Books I Recommend to My Friends on International Women's Day - I
In honor of International Women’s Day, I recommend 9 books to my friends on social media every year from 2018. And it is to remember where did Women’s Day come from, what do we still have to do for women’s rights and how do we continue.
This mini-series is a look back to these year’s of reading, and it’s a record of my recommendations in the past four International Women’s Day, and I hope these recommendations can inspire you to read more fiction and nonfiction about women’s rights, understand more about women’s rights and feminism, and exam our day to day life with a feminist lens.
Today, let’s talk about the books I recommended to my friends in 2018.
Watch this video to find out more details of why I recommended these books back in 2018, and why I still recommend reading them today.
by Virginia Woolf
This is THE modern classic that everyone tells everyone to read, it’s one of the first feminist readings I did.
A woman must have money and a room for her own if she is to write fiction.
in the longest history, women have been surrounded by all the housework chores and the interruptions of family members. In this book, Woolf concluded that independence and solitude are the two most important things for female writers, and invented Shakespeare’s sister to support her idea. This book was published in 1929, nearly 100 years ago, but still applies to today’s environment.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou
This is Maya Angelou’s autobiography, talking about growing up in Arkansas and California when racial segregation was still in use.
As a non-American, I knew racial segregation is part of American history, but it didn’t click with me that how recent this part of history was. I still remember I was shocked when I realized the racial segregation ended on paper less than 60 years ago, and realized it was not as ancient as I thought.
Maya Angelou’s writing about her life and the trauma caused by the rape she experienced at a young age, was raw and honest. The book shows us the life living as a young black woman back in the days, and I learnt so much from it.
Why I March: Images From the Women’s March Around the World
On January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, people from 673 countries all around the world stood up, protesting for women’s rights, LGBTQ community, immigration, health care and environment, racial justice and freedom of religion.
I care about women’s rights, in 2028 I vote. —— kid in Women’s March
This picture book captured that day and makes us remember the moment when people stood together. It is also a reminder for us, about why and how we came to that point in history.
by Margaret Atwood
Offred, a handmaid in a commander’s family, still remembers the days with her family when things are normal. When she still held a credit card of her name. But now, she’s just a tool of reproduction, who isn’t allowed to read, write and think.
The Handmaid’s tale is Atwood’s terrifying dystopian novel where shows how extreme things can be, and how women’s rights can be abolished overnight, especially when it comes to the decline of the birth rate in many countries. It’s one of the must-read modern classics and a warning to reality.
by Nin Andrews
This is a prose poetry collection written about a magical island that’s centralized by women, and men became the second sex. it’s talking from a boy’s perspective about the sexism he grew up with. It mirrored a lot of issues in our society with the gender switch.
This book will challenge you to think about why we feel uncomfortable when the social norm to women we see today applies to a boy. And this uncomfortableness leads us to see more inequalities we have in the real world.
by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
This edition of The Odyssey is the first English translation translated by a woman. Dated back to the 17th century, this ancient poem has been translated countless times, but it was after nearly 400 years, we have our first female translator.
Emily Wilson’s languages are soothing and precisely chosen to fit the original text without importing contemporary bias. She also didn’t shy away from the sexism and the patriarchy that existed in the poem originally.
It was such an enjoyable experience reading this book.
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A short text based on the author’s TEDx talk.
I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femininity. And I want to be respected in all my femaleness.
This book makes me appreciate and embrace femininity and femaleness. It also makes me reflect on my behavior when I was younger. The unintentional things I did that degraded femininity, and indirect denying traits like strong, fearless, passionate, and independent are universal and can exist in any people.
by Bell Hooks
This is one of the must-read books for feminism theory study. Bell Hooks talked varies of topics in feminism. For example the relationship between gender equality and racial and class equality, which is, they are tightly related to each other.
She also pointed out because the patriarchal system is largely used in society, it is sometimes easy for women to adapt. That caused another problem and created separate goals among women in the feminist movement.
She also briefly tackled on international feminism and colonization, which I really appreciate.
by Roxane Gay
This brutally honest memoir of Roxane Gay is eye-opening on so many levels.
In this book, Roxane Gay talked about the rape in her youth, to cope with the trauma she decided to eat a lot and make herself big. And she wrote about the body-shaming she’s facing and the difficulties living as a large woman in America.
This book challenged me and made me reevaluate a lot of social norms. For example, how are the normal designs in our life is inconvenient for overweight people, and how the things we see on the surface, are oftentimes not caused by the reason we assumed.
Above are the nine books I recommended to my friends on International Women’s Day 2018, stay tuned for the books I recommended in the following years :)
Meonicorn is a book lover and reviewer from China and currently living in the US. She talks about books, book reviews, and recommendations on this blog and the Youtube channel: The Bookish Land. She is also a language lover learning Norwegian and Japanese.