Publication year 2021
Genre Biography, Nonfiction
Themes Mothers, Gender Identity, Race, Justice
Tags US History, Gender & Feminism, Race & Racism, Social Justice, African American Literature, World History, Biography
Feminist Reads
Feminism is more than fighting for gender equity. It is about retelling the stories that define us, recognizing the place of woman in our shared history, now and into the future. This collection of study guides features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry all about women and their tales of triumph, pain, love, and everything in between.
The Three Mothers
The Voyage Out
The Will to Change
The Wolf Den
The Woman Destroyed
The Woman's Hour
The Woman Warrior
This Bridge Called My Back
This Is a Photograph of Me
Top Girls
To Room Nineteen
To Sir with Love
To the Lighthouse
Transgender Warriors
Trauma and Recovery
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
Unbought and Unbossed
Undoing Gender
Untamed
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
Publication year 2021
Genre Biography, Nonfiction
Themes Mothers, Gender Identity, Race, Justice
Tags US History, Gender & Feminism, Race & Racism, Social Justice, African American Literature, World History, Biography
Publication year 1915
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Self Discovery, Colonialism, Literature, Gender Identity, Love
Tags Travel Literature, Coming of Age, British Literature, Colonialism & Postcolonialism, Edwardian Era, The Bloomsbury Group, Gender & Feminism, World History, Romance, Classic Fiction
Publication year 2003
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Gender Identity, Masculinity, Equality
Tags Gender & Feminism, Love & Sexuality, Relationships, Psychology, Philosophy, Social Justice, Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Self-Improvement, Politics & Government
Publication year 2021
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Gender Identity, Self Discovery, Social Class, Equality, Justice
Tags Historical Fiction, Mythology, Fantasy, Gender & Feminism, Trauma & Abuse
Publication year 1967
Genre Short Story Collection, Fiction
Themes Aging, Loneliness, Perseverance, Fear, Hate & Anger, Regret, Shame & Pride, Femininity, Gender Identity, Mental Health, Midlife, Death, Marriage, Mothers, Equality, Trust & Doubt, Truth & Lies
Tags French Literature, Literary Fiction, Gender & Feminism, Philosophy
Publication year 2018
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Gender Identity
Tags Women`s Studies, US History, Gender & Feminism, World History, Social Justice, Politics & Government
The Woman’s Hour (2018) is a nonfiction chronicle of the final battle for ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which gave American women the right to vote. The book explores the blood, sweat, and tears required to gain women’s suffrage in this country. Contrary to popular opinion, the process was neither quick nor easy. The events chronicled in the book take place during July and August of 1920 in Nashville, Tennessee. The author’s uses... Read The Woman's Hour Summary
Publication year 1976
Genre Autobiography / Memoir, Nonfiction
Themes Gender Identity, Family
Tags Asian Literature, Chinese Literature, Women`s Studies, Education, Education, Gender & Feminism, Classic Fiction, Biography
The Woman Warrior (1976) is an experimental memoir by Chinese-American author Maxine Hong Kingston. The book weaves together stories of Kingston’s childhood in California and her mother’s youth in rural China with folklore, legend, and myth, defying easy genre classification.The book is divided into five parts. In the first, “No-Name Woman,” Kingston imagines different life stories for an aunt she never met—a woman who drowned herself and her baby after being expelled from her village... Read The Woman Warrior Summary
Genre Essay Collection, Nonfiction
Themes Gender Identity, Race, Social Class
Tags Gender & Feminism, Creative Nonfiction, Race & Racism, Social Justice, Women`s Studies
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, is a feminist literary collection of essays, prose, poems, and transcripts on the experiences of women of color and Third World women, in a mainly United States context. While many of the contributors may have been lesser-known beforehand, this anthology has become a foundational text in feminist theory. Originally published in 1981, it set precedence by delving... Read This Bridge Called My Back Summary
Publication year 2009
Genre Poem, Fiction
Themes Loneliness, Memory, Gender Identity, Death, Appearance & Reality, Environment, Place, Self Discovery, Justice
Tags Grief & Death, Lyric Poem, Gender & Feminism
Publication year 1982
Genre Play, Fiction
Themes Social Class, Mothers, Gender Identity, Economics
Tags Drama, Gender & Feminism, Education, Education, World History, Dramatic Literature, Classic Fiction
British playwright Caryl Churchill’s groundbreaking play Top Girls, which opened in 1982 both at the Royal Court Theatre in London (August) and Off-Broadway at the Public Theatre in New York (December), is Churchill’s second internationally acclaimed play after Cloud Nine (1979). It won the 1983 Obie Award for Best Play of the Year, and it remains one of Churchill’s best-known and most widely produced plays, often anthologized as a canonical contemporary play. Top Girls was... Read Top Girls Summary
Publication year 1958
Genre Short Story, Fiction
Themes Marriage, Place, Gender Identity
Tags Psychological Fiction, Modern Classic Fiction, Gender & Feminism, Relationships, British Literature, Women`s Studies, Education, Education, World History, Romance, Classic Fiction
Doris Lessing’s 1963 short story “To Room Nineteen” explores the theme of female independence and autonomy—and of how difficult these are to achieve, especially at the time Lessing wrote it. Any reader familiar with Virginia Woolf’s classic essay “A Room of One’s Own” will find similarities here. Lessing, a Nobel laureate and accomplished writer within multiple genres, investigates boundaries and conventions throughout the canon of her work, frequently breaking down dichotomies and questioning cultural assumptions... Read To Room Nineteen Summary
Publication year 1959
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Gender Identity
Tags Gender & Feminism, Education, Education, British Literature, Dramatic Literature, Historical Fiction, Classic Fiction
To Sir, with Love is a work of fiction based on the life of the author, E.R. Braithwaite, who went to teach in the notoriously rough East End of London after World War II. The main character, Ricardo Braithwaite, works as an engineer in an Aruban oil refinery beforeimmigrating to England shortly before World War II. During the war, Braithwaite serves as a member of the Royal Air Force (RAF) but then is unable to... Read To Sir with Love Summary
Publication year 1927
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Gender Identity, Memory, Art
Tags Classic Fiction, Gender & Feminism, Social Class, Modernism, British Literature, The Bloomsbury Group, Arts & Culture, Education, Education, World History
Virginia Woolf’s Modernist classic To the Lighthouse was published in May 1927 by Hogarth Press, the publishing house founded by Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard Woolf in 1917. The Modern Library placed To the Lighthouse on its list of the 20th century’s best English-language novels. The three-part novel, which is written entirely in Woolf’s own stream-of-consciousness literary style, marks To the Lighthouse as a seminal work of Modernism. Woolf herself described To the Lighthouse... Read To the Lighthouse Summary
Publication year 1996
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Femininity, Gender Identity, Masculinity, Sexual Identity, Self Discovery, Social Class
Tags Gender & Feminism, World History, LGBTQ+, Politics & Government
Publication year 1992
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Self Discovery, Mental Health, Hope, Gender Identity, Safety & Danger, Trust & Doubt
Tags Psychology, Gender & Feminism, Health, Science, Politics & Government
Publication year 1995
Genre Autobiography / Memoir, Nonfiction
Themes Sexual Identity, Family, Gender Identity, Femininity, Masculinity, Race, Good & Evil, Literature, Loyalty & Betrayal, Trust & Doubt, Truth & Lies, Self Discovery
Tags LGBTQ+, Gender & Feminism, Trauma & Abuse, Women`s Studies, Love & Sexuality, Biography
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure is a 1995 memoir by American author and activist Dorothy Allison, a native of Greenville, South Carolina. A coming-of-age story that examines feminism and lesbian identity in the context of the patriarchal norms of the South, the book uses both narrative and photographs to tell the stories of the women in Allison’s family and their complex relationships with the men who both loved and abused them. Her... Read Two or Three Things I Know for Sure Summary
Publication year 1970
Genre Autobiography / Memoir, Nonfiction
Themes Gender Identity, Race, Community, Politics & Government, Justice
Tags Gender & Feminism, US History, Politics & Government, Race & Racism
Publication year 2004
Genre Essay Collection, Nonfiction
Themes Femininity, Gender Identity, Masculinity, Sexual Identity
Tags Gender & Feminism, Sociology, LGBTQ+, Philosophy, Philosophy
Publication year 2020
Genre Autobiography / Memoir, Nonfiction
Themes Gender Identity, Sexual Identity, Femininity, Trust & Doubt
Tags Gender & Feminism, LGBTQ+, Women`s Studies, Self-Improvement, Biography
Published in 2020, Glennon Doyle’s Untamed is her third memoir. An accomplished writer, philanthropist, and activist, Doyle documents her lifelong journey of self-discovery and uses personal experiences to encourage women on their own respective journeys towards freedom. Through the intersections of gender, sexuality, religion, and race, Doyle unpacks the social conditioning that affects the lives of all humans, particularly women. Ultimately, Doyle offers a reflective guide to navigating life by looking internally and honoring one’s... Read Untamed Summary
Publication year 1975
Genre Essay / Speech, Nonfiction
Themes Art, Gender Identity
Tags Gender & Feminism, Arts & Culture, Women`s Studies, Education, Education, Psychology, Psychology, Philosophy, Philosophy
Laura Mulvey’s essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” originally appeared in the autumn 1975 issue of the British film journal, Screen. This study guide refers to the reprint of the essay included in Mulvey’s book Visual and Other Pleasures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition 2009).Part 1: “Introduction”In the “Introduction” to her 1975 essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey announces her agenda: to appropriate psychoanalytic theory “as a political weapon” to expose how “the unconscious... Read Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema Summary