Books I Recommend to My Friends on International Women's Day - II
In honor of International Women’s Day, I recommend 9 books to my friends on social media every year from 2018. And it is to remember where did Women’s Day come from, what do we still have to do for women’s rights and how do we continue.
This mini-series is a look back to these year’s of reading, and it’s a record of my recommendations in the past four International Women’s Day, and I hope these recommendations can inspire you to read more fiction and nonfiction about women’s rights, understand more about women’s rights and feminism, and exam our day to day life with a feminist lens.
Today, let’s talk about the books I recommended to my friends in 2019.
Watch this video to find out more about what I learnt from these books, the details of why I recommended these books back in 2018, and why I still recommend reading them today.
ASKING FOR IT
by Kate Harding
A nonfiction book discussing rape and rape culture in the US. Tackles on the myth about women including slut-shaming, body shaming, and victim-blaming. It also talks about the politic around rape, and how rape culture is presented in the media, community, and the justice system. The book makes the case that in the current US system, society supports rapists more than the victims.
AIN’t I A WOMAN: black woman and feminists
by Bell Hooks
This is a book published prior to FEMINISM IS FOR EVERYBODY. It emphasized more on Bell Hook’s black feminist identity and dealt with the issue that black feminists were being isolated in the feminist movement because gender equality was treated as a white women issues by then.
This is a classic in feminist theory and also an important chapter in history.
房思琪的初恋乐园 Fang Siqi’s First Love Paradise
by 林奕含 Lin Yihan
This is a novel based on the author’s experiences. The protagonist is a 13 years girl who loves literature. She was raped by her Saturday school teacher who she admired, and to cope with the trauma, she made herself believe that she’s in love and in a relationship with the teacher. In the years following, she lived in pain, confusion, shame, and violence. This is a heartbreaking book, and beautifully written in Chinese, that makes me appreciate the language and the story behind each word.
MEN EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME
by Rebecca Solnit
This is an essay collection talking about the mansplaining the author encountered in day-to-day life, Mansplaining is when men intentionally or unintentionally silence women in a condescending way because they think they have the authority to talk over women on certain topics.
This is an educational book that makes you see mansplaining everywhere in life.
ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUITS
by Jeanette Winterson
This is an autobiography novel based on the author’s life. Jeanette grew up with her hyper religious mom, where there’s only one kind of fruit in her household, oranges, And there’s only right and wrong about things, As time goes on, she discovered her gay sexuality and also realized there are way more than one kind of fruit in the world, and being different doesn’t make people wrong.
This book is about self-discovering and the acceptance of self and others.
DEAR IJEAWELE, OR A FEMINIST MANIFESTO IN FIFTEEN SUGGESTIONS
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This is a Adichie answers her friends question of “how do I raise my daughter a feminist?”. This is a practical book with suggestions and tips for our daily life. It’s also a checklist for people from all age ranges to reflect on our behaviors,
Teach her that if you criticize X in women but do not criticize X in men, then you do not have a problem with X, you have a problem with women. For X please insert words like “anger,” “ambition,” “loudness,” “stubbornness,” “coldness,” “ruthlessness.”
女性たちの貧困 FEMALE POVERTY
by NHK TV Station
This is a nonfiction book about women in poverty in Japan. The two most surprising things in this book for me are 1, women are usually informal employees in Japan, getting less paid and fewer benefits compare to the men who are doing the same job. 2, women who work in semi-sexual services are grateful for the opportunities because they can not get any support elsewhere.
This is a warning of how Japanese social support is collapsing and a warning to people from all over the world too.
BECOMING
by Michelle Obama
This is Michelle’s autobiography, talking about her life from her upbringing in the south side of Chicago, all the way to when she became the first lady, and after. In this book, she’s honest about her life, thoughts, and politics without making it into a political statement. The book shows her standing as a woman, and didn’t shy away from the challenges she and her husband had when they are facing big changes. It’s empowering to see her independent choices about her career when she was expected by the public to fit in the role of Barack Obama’s wife.
She is as good of a writer as when she delivers speeches, the book is fluent, beautiful, and inspiring.
WHY I’M NO LONGER TALKING TO WHITE PEOPLE ABOUT RACE
by Reni Eddo-Lodge
This book is an answer to so many white people’s messages and emails that wanted to talk about race after Reni Eddo-Lodge published her blog with the same title. It breaks down the racism and sexism that the author encountered every day in the UK and talks about how privilege affects people’s take-outs from the same events.
This book is very educational and eye-opening to me, and it’s a book I want to reread in the near future.
Above are the nine books I recommended to my friends on International Women’s Day 2019, stay tuned for the books I recommended in the following years :)