The struggle for women’s rights continues to be an uphill battle. The team at L&P values the positive contributions that women are making in the face of such adversity. Below are some insightful books to help you in your fight for social justice!
1. The Big Push: Exposing and Challenging the Persistence of Patriarchy
By: Cynthia Enloe
Enloe explores how modern society continues to adhere to patriarchal ideologies, and participates complicity in maintaining these detrimental structures. Described as a “call for feminist self-reflection and strategic action”, this book will inspire you to think critically about the influence you hold in society and how we can all initiate a greater call for action in the move towards gender equality.
2. How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump
By: Laura Briggs
Renowned scholar, historian, and professor Laura Briggs really hits close to home with her most recently published work. Briggs argues how all politics reflect a war on the reproductive welfare of women and the American household. Drawing examples from racist and classist models of reproduction, to Donald Trump and the Tea Party, Briggs’ most recent work is a refreshingly sober slap in the face to deniers of institutionalized gender discrimination.
3. Framing the Rape Victim: Gender and Agency Reconsidered
By: Carine M. Mardorossian
To the untrained reader, Mardorossian’s critique of gendered constructs like masculinity and femininity are a dense, theory-ridden print. However, do not let that discourage you from the pressing concerns her work raises about agency, autonomy, vulnerability, and the concept of victimhood. A call to action in many ways, Framing the Rape Victim is a significant and timely book that relates to any woman who has felt marginalized by a system that upholds hegemonic masculinity.
4. Smart Girls: Success, School, and the Myth of Postfeminism
By: Shauna Pomerantz and Rebecca Raby
This book seeks to deconstruct the myth that girls in the modern world have it easy. The authors based their findings on a qualitative study that examines how a young girl’s ability to perform well in school is compromised by their perspectives on physical appearance, social validation, identity, and mental health. Smart Girls is a much-needed introduction to a pressing discourse about the way we are raising and educating girls.
5. Women in Global Science: Advancing Academic Careers through International Collaboration
By: Kathrin Zippel
The underrepresentation of women in STEM fields is evident. Zippel’s analysis of gender, race, and class make a compelling case for the inclusivity and diversity of women in these industries as the pursuit of STEM related career opportunities continues to grow globally. An insightful introduction to the politics of work in STEM, and a necessary read for any woman pursuing a career in those fields.
6. Earning More and Getting Less: Why Successful Wives Can’t Buy Equality
By: Veronica Jaris Tichenor
Through a series of different methods and interviews, Tichenor discovers how financial success affects the power dynamic in marital relationships between men and women. Women are increasingly making more money than their husbands, however this effect has not changed sexist, male- dominating attitudes that continue to exist in relationships that dictate familial decisions. This intuitive book offers a crucial analysis into the structure of gender, identity, and power within relationships.
7. The Mother of All Questions
By: Rebecca Solnit
Solnit’s witty collection of essays is humorous and well thought, without compromising the austerity of the topics she discusses. Shrewd and concise, Solnit introduces her perspective on several themes that include masculinity in the literary world, misogynistic violence, the history of rape jokes, among much more diving the audience deep into the world of gender and feminism.
By: Nadia Lopez