Feminist Summer Reading List

1. We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba – From Sunday Times bestselling author and entrepreneur comes a part-memoir, part-cultural commentary exploring the complicated relationship we all have money. Through a deeply honest account of her personal relationship with money and an exploration of issues such as misogyny, class and racism, Uwagba hopes to encourage “a generation of women” to understand their own experiences with money and feel less alone.
2. Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez – Numbers and data should be impartial to make decisions and solutions better. But when research methods are biased by overlooking gender and other inequalities, the conclusions will be too. Invisible Women exposes the gaps in data when gender isn’t accounted for and what this erasure costs women.
3. Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa – The first novel written and published in English by a Kurdish woman, Daughters of Smoke and Fire follows a Kurdish family living in Iran while weaving in the history of oppression and genocide Kurdish people have endured. Through the character of Leila, Homa explores being a “minority within a minority” as a woman and a Kurd, as she comes to realize her own power.
4. Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper – Cooper challenges the caricature of the “Angry Black Woman” with... well, actually, there are many injustices facing Black women that warrant rage. Using her own journey with feminism, Cooper talks about the need for connection and friendship between women, especially Black women. Through an intersectional lens, she shows that Black women’s anger is a force for justice across systemic racism, love, sex, misogyny, education, and more.
5. We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafzai – Violence displaced Malala and her family twice, the first from rising conflict and the second when she was shot for speaking out about girls’ rights to education. After speaking to her experiences, Malala introduces nine other women and girls from around the world, each with her own story of displacement. Their experiences demonstrate the difficulties for people forced to make the difficult choice of giving up their homes—a whole life they knew—and the courage it takes to not only rebuild their own life but to help others do the same. 
6. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi – In her debut novel, Gyasi weaves the stories and legacies of two sisters from Ghana, whose fates diverge when one marries a White Englishman and the other is stolen from her village then enslaved in America. The story follows their descendants, tied to historical touchpoints, as it digs into the intersectionality of racism, sexism, class, and more.
7. Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn – Over a decade ago, Half the Sky brought widespread attention to the issues of gender inequality holding back our world. Since its initial publishing, the world has evolved, with progress for women in some areas and deepening complexity in others. The urgency of many of the global problems raised by the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors persist today, making it a book worth revisiting as we open a new decade amid a pandemic that is threatening women’s rights.

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