9 Books Breaking the Silence on Violence Against Women

Content warning: some of these books contain graphic detail of sexual violence, loss of children and mentions of torture.  

1) Mayada: Daughter of Iraq by Jean Sasson

A member of one of the most distinguished and honored families in Iraq, Mayada grew up among royalty. But when Saddam Hussein's regime took power, she was thrown into the infamous Baladiyat prison with seventeen other nameless, faceless women – each with their own story to tell.

These "shadow women" spent their days passing the time by sharing their stories and experiences with each other. Now, through writer Jean Sasson, Mayada is able to tell her story, and the stories of these other women too. 

2) The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Color Purple depicts life for African-American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia, America. It tells the story of two sisters separated as children through a series of letters spanning twenty years.

This is a powerful book that breaks the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, sharing the lives of women through the good and the bad – their pain, companionship, growth, resilience and bravery.

3) Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam by Zainab Salbi

At the age of 21, founder of Women for Women International, Zainab Salbi, was in America because of the Gulf War. Known as the pilot’s daughter in Iraq, her father was the personal pilot for Saddam Hussein. With a privileged but troubled upbringing, Zainab presents the two worlds that she has lived in and what has made her the passionate advocate for women that she is today.

In her striking memoir, Zainab speaks to both the pain she experienced and the power that she found as a young woman. The silence that had kept her alive as a girl made way for a powerful voice that she used to grow beyond her personal suffering and fight for women survivors of war everywhere. 

4) Nobody's Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs and Trolls by Carrie Goldberg

Carrie Goldberg invites her readers to the courtroom, on the front lines of the war against sexual violence and privacy violations as she sues tech companies, schools and sexual predators. 

This book details her client's experiences from victimhood to fighter and survivor. Goldberg also shares her own story that inspired her career in law, becoming the advocate and fighter she herself needed. 

5) Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women by Christina Lamb 

Christina Lamb has worked in war and combat zones for over 30 years. In Our Bodies, Their Battlefield she elevates the voices of women experiencing conflicts, exposing how rape is used by armies, terrorists and militias as a weapon to humiliate, oppress and carry out ethnic cleansing. Speaking to survivors first-hand, Lamb encounters the suffering and bravery of women in war and meets those fighting for justice. From women who survived the Rwandan Genocide, World War II, the invasion of Iraqi communities by ISIS and more, Lamb shares powerful stories of heroism and resistance.

6) No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder 

Award-winning journalist Rachel Louise Snyder once believed all the common misconceptions about domestic violence, but her perception changed when she began talking to the victims and perpetrators whose stories she tells in this book.

Reporting from the front lines of what the WHO has deemed a ‘global epidemic’, Snyder interviews men who have murdered their families, women who have nearly been murdered, and a range of professionals in advocacy and law enforcement, painting a vivid and nuanced picture of what happens when relationships go badly wrong.

7) The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State by Nadia Murad

Nadia Murad is a courageous young woman. She has lost eighteen members of her family and survived degradation through sexual enslavement to ISIS. But she has fought back. This inspiring memoir takes us from her peaceful childhood in a remote village in Iraq through loss and brutality to safety in Germany.

A Nobel Peace Prize nominee, the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations and winner of the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize, Murad shares her story of courage and resilience. 

8) The Pocket Guide to the Patriarchy by Maya Oppenheim

In this practical and informative guide, Maya Oppenheim explores the current status of women's rights, spanning topics from women's health to the criminal justice system. The Pocket Guide to Patriarchy is filled to the brim with shocking statistics, enlightening anecdotes and expert rebuttals ready to counter any defence of the patriarchy. 

9. Liliana's Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza

In 1990, Cristina Rivera Garza's sister, Liliana, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, becoming yet another victim of Mexico's dark and relentless history of femicide. Returning to Mexico after decades of living in the United States, Cristina begins to collect and curate evidence - handwritten letters, police reports, school notebooks - to defy a pattern of increasingly normalised, gendered violence and demand justice for her sister. 

Buy your books via our Women for Women International storefront on Bookshop.org and we'll receive 10% commission of every sale in support of our work with women survivors of war, with a matching 10% going to independent bookshops - at no extra cost to you.