“Feminist” is a word that we have heard a lot throughout the news and social media in both positive and negative terms. There are thousands of people who believe in equal rights, but consider “feminism” a word and a movement that is not in line with their personal beliefs or values.
An important aspect of feminism is the “equality”, not the “equality” of men and women. Many people argue that women are not “equal” to men, so there can be no equality. In other words, because their bodies are different (many say they are weaker and smaller) and because men and women have different physical abilities, these physical differences make equality impossible. This is ridiculously wrong, because if there are two young boys in the classroom and one is physically weaker and smaller than the other, is it right to take the weaker and smaller boy out of equal access to teacher and computer learning? Deprive books and classroom resources of other classmates because they did not have the same physical strength as the other boys?
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Now the question is, what makes a feminist? For centuries, exploring feminist ideas has been a major part of literature, and reading the best feminist books is one way to engage in feminism and a great way to confront and interact with some of these perspectives.
Books on feminism and the experiences of other women show how diverse women’s experiences really are around the world. These books give you a wealth of information and awareness on issues of equality, freedom of expression, limited voice and outright honesty. In fact, it does not matter if you know much or little about the women’s movement; These feminist books give you information and the power to fight for what is right.
If you are looking for inspirational books to motivate you in the fight for gender equality or you are interested in reading feminist books, here are 5 of the best feminist fiction and non-fiction books.
We should all be feminists
“We Should All Be Feminists” by Chimamanda Angozi Adishi, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, was first published in 2014 and immediately after its release as one of Amazon’s best-selling books in the field of study. The general became gendered.
In this book, Adichi provides readers with a unique definition of feminism for the 21st century with humor and expressive language; A definition that is rooted in inclusion and awareness. She highlights not only overt discrimination, but also more insidious and institutionalized behaviors that marginalize women around the world to help readers of all walks of life better understand the often-hidden realities of politics.
Throughout We Must All Be Feminists, she makes extensive use of her experiences in the United States, her hometown of Nigeria, and abroad, giving an artistic explanation of why the gender divide is harmful to both men and women.
Adici thinks that most of his singers are like his friend Luis, who thinks that women were only discriminated against in the past, but “now everything is good for women.”
In All We Must Be Feminists, Adichi articulates her arguments calmly but skillfully. By writing a shocking example from his childhood in a school in Nigeria, he demonstrates how insidious and entrenched gender bias is and how harmful it is to the delicate psyche of young people; His elementary school teacher enacted an arbitrary rule that a class observer must be a boy, even though 9-year-old Adici had the highest grade in the class at the time.
We Should All Be Feminists is an amazing and shocking book that, in addition to readers interested in reading feminist books, should reach out to all students and teachers to evoke new conversation and awareness.
In part of the book we all have to be feminists we read:
“Today, using gender as a tool is a great injustice. I’m angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of making positive changes. In addition to anger, I am hopeful, because I deeply believe that it is human ability to rebuild itself for the better. But back to the subject of anger.
There was a kind of warning in the tone of this acquaintance, and I was well aware that the comments and opinions that were made about my article were more about my personality than about my article. “Anger is not good at all, especially for women,” said my friend. “If you are a woman, you should not show your anger, because it is a threatening issue for you.”
The Yellow Wall-Paper
“The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was first published in 1892.
This book contains a collection of short stories that showcase her progressive views on feminism and mental health in two famously powerful stories.
The titles of the stories are: “Yellow Wallpaper”, “The Story of Two Houses”, “Jumping Platform”, “Giant Vine”, “Widow’s Decision”, “Vanhadeh”, “Cradle Chair”, “If I Was Hesitant”, “Escape from” Home”. By the end of the nineteenth century, women were still considered psychologically weak, and in addition to their intellectual aspirations not being recognized, they were increasingly ridiculed and suffocated. This story depicts the experience of a woman who spends the summer with her husband and sister in a beautiful colonial mansion, trying to cope with her daily and monotonous life.
The protagonist and anonymous narrator of the Yellow Wallpaper book is trapped in his attic, separated from his newborn baby, and suffering from postpartum depression. He holds a secret diary in which he records the scattered and changing patterns of the yellow wallpaper of the room as he slowly sinks into madness.
Throughout the story, three men in the Netherlands seek to discover a female community that is rumored to be hiding deep in the jungle. What they find surprises them all; They see women who have been living peacefully and prosperously without men for two thousand years in a nowhere.
From the story of this beautiful and rich book, we can learn a lot about the past period of women, the role and rights of women, marriage, mental health, internal psychological dimensions, the ratio of cognitive stimulation to health and many other things.
In a part of the yellow wallpaper book, we read:
“I forgot that my hand does not reach the top. I have to find something under my foot that can reach the top. This bed will not move. I tried to lift it before, but I did not try as hard as I could until I felt helpless and very angry and pushed a small piece of the bed into my teeth, but it damaged my teeth. Then I folded all the wallpaper as far as the floor of my room. The paper is terribly stuck to the wall and enjoys sticking to the part where the design is. “All those severed heads, puffy, round eyes, intermittent growths and fungus-like growth in parallel lines just seem to make fun of you.”
Women & Power: A Manifesto
The book “Manifesto of a Feminist in Fifteen Proposals” with the original title “Women & Power: A Manifesto” is the work of Nigerian women rights activist, speaker and author Chimamanda Nagozi Adichi, first published in 2017 and translated into Persian by Fatemeh Baghestani Is. This short but powerful manifesto is essential to help define how we create the feminist future.
A few years before the book was published, Adichi received a letter from an old friend asking how to raise a little girl as a feminist. Written in response to this letter, the book outlines 15 suggestions ranging from sexuality to the rejection of historical myths and xenophobia.
In fact, this amazing feminist book contains fifteen valuable, vital, convincing, candid and hilarious suggestions to learn how to prepare a girl to become a strong and independent woman.
The Fifteen Manifesto offers fifteen suggestions for teaching a young girl how to read and recognizing the role of language in reinforcing unhealthy cultural norms, such as encouraging her to choose a helicopter and not just having a doll and Barbie as toys.
This book goes right to the heart of 21st century sex politics and dispels the myth that women are biologically designed to be in the kitchen and that men can “allow” women to have jobs. In fact, the story of this book is a new and necessary conversation about what it really means to be a woman in today’s world.
In an introduction to The Feminist Manifesto, the author makes fifteen suggestions:
“Your note made me cry; You know, I get emotional a lot of the time. Too bad I put myself in your shoes and thought very seriously about how you could make your daughter a feminist woman, and I understood what I meant when I knew I often did not have a feminist response to different situations. For me, feminism has always been defined by circumstances, I do not have a predetermined principle or law for it, and the closest method I have in mind to it is to use two feminist tools, the second of which is a question: Can you reverse the choice? “And get the same result?”
Women & Power: A Manifesto
“Women & Power: A Manifesto” is an internationally acclaimed classic by New York Times bestselling author Mary Baird, first published in 2017. This talented and acclaimed author is known for making television programs that make history exciting and for great science fiction books that have received valuable awards. Despite significant progress over the past decades, women have a lower presence in the upper echelons of society, whether in government, academia, or private sector organizations. You do not have to be a feminist to know statistics, but what most of us do not know is why, and many would like to know why this happened.
In Women and Power, Baird seeks to shed light on the current situation by unraveling the classical roots of modern anti-feministism. In this book, she examines the roots of xenophobia and how women have been denied, abused, and silenced throughout history. This book, while short, beautiful and simple, is an incredibly powerful book.
The book Women and Power contains its own reflections and narratives, as well as examples from the life of Homer’s Odyssey to Hillary Clinton and the turbulent relationship between women and power over the centuries. He shows that in Homer’s odyssey, women are barred from leadership roles in civic life, and that public speech is inherently masculine.
The purpose of this book is to explore history and classical literature to discover the roots of the exclusion of women’s voices from places where effective decisions are made in society and power is exercised.
In fact, Byrd sees the absence of women in power as the historical exclusion of women from public discourse through the wise use of classical examples. She argues that we are not accustomed to seeing women as figures of authority or with any kind of expertise outside the home. Thus, women who seemingly gain power must compensate for their femininity in various ways; From teaching speech and lowering their voices, as Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher did, to wearing Angela Merkel’s suit.
In part of the book Women and Power we read:
“It’s not because of what you say, it’s just because you say it. And this is consistent with the details of the threats themselves. Threats include a more or less predictable list of assaults, beatings, murders, and the like (this may seem very cool and relaxing right now, but that does not mean it is not scary at the end of the night). But much of it is about keeping women silent. “Shut up woman” is almost common. “Or it threatens to take the breath away of women.”
The Handmaid’s Tale
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood was first published in 1985. The book won awards such as the Governor General Award (1985), the Common Walt Award (1987), the first Arthur C. Clarke Prize (1987), the Los Angeles Times Prize (1986), and the Booker Prize (1986). No list of the best feminist books is complete without reference to Margaret Atwood’s elaborate dystopia.
The story of Nadima’s story takes place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the mid-1980s, near Boston, Massachusetts, a group of right-wing fundamentalists assassinated the president and members of Congress, confiscated women ‘s credit cards and barred them from employment and education. They set out to destroy them.
Because nuclear and biological warfare has infected large areas, the population is shrinking sharply and all babies are born with birth defects. As a result, infertile and elderly women, as well as homosexuals, are sent to the colonies as crews.
The story is told in the first person by a woman named Afred. In this age of environmental pollution and radiation, she remains one of the few fertile women. Afred begins his story with a flashback to his time at Rachel and Leah Center; Where she and the other maids receive training. He remembers the women who guarded and trained them, and at night patrolled with electric cows and leather belts.
In fact, the novel examines the themes of dominated women in a patriarchal society, the loss of female agency and individuality, and the various tools of resistance and struggle for individuality and independence. A series of the same name has been adapted from this book, which depicts the suffering and oppression of women on the screen. The story of this book is the story of a restriction that a dictatorial regime imposes on women in its first steps, reducing women to a reproductive system. This book has a feminist narrative because it tells the story of captive but freedom-loving women who rise from the heart of a patriarchal society and oppose the law.
In a part of Nadimeh’s biography, we read:
“It seemed to me that I was speaking like them, a monotonous voice, the voice of a doll. He probably wanted to slap me. They are allowed to hit us, this is also recorded in the Bible. Of course, they should not hit us with a tool, only with their hands.
“This is one of the things we fought for,” said the woman commander. And then suddenly he looked away from me. He was looking at his rough hands covered with diamonds and I did not know where I had seen him. I saw him on TV when I was eight or nine years old. “When my mother was asleep, I would wake up early on Sunday mornings and go to the TV set in my mother’s study room and change networks to watch cartoons.”