This Galentine’s Day, as we celebrate the women in our lives, we turn to some of our favorite books by and about women. From powerful memoirs by women struggling against adversity, to investigations of the past and future of feminism, get inspired by these female-authored books, each 30% off on nyupress.org with coupon WAFFLE3020!
Jewish Radical Feminism
Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement
Joyce Antler
Fifty years after the start of the women’s liberation movement, a book that at last illuminates the profound impact Jewishness and second-wave feminism had on each other
“From consciousness-raising groups, to health collectives, to militant lesbians and women standing up to religious patriarchy, historian Antler spends time with the dozens of Jewish personalities of radical feminist movements women who challenged the structure of society far beyond the reach of laws.” —Lilith
First Ladies of the Republic
Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, and the Creation of an Iconic American Role
Jeanne E. Abrams
How the three inaugural First Ladies defined the role for future generations, and carved a space for women in America
“Accessible and entertaining, First Ladies of the Republic offers readers a refreshing and often perceptive view of its subjects. Abrams is thoroughly versed in the voluminous literature on women’s and gender history, employing her understanding of that literature to good advantage…this is a compelling effort, and one that historians and the general public will profit from reading” —American Historical Review
Stripped, 2nd Edition
Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers
Bernadette Barton
“Compelling. . . . This accessibly written, matter-of-fact book makes important contributions to what is known about the lives and experiences of the growing number of women who ‘dance’ naked for money. . . . Throughout, the author listens attentively to the shifting, insightful, diverse voices of women with whom she has a palpably respectful connection. Barton uses the complex picture that emerges to engage longstanding debates over the meanings of commodified femininity and sexuality.” —Choice
A Body, Undone
Living On After Great Pain
Christina Crosby
“In her surgically incisive descriptions of how it feels to live in her ravaged body and to redefine herself within extreme new limits, Crosby resists both self-pity and the too-easy narrative of hardship overcome. Instead, she asks readers to recognize how messy, precarious, and queer, in every sense of the word, life in a body can be.” —The New Yorker
Finding Feminism
Millennial Activists and the Unfinished Gender Revolution
Alison Dahl Crossley
The contemporary tactics of millennial feminists who are part of an active movement for social change
“Finding Feminism embraces queer women and argues that feminism does not occur in waves . . . Crossley’s concept of waveless feminism very well may help us move beyond the stalled gender revolution.” —Curve Magazine
In My Own Moccasins
A Memoir of Resilience
Helen Knott
Published by University of Regina Press
“An incredibly forceful and moving book, the embodiment of what it means to reconcile, both with oneself and with others.” —Quill & Quire
“A beautiful rendering of how recovery for our peoples is inevitably about reconnecting with Indigenous identities, lands, cultural and healing practices.” —Kim Anderson, author of Reconstructing Native Womanhood
Such a Pretty Girl
A Story of Struggle, Empowerment, and Disability Pride
Nadina LaSpina
Published by New Village Press
“From pity to empowerment, a woman born with polio illuminates her personal changes in attitude and accomplishment amid sweeping societal changes in rights for the disabled. . . . ‘I was the luckiest woman in the world,’ insists the author in this revelatory and deeply moving memoir that clearly shows how and why she came to feel that way.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Openings
A Memoir from the Women’s Art Movement, New York City 1970-1992
Sabra Moore
Published by New Village Press
This abundantly illustrated personal narrative takes readers through twenty-two years of activism in the women’s art movements in New York City during a period of great cultural change. Sabra Moore vividly recounts life in this era of social upheaval in which women artists responded to war, racial tension and reconciliation, cultural and aesthetic inequality, and struggles for reproductive freedom. We learn intimately how she and fellow women artists found ways to create politically and personally effective art works, exhibitions, actions, and institutions.
Abolitionist Socialist Feminism
Radicalizing the Next Revolution
Zillah Eisenstein
Published by Monthly Review Press
A personal and political manifesto vying for an antiracist socialist feminist movement of movements
“This book is stunning in its questions and tone, open and learning, personal and theoretical. It is a gift to us all, one that helps so much in these critical, difficult times.” —Susan Buck-Morse, CUNY Graduate Center
Like Family
Domestic workers in South African history and literature
Ena Jansen
Published by Wits University Press
“Like Family deepens our understanding of how the institution both reflects and reproduces the savage inequalities on which our society continues to be based.” —Jacklyn Cock, author of Maids and Madams: A Study in the Politics of Exploitation
