Research Guides: Women's Studies: Books

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The Feminist Revolution: The Struggle for Women's Liberation
Call Number: HQ1121 .M867 2018

The Feminist Revolution offers an overview of women's struggle for equal rights in the late twentieth century. Beginning with the auspicious founding of the National Organization for Women in 1966, at a time when women across the world were mobilizing individually and collectively in the fight to assert their independence and establish their rights in society, the book traces a path through political campaigns, protests, the formation of women's publishing houses and groundbreaking magazines, and other events that shaped women's history.
Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America
Call Number: HQ1421 .N37 2017

In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, there was shock, outrage, and, for some, satisfaction. The misogyny, racism, and xenophobia that were features of the campaign have long been a part of American life, but many people are just now waking up to them...Here are inspiring essays from a diverse group of talented feminist writers on how we got there and what we need to do to move forward.
Don't Call Me Princess: Essays on Girls, Women, Sex, and Life by Peggy Orenstein
Call Number: HQ1155 .O74 2018

Named one of the "40 women who changed the media business in the last 40 years" by Columbia Journalism Review, Peggy Orenstein is one of the most prominent, unflinching feminist voices of our time. Her writing has broken ground and broken silences on topics as wide-ranging as miscarriage, motherhood, breast cancer, princess culture and the importance of girls' sexual pleasure.

Useful subject terms for searching:

women

women's rights

women's studies

feminism / feminists

feminist theory

gender / identity

sex differences

sex roles

businesswomen;
women executives

crimes against women;
abused women

minority women

women in politics

women in the military

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Taking on the Big Boys: Or Why Feminism Is Good for Families, Business, and the Nation
Call Number: E-BOOK

The feisty humor of Molly Ivins and the journalistic flair of Barbara Ehrenreich meet when longtime labor activist Ellen Bravo relates stories from business and government and women’s testimonies from offices, assembly lines, hospitals, and schools.
The F Word: How We Learned to Swear by Feminism
Call Number: E-BOOK

When it comes to the work/life balance, modern women continually find themselves in a no-win situation where they are criticized regardless of the path they choose. The F Word argues that the pervasive idea that women will never be able to effectively combine work or interests outside the home with marriage, a social life, and parenting is false.
Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild
Call Number: E-BOOK

A lively and compelling look back at the framing of one of the most contentious social movements of our time, Sisterhood, Interrupted exposes the key issues still at stake, outlining how a twenty-first century feminist can reconcile the personal with the political and combat long-standing inequalities that continue today.
Governing the Female Body: Gender, Health, and Networks of Power
Call Number: E-BOOK

This collection explores relations between the intimate governance of bodies and political governance. The contributors offer empirically grounded yet theoretically sophisticated case studies showing how gendered, racialized, and socioeconomic agendas structure medical and scientific practices.
Body Panic: Gender, Health, and the Selling of Fitness
Call Number: E-BOOK

While women and body image are often studied together, Body Panic considers both women's and men's bodies side-by-side and over time in order to offer a more in-depth understanding of this pervasive cultural trend.
Feminist Theory Today
Call Number: E-BOOK

This stimulating text presents a concise and accessible introduction to feminist theory today. Covering all the major variants of feminist political thought, it offers a unique examination of the archive of modern feminist theory from the publication of The Feminine Mystique in 1963 to current postmodernist and legal feminist texts.
Before They Could Vote: American Women's Autobiographical Writing, 1819-1919
Call Number: E-BOOK

The life narratives in this collection are by ethnically diverse women of energy and ambition—some well known, some forgotten over generations—who confronted barriers of gender, class, race, and sexual difference as they pursued or adapted to adventurous new lives in a rapidly changing America.

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Airborne Dreams: "Nisei" Stewardesses and Pan American World Airways
Call Number: HE9803.P36 Y36 2011

This absorbing account of Pan Am’s “Nisei” stewardess program suggests that the Japanese American (and later other Asian and Asian American) stewardesses were meant to enhance the airline’s image of exotic cosmopolitanism and worldliness. As its corporate archives demonstrate, Pan Am marketed itself as an iconic American company pioneering new frontiers of race, language, and culture.
Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture--and What We Can Do about It
Call Number: HV6556 .H37 2015

Every seven minutes, someone in America commits a rape. And whether that's a football star, beloved celebrity, elected official, member of the clergy, or just an average Joe (or Joanna), there's probably a community eager to make excuses for that person.
The author combines in-depth research with an in-your-face voice to make the case that twenty-first-century America supports rapists more effectively than it supports victims.
Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women
Call Number: JK276 2008 .T73 2010

Hillary is us -- Spousal supports -- Campaigning while female -- Five days in January -- The most restricting forces -- All about their mothers -- Boys on the bus -- Things to do in Denver if you're female -- Enter Palin -- Pop culture warriors -- The next wave is here -- The aftermath
The Cinderella Test: Would You Really Want the Shoe to Fit?
Call Number: HQ1206 .M267 2009

Subtle ways women are seduced and socialized into servitude and stereotypes. Will the "real" Cinderella please stand up? -- Growing up with fairy tales -- The silencing of Cinderella's voice -- Examining influences from the past -- Cinderella's sexuality -- Women's relationships -- Leading a self- or other-determined life?
Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Call Number: E76.8 .C75 2017

Critically Sovereign traces the ways in which gender is inextricably a part of Indigenous politics and U.S. and Canadian imperialism and colonialism. The contributors show how gender, sexuality, and feminism work as co-productive forces of Native American and Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, and epistemology.
Gender in Medieval Culture by Michelle M. Sauer
Call Number: HQ1147.E6 S28 2015

Provides a detailed examination of medieval society's views on both gender and sexuality, and shows how they are inextricably linked. Sex roles were clearly defined in the medieval world and this book examines both the commonplace world view and the exceptions to it.
Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men-- and What To Do About It
Call Number: HD6060.5.U5 M87 2005

pt. 1: Why not a dollar? -- The personal cost of the wage gap : a second-class life -- pt. 2: Now add discrimination -- Cents and sensibilities -- Plain old discrimination -- Wage discrimination by sexual harassment -- Women's work -- Everyday discrimination : working while female -- Working while mother : the mommy penalty -- pt. 3: Getting even -- No more excuses -- Starting to get even -- Women, working from the inside up -- CEOs, working from the top down -- All of us, working from the outside in.
A History of Women in America by Janet L. Coryell; Nora Faires
Call Number: HQ1410 .C675 2012

A History of Women in America integrates the stories of women in America with the national narrative of American history. The authors use accessible language and primary sources. Major ethnic groups, such as Hispanic, Latina, Chicana, and Asian women, are included.
Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong by Angela Saini
Call Number: HQ1180 .S25 2017

The author weaves together a fascinating--and sorely necessary--new science of women. She takes readers on a journey to uncover science's failure to understand women and to show how women's bodies and minds are finally being rediscovered.
Island Queens and Mission Wives: How Gender and Empire Remade Hawaii's Pacific World
Call Number: DU627 .T45 2014
(Hawaii Pacific Collection)

"In the late eighteenth century, Hawai'i's ruling elite employed sophisticated methods for resisting foreign intrusion. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, American missionaries had gained a foothold in the islands. Jennifer Thigpen explains this important shift by focusing on two groups of women: missionary wives and high-ranking Hawaiian women. Examining the enduring and personal exchange between these groups, Thigpen argues that women's relationships became vital to building and maintaining the diplomatic and political alliances that ultimately shaped the islands' political future.
Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights
Call Number: HQ767.5.U5 P65 2015

*NY TIMES Notable Book of the Year* In clear, concise arguments, Pollitt takes on the personhood argument, reaffirms the priority of a woman's life and health, and discusses why terminating a pregnancy can be a force for good for women, families, and society. By whole-heartedly defending abortion rights, Pollitt argues, we reclaim the lives and the rights of women and mothers.
Redefining Girly: How Parents Can Fight the Stereotyping and Sexualizing of Girlhood, from Birth to Tween
Call Number: HQ777 .W374 2014

Named one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2014. This essential guide gives parents and educators the tools they need to fight back against the modern stereotyping and sexualization of young girls.
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock
Call Number: HQ77.8.M63 A3 2014

A New York Times bestseller. This powerful memoir follows Janet Mock’s quest for identity, from an early, unwavering conviction about her gender to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that saw her transitioning during the tender years of high school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world alone for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. With unflinching honesty, Mock uses her own experience to impart vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of trans youth and brave girls like herself.
Sex and Gender
Call Number: BF692.2 .A72 2002

Commonsense beliefs and psychological research strategies -- Stereotypes, attitudes, and personal attributes -- Origins -- Developmental influences -- Sexuality : psychophysiology, psychoanalysis, and social construction -- Aggression, violence, and power -- Fear, anxiety, and mental health -- The domestic sphere -- Work, education, and occupational achievement -- Looking back and looking ahead.
Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman
Call Number: PN4874.W425 A3 2016

*NY Times Bestseller* Shrill is an uproarious memoir, a feminist rallying cry in a world that thinks gender politics are tedious and that women, especially feminists, can't be funny.
Visionary Women: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World by Andrea Barnet
Call Number: HQ1123 .B3575 2018

While they came from different generations, Carson, Jacobs, Goodall, and Waters found their voices in the early sixties. At a time of enormous upheaval, all four stood as bulwarks against 1950s corporate culture and its war on nature.
When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
Call Number: HQ1421 .C64 2010

Chronicles the revolution of women's civil rights throughout the past half century, drawing on oral history and research in a variety of disciplines while celebrating Hillary Clinton's recent presidential campaign.
Women's Rights in the USA
Call Number: HQ1236.5.U6 M392 2011

The US Constitution -- Political participation -- Reproduction -- Educaiton -- Family -- Work and pay -- Work and family -- Sexuality : regulation -- Sexuality : intimidation -- Economic status

More books on the shelf...

If you're browsing the bookshelves, see call numbers
HQ1 -- HQ2044 [The Family. Marriage. Women.]

Women, Law, and Social Control
Call Number: HV9950 .M47 2006

A collection of original articles written by leading scholars in the field that examines women as offenders, professionals, and victims. This integrated approach explores current issues – including the increase in women’s imprisonment rates, women as rape survivors, women who kill in abusive relationships, and women working within the criminal justice system–which illuminates the special sanctions women face today.
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
Call Number: HQ1236.5.D44 K75 2010
Male and Female Roles: Opposing Viewpoints
Call Number: HQ1075 .M354 2010
Tell Them Who I am: The Lives of Homeless Women
Call Number: HV4506.W2 L54 1993
Twenty Years at Hull-House
Call Number: HV4196.C4 A3 2009
Women's Roles in Ancient Civilizations
Call Number: HQ1127 .W654 1999
Women in Hawaii: Sites, Identities, and Voices
Call Number: HN933 .S62 v.38