Gender
Last updated: July 27, 2024
Well over 200 years after Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women, gender politics remain a minefield. Our interviews will help you navigate your way, recommending the best books on gender from every angle.
Some look at women’s experience in particular conditions. Professor Athene Donald chooses her best books on women in society and author Gayle Lemmon looks at women and war. Historian Helen Castor, meanwhile, chooses her best books on queens and power.
Some of our interviews are of a scientific bent. Science journalist Angela Saini chooses her best books on the scientific differences between women and men and Professor Carol Gilligan chooses her best books on gender and human nature. Others look at gender from a more political angle. Feminist biographer Susan Ware discusses women’s suffrage and Bidisha, writer, feminist and critic, talks about gender politics. Erica Jong chooses her best books on women in society. Maria Sveland, author of Bitter Bitch, in her interview on feminism discusses where equality is yet to be won.
Peggy Orenstein, author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, talks about the gender trap. Eric Berkowitz in his interview on sex and society talks about the perennial attempts by all societies to control people’s sexuality. Lastly, Kate Bornstein chooses her best books on gender outlaws.
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No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
by Rachel Louise Snyder -
2
Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture
by Roxane Gay -
3
Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life
by Evan Stark -
4
Nobody's Victim: Fighting Harassment Online and Off
by Carrie Goldberg -
5
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence
by Gavin de Becker
The best books on Domestic Violence, recommended by Tanya Selvaratnam
The best books on Domestic Violence, recommended by Tanya Selvaratnam
Domestic violence has been declared a global crisis of pandemic proportions by the World Health Organisation. So why is it so often overlooked by law enforcement and under-reported by those who it affects? Tanya Selvaratnam, author of Assume Nothing: A Story of Intimate Violence, suggests a route forward as she highlights five of the best books on domestic abuse.
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1
The Myth of Seneca Falls
by Lisa Tetrault -
2
The Concise History of Woman Suffrage
by Mari Jo Buhle & Paul Buhle -
3
All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830-1900
by Martha S. Jones -
4
The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote
by Elaine Weiss -
5
The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States
by Alexander Keyssar
The best books on Women’s Suffrage, recommended by Susan Ware
The best books on Women’s Suffrage, recommended by Susan Ware
How many suffragists can you name? Feminist historian Susan Ware, author of a new history of the American women’s suffrage movement, urges us to remember how important suffrage was in the fight for women’s rights, on the cusp of its US centennial—and reveals the story of women getting the right to vote didn’t just begin at Seneca Falls.
The best books on Gender Politics, recommended by Bidisha
The 21st century has seen an explosion of feminist activism, with movements like #MeToo and the Women’s March. Accompanying this heightened attention to the lived experience of women, several extraordinary books have been published. Writer, feminist, critic and broadcaster Bidisha selects the best ones.
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Confessions of the Fox
by Jordy Rosenberg -
2
I've Got a Time Bomb
by Sybil Lamb -
3
Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity
by C Riley Snorton -
4
Histories of the Transgender Child
by Julian Gill-Peterson -
5
Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility
edited by Reina Gossett, Eric A Stanley and Johanna Burton
The Best of Trans Literature, recommended by Susan Stryker
The Best of Trans Literature, recommended by Susan Stryker
Many of the current controversies over trans rights and identities derive from false beliefs, explains the author and academic Susan Stryker. Here she selects five excellent contemporary trans titles with depth, complexity and heart, to help us reframe what has all too often become a toxic debate
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1
A Lab of One’s Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War
by Patricia Fara -
2
Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women's Rights in Gilded Age America
by Kimberly Hamlin -
3
Wally Funk's Race for Space: The Extraordinary Story of a Female Aviation Pioneer
by Sue Nelson -
4
The Woman That Never Evolved
by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy -
5
The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal
by Desmond Morris
The best books on Scientific Differences between Women and Men, recommended by Angela Saini
The best books on Scientific Differences between Women and Men, recommended by Angela Saini
Consideration of differences between men and women has been obscured by centuries of biological essentialism, argues Angela Saini – author of Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong. Here she discusses five books that examine or demonstrate the misogynistic lens through which female capability has been viewed.
The best books on Alternative Futures, recommended by Catherine Mayer
Catherine Mayer—author, journalist and president of the Women’s Equality Party—talks to Five Books about her optimism for a more equal future for society by way of her favourite science fiction visionaries and their work.
The Best Autofiction, recommended by Juliet Jacques
Autofiction is writing that blurs the boundaries between autobiography and fiction. The writer of Trans: A Memoir, Juliet Jacques, picks her top five examples of the genre.
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Getting to 50/50: How Working Parents Can Have It All
by Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober -
2
A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter
by Claudia Goldin -
3
Tempered Radicals
by Debra E Meyerson -
4
Behind the Kitchen Door
by Sarumathi Jayaraman -
5
Living Wages, Equal Wages: Gender and Labour Market Policies in the United States
by Deborah M. Figart and Ellen Mutari and Marilyn Power
The best books on Women and Work, recommended by Myra Strober
The best books on Women and Work, recommended by Myra Strober
Despite having slightly higher education levels, women working full-time in the US still only earn 79% of what men do. Stanford economist and author of Sharing the Work, Myra Strober, picks the best books—and one article—that explain the gender wage gap, and, more importantly, show us what we can do about it.
The best books on Popular Culture, recommended by Susan Bordo
Popular culture shapes our fantasies, our expectations and our beliefs about what is real, argues Susan Bordo. She picks five books that shed light on popular culture.
The best books on Feminism, recommended by Maria Sveland
The feminist author chooses liberating literature for women, from Virginia Woolf to Erica Jong. She says that men still don’t share equal responsibility in the home, and that life after divorce can be easier.