Women Activism

Part searing examination, part call to arms—a bold case against modern sexual ethics, from young Washington Post columnist Christine Emba. For years now, modern-day sexual ethics has held that “anything goes” when it comes to sex—as long as everyone says yes, and does so enthusiastically...

Susan Burton's world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van driving down their street. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine then to crack. As a resident of South Los Angeles, a Black community under siege in the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for over 15 years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction.

An inspiring story of a modern American icon, here is the first comprehensive account of the life and times of Michelle Obama. With disciplined reporting and a storyteller’s eye for revealing detail, Peter Slevin follows Michelle to the White House from her working-class childhood on Chicago’s largely segregated South Side. He illuminates her tribulations at Princeton University and Harvard Law School during the racially charged 1980s and the dilemmas she faced in Chicago.

In Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Life As a Pioneer Woman, Laura tells her readers what it was like to be a pioneer in the early 1900s. Her stories and insights show us how difficult even the simplest chores or tasks were for the early pioneers, yet through it all she...

Ronald Reagan carried a conservative vision of America to the White House, where his administration gave it life. Peggy Noonan followed Reagan to Washington as his speechwriter— and gave his vision voice. As speech writer for George Bush during his Presidential campaign, Noonan dispelled her candidate's "wimpy" image and replaced it with one of quiet strength by coining such eloquent phrases as "a thousand points of light" and "a kinder, gentler nation."

Nevertheless, she persisted. These three words became an inspiring battle cry across the United States in 2017, but the woman to whom they refer has been fighting passionately all of her life. Raised in a tough working-class home in Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren went on to become a revered scholar, a law professor, a US Senator, and an unlikely political star.

Mary, Queen of Scots continues to intrigue both historians and the general public - but the story of her mother, Marie de Guise, is much less well known. A political power in her own right, she was born into the powerful and ambitious Lorraine family, spending her formative years at the dazzling, licentious court of François I. Although briefly courted by Henry VIII, she instead married his nephew, James V of Scotland, in 1538.

Founder and CEO of consulting firm Change Cadet Dr. Akilah Cadet shares a powerful, incisive look at where we are in the fight to dismantle white supremacy—and what we urgently need to do next​. This is the story of how I became an unapologetic Black disabled woman in a white world. This...

In the past, being a “difficult bitch” was bad. Girls weren’t supposed to call people out for their BS, stand up for themselves, or do their own thing. This book embraces the insult with irreverent humor, encouraging listeners to be themselves no matter what, including an exploration of the ways this phrase can be interpreted differently among people of different backgrounds.

From the founder of the Women of Rock Oral History Project, an exploration of women in the '90s rock scene, featuring original interviews with Liz Phair, Shirley Manson, Kristin Hersh, Donita Sparks, Tanya Donelly, members of Hole, Luscious Jackson, Veruca Salt, Babes in Toyland, and more In...

The Portable Anna Julia Cooper brings together, for the first time, Anna Julia Cooper's major collection of essays, A Voice from the South, along with several previously unpublished poems, plays, journalism, and selected correspondences, including more than 30 previously unpublished letters between Anna Julia Cooper and W. E. B. Du Bois. This volume will introduce a new generation to an educator, intellectual, and activist whose prescient insights underlie some of the most important developments in modern American intellectual thought and African American activism.

Join the fight for racially marginalized people with this pocket-sized guide filled with practical insights from one of the leading voices of the movement for equality and founder of the @officialmillennialblack Instagram. As the tragic murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement...

Le destin hors du commun de Sonia Pierre, fille de coupeurs de canne, qui fit de sa vie un combat pour les droits humains. République dominicaine, 1963. Sonia Pierre voit le jour à Lechería, dans un batey, un campement de coupeurs de canne à sucre. Consciente du traitement inhumain réservé à ces travailleurs, elle organise, à treize ans seulement, une grève pour faire valoir leurs droits. Une des rares habitantes du batey à suivre des études, elle devient avocate et consacrera sa vie tout entière à combattre l'injustice jusqu'à sa mort tragique.

Life in a castle isn’t always a fairytale, as the Duchess of Rutland vividly illustrates in her fascinating, revealing and funny autobiography. When Emma Watkins, the pony-mad daughter of a Welsh farmer, imagined her future it was as the wife of a younger version of her father. But then she fell in love with David Manners, having no idea that he was heir to one of the most senior hereditary titles in the land. When David succeeded his father, against all the odds Emma became the chatelaine of Belvoir Castle, ancestral home of the Dukes of Rutland.

Grounded in research and rich with personal narrative, Hidden Healers is a poignant and riveting look inside women's prisons and jails—and what we can do to help.

NPR Great Read of 2016 Author and Guardian US columnist Jessica Valenti has been leading the national conversation on gender and politics for over a decade. Now, in a darkly funny and bracing memoir, Valenti explores the toll that sexism takes from the every day to the existential. Sex Object...

Mary I, perhaps best known by the moniker Bloody Mary, was England’s first female monarch who ruled in her own right. A fighter from birth, she was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his wife, Catherine of Aragon. Mary would make her way back to her father’s good graces after being cast out by him in favor of his numerous wives and would eventually undo her father’s religious reforms by restoring Roman Catholicism in England. The fourth Tudor to rule England, Mary is remembered for burning around 300 Protestants at the stake on her quest for religious reform.

A world-renowned women’s health expert reveals a bold, practical, and data-driven handbook for menstrual periods that provides an easy-to-navigate roadmap for improving your reproductive health—and your everyday quality of life. We’ve been lied to about periods. PMS, cramping, bloating...

Empty Hands is the inspiring memoir of Zulu nurse and healthcare activist Sister Abegail Ntleko. Growing up poor in a rural village with a father who didn't believe in educating girls, against seemingly insurmountable odds Sister Abegail earned her nursing degree and began work as a community...

Not many women can claim to have changed history, but Nafis Sadik set that goal in her youth, and change the world she did. Champion of Choice tells the remarkable story of how Sadik, born into a prominent Indian family in 1929, came to be the world’s foremost advocate for women’s health and reproductive rights, the first female director of a United Nations agency, and “one of the most powerful women in the world” (London Times).