm of motherhood. Crittenden is unflinching in her look at the tug of war between work responsibility and the job of motherhood. She explores the myriad decisions and conflicts that arise upon the birth of a child. Some women are eager to return to work but feel guilty leaving their child. Some women are desperate to remain at home with their child but cannot afford to do so. Other women would prefer to remain home with their child, and can afford to do so, but are wary of leaving their jobs because if they ever need to return to the workforce they will have lost their foothold. Crittenden is critical of our culture's pervasive attitude that suggests a woman is not "doing anything" once she steps out of the workforce — an attitude that could only hold weight in a society such as ours in which "the virtues of work have been so inflated that we can no longer appreciate anything that's not accompanied by a paycheck." And as for the idea that work is a liberating alternative to the drudgery of housework and childrearing, Crittenden suggests that the number of people who have interesting, fulfilling jobs are in the great minority. Crittenden calls for women to reevaluate what they have been socialized to believe — that work offers a more defining sense of self than raising children.So, what did our mothers never tell us? Maybe they did not tell us what Crittenden explains very carefully: Women can't have it both ways. They probably can't have "it all." Life, relationships, careers...all are full of compromises that are natural and not necessarily a threat to who we are as individuals. Crittenden asserts that "If we wish to live for ourselves and think only about ourselves, we will manage to retain our independence but little else."What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us offers a revised perspective on womanhood that is truly liberating. — Isabel Rifkin

Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis


Ada Calhoun - 2020
    She was married with children and a good career. So why did she feel miserable? And why did it seem that other Generation X women were miserable, too?Calhoun decided to find some answers. She looked into housing costs, HR trends, credit card debt averages, and divorce data. At every turn, she saw a pattern: sandwiched between the Boomers and the Millennials, Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age, problems that were being largely overlooked.Speaking with women across America about their experiences as the generation raised to “have it all,” Calhoun found that most were exhausted, terrified about money, under-employed, and overwhelmed. Instead of being heard, they were told instead to lean in, take “me-time,” or make a chore chart to get their lives and homes in order.In Why We Can’t Sleep, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X’s predicament and offers solutions for how to pull oneself out of the abyss—and keep the next generation of women from falling in. The result is reassuring, empowering, and essential reading for all middle-aged women, and anyone who hopes to understand them.

Knowing Your Value: Women, Money, and Getting What You're Worth


Mika Brzezinski - 2011
    In "Knowing Your Value," bestselling author Mika Brzezinski takes an in-depth look at how women today achieve their deserved recognition and financial worth. Prompted by her own experience as co-host of "Morning Joe, " Mika interviews a number of prominent women across a wide range of industries on their experience moving up in their fields. Mika reveals how these women, including such impresarios as White House star Valerie Jarrett, comedian Susie Essman, writer and director Nora Ephron, Facebook 's Sheryl Sandberg, and broadcaster Joy Behar, navigated the inevitable roadblocks that are unique to women. Mika also uncovers what men think about the approach women take in the workplace, getting honest answers from Donnie Deutsch, Jack Welch, Donald Trump, and others about why women are paid less, and what pitfalls women face and play into as they try to get their worth at work." Knowing Your Value" blends these personal stories and opinions with the latest research and polling on issues such as equal pay, women in the boardroom, and access to start-up capital. Written in Mika 's brutally honest, funny, and self-deprecating style, "Knowing Your Value" is a vital book for professional women of all ages.

Marriage Shock: The Transformation of Women into Wives


Dalma Heyn - 1997
    As one woman says, "Within a year of my marrying, my plans for my own life, my own needs, had disappeared." Heyn argues that the ideal of the Virtuous Wife has taught us that she is the one responsible for the quality of the relationship--that to make a marriage work, women must be sacrificing, accommodating, good. But those are qualities for sainthood, not happiness. In fact, they assure precisely the opposite--distress, resentment, and guilt in both partners. Elegantly argued and resounding with the voices of women and men, Marriage Shock is a groundbreaking book that will change the way we think about marriage--and about divorce. Heyn's compassionate conclusion is that marriage can be saved only when we stop trying to "fix" wives so they fit into it--and instead fix marriage to embrace and nourish wives.From the Trade Paperback edition.