Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century


Alice WongChristie Thompson - 2020
    Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people.From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.

It's Not About the Burqa


Mariam Khan - 2019
    Mariam felt pretty sure she didn’t know a single Muslim woman who would describe herself that way. Why was she hearing about Muslim women from people who were neither Muslim, nor female?Years later the state of the national discourse has deteriorated even further, and Muslim women’s voices are still pushed to the fringes – the figures leading the discussion are white and male.Taking one of the most politicized and misused words associated with Muslim women and Islamophobia, It’s Not About the Burqa is poised to change all that. Here are voices you won’t see represented in the national news headlines: seventeen Muslim women speaking frankly about the hijab and wavering faith, about love and divorce, about feminism, queer identity, sex, and the twin threats of a disapproving community and a racist country. Funny, warm, sometimes sad, and often angry, each of these essays is a passionate declaration, and each essay is calling time on the oppression, the lazy stereotyping, the misogyny and the Islamophobia.What does it mean, exactly, to be a Muslim woman in the West today? According to the media, it’s all about the burqa.Here’s what it’s really about.

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls


Mona Eltahawy - 2019
    All the necessary "sins" that women and girls require to erupt.Eltahawy knows that the patriarchy is alive and well, and she is fed up: Sexually assaulted during hajj at the age of fifteen. Groped on the dance floor of a night club in Montreal at fifty. Countless other injustices in the years between. Illuminating her call to action are stories of activists and ordinary women around the world—from South Africa to China, Nigeria to India, Bosnia to Egypt—who are tapping into their inner fury and crossing the lines of race, class, faith, and gender that make it so hard for marginalized women to be heard. Rather than teaching women and girls to survive the poisonous system they have found themselves in, Eltahawy arms them to dismantle it.Brilliant, bold, and energetic, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is a manifesto for all feminists in the fight against patriarchy.

You Don't Have to Like Me: Essays on Growing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding Feminism


Alida Nugent - 2015
    Now, she takes on one of today’s hottest cultural topics: feminism. Nugent is a proud feminist—and she’s not afraid to say it. From the “scarlet F” thrust upon you if you declare yourself a feminist at a party to how to handle judgmental store clerks when you buy Plan B, You Don’t Have to Like Me skewers a range of cultural issues, and confirms Nugent as a star on the rise.

How to Date Men When You Hate Men


Blythe Roberson - 2019
    You'll have a blast reading this and then date...or not date anyone because you are living your best single life with new best friend Roberson by your side." - Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of You Can't Touch My Hair

She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement


Jodi Kantor - 2019
    For months Kantor and Twohey had been having confidential discussions with top actresses, former Weinstein employees and other sources, learning of disturbing long-buried allegations, some of which had been covered up by onerous legal settlements. The journalists meticulously picked their way through a web of decades-old secret payouts and nondisclosure agreements, pressed some of the most famous women in the world--and some unknown ones--to risk going on the record, and faced down Weinstein, his team of high-priced defenders, and even his private investigators. But nothing could have prepared them for what followed the publication of their Weinstein story. Within days, a veritable Pandora's Box of sexual harassment and abuse was opened, and women who had suffered in silence for generations began coming forward, trusting that the world would understand their stories. Over the next twelve months, hundreds of men from every walk of life and industry would be outed for mistreating their colleagues. But did too much change--or not enough? Those questions plunged the two journalists into a new phase of reporting and some of their most startling findings yet. With superlative detail, insight, and journalistic expertise, Kantor and Twohey take us for the first time into the very heart of this social shift, reliving in real-time what it took to get the story and giving an up-close portrait of the forces that hindered and spurred change. They describe the surprising journeys of those who spoke up--for the sake of other women, for future generations, and for themselves--and so changed us all.

The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace


Lynn Povich - 2012
    For many, filing the suit was a radicalizing act that empowered them to "find themselves" and stake a claim. Others lost their way in a landscape of opportunities, pressures, discouragements, and hostilities they weren't prepared to navigate.With warmth, humor, and perspective, the book also explores why changes in the law did not change everything for today's young women.

This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America


Morgan Jerkins - 2018
    In This Will Be My Undoing, she takes on perhaps one of the most provocative contemporary topics: What does it mean to “be”—to live as, to exist as—a black woman today? This is a book about black women, but it’s necessary reading for all Americans.

Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement


Robin MorganMary Daly - 1970
    This anthology captures the range of problems being considered by the new feminists, and the variety of approaches to analysis and action. Over fifty contributors, all women, write about how the "51% minority group" is used and abused by the major institutions of our society--marriage, the family, church, courts, the media, welfare, the schools, the professions, business, and industry. A section on the psychological and sexual repression of women attacks the freudian view of the female, and discusses the problems of the aging woman, abortion and birth control, prostitution, the persecution of lesbians. Black women, a Mexican woman, high school women, ex-New Leftists, housewives, and seasoned feminists speak from their experience in tones that range from detachment to outrage. ARE MEN REALLY THE ENEMY?A Questionnaire by Jayne West, from No More Fun and Games True or False __ Woman's work is never done. __ You can't tell a book by its cover. __ Housework can be fun. __ A female dog is referred to as a bitch. __ One of the more degrading terms that can be applied to a man is "son of a bitch." Multiple Choice 1. Most rapes are committed by: (a) women; (b) children; (c) men (perverts); (d) I am unable to distinguish rape from ordinary sexual relations. 2. Which do you prefer being called: (a) lady; (b) woman; (c) female; (d) girl; (e) none of the above. 3. If I could do away with anything I wanted, the first thing I would do away with is: (a) the family; (b) the state; (c) private property; (d) menstrual periods; (e) all of the above. Essay Discuss the variations in tone possible when asking a male druggist: "Have you Tampax Super?"

Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza


Gloria E. Anzaldúa - 1987
    Writing in a lyrical mixture of Spanish and English that is her unique heritage, she meditates on the condition of Chicanos in Anglo culture, women in Hispanic culture, and lesbians in the straight world. Her essays and poems range over broad territory, moving from the plight of undocumented migrant workers to memories of her grandmother, from Aztec religion to the agony of writing. Anzaldua is a rebellious and willful talent who recognizes that life on the border, "life in the shadows," is vital territory for both literature and civilization. Venting her anger on all oppressors of people who are culturally or sexually different, the author has produced a powerful document that belongs in all collections with emphasis on Hispanic American or feminist issues.

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion


Jia Tolentino - 2019
    This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly in a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Jia writes about the cultural prisms that have shaped her: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the American scammer as millennial hero; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the mandate that everything, including our bodies, should always be getting more efficient and beautiful until we die.

Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity


Chandra Talpade Mohanty - 2003
    This collection highlights the concerns running throughout her pioneering work: the politics of difference and solidarity, decolonizing and democratizing feminist practice, the crossing of borders, and the relation of feminist knowledge and scholarship to organizing and social movements. Mohanty offers here a sustained critique of globalization and urges a reorientation of transnational feminist practice toward anticapitalist struggles.Feminism without Borders opens with Mohanty's influential critique of western feminism ("Under Western Eyes") and closes with a reconsideration of that piece based on her latest thinking regarding the ways that gender matters in the racial, class, and national formations of globalization. In between these essays, Mohanty meditates on the lives of women workers at different ends of the global assembly line (in India, the United Kingdom, and the United States); feminist writing on experience, identity, and community; dominant conceptions of multiculturalism and citizenship; and the corporatization of the North American academy. She considers the evolution of interdisciplinary programs like Women's Studies and Race and Ethnic Studies; pedagogies of accommodation and dissent; and transnational women's movements for grassroots ecological solutions and consumer, health, and reproductive rights.Mohanty's probing and provocative analyses of key concepts in feminist thought—"home," "sisterhood," "experience," "community"—lead the way toward a feminism without borders, a feminism fully engaged with the realities of a transnational world.

The Essential Feminist Reader


Estelle B. Freedman - 2007
    Anthony, Simone de Beauvoir, W.E.B. Du Bois, Hélène Cixous, Betty Friedan, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Emma Goldman, Guerrilla Girls, Ding Ling, Audre Lorde, John Stuart Mill, Christine de Pizan, Adrienne Rich, Margaret Sanger, Huda Shaarawi, Sojourner Truth, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Virginia Woolf.The Essential Feminist Reader is the first anthology to present the full scope of feminist history. Prizewinning historian Estelle B. Freedman brings decades of teaching experience and scholarship to her selections, which span more than five centuries. Moving beyond standard texts by English and American thinkers, this collection features primary source material from around the globe, including short works of fiction and drama, political manifestos, and the work of less well-known writers. Freedman’s cogent Introduction assesses the challenges facing feminism, while her accessible, lively commentary contextualizes each piece. The Essential Feminist Reader is a vital addition to feminist scholarship, and an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of women.

Tomboyland: Essays


Melissa Faliveno - 2020
    The American Midwest is a place beyond definition, whose very boundaries are a question. It’s a place of rolling prairies and towering pines, where guns in bars and trucks on blocks are as much a part of the landscape as rivers and lakes and farms. Where girls are girls and boys are boys, where women are mothers and wives, where one is taught to work hard and live between the lines. But what happens when those lines become increasingly unclear? When a girl, like the land that raised her, finds herself neither here nor there?In this intrepid collection of essays, Melissa Faliveno traverses the liminal spaces of her childhood in working-class Wisconsin and the paths she’s traveled since, compelled by questions of girlhood and womanhood, queerness and class, and how the lands of our upbringing both define and complicate us even long after we’ve left. Part personal narrative, part cultural reportage, Tomboyland navigates midwestern traditions, mythologies, landscapes, and lives to explore the intersections of identity and place. From F5 tornadoes and fast-pitch softball to gun culture, strange glacial terrains, kink party potlucks, and the question of motherhood, Faliveno asks curious, honest, and often darkly funny questions about belonging and the body, isolation and community, and what we mean when we use words like woman, family, and home.

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice


Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha - 2018
    Powerful and passionate, Care Work is a crucial and necessary call to arms.