Across the world women are coming together, raising their voices, and organizing to change their social, political, legal and economic status and secure a better future for women. In recognition of International Women's Day on March 8, we want to highlight books that document some of these important efforts around the globe.

Betraying Big Brother:The Feminist Awakening in China by Leta Hong Fincher

On the eve of International Women's Day in 2015, the Chinese government arrested five feminist activists and jailed them for thirty-seven days. The Feminist Five became a global cause célèbre, with Hillary Clinton speaking out on their behalf and activists inundating social media with #FreetheFive messages. But the Five are only symbols of a much larger feminist movement of civil rights lawyers, labor activists, performance artists, and online warriors prompting an unprecedented awakening among China'ss educated, urban women. In Betraying Big Brother, journalist and scholar Leta Hong Fincher argues that the popular, broad-based movement poses the greatest challenge to China's authoritarian regime today.

Excellent Daughters: The Secret Lives of Young Women Who are Transforming the Arab World by Katherine Zoepf

A first-of-its-kind exploration of a new generation of Arab women who are questioning authority, changing societies and leading revolutions brings a new understanding of the changing Arab societies, from 9/11 to Tahrir Square to the rise of ISIS, and gives voice to the extraordinary women at the forefront of this change.

Why I March: Images from the Women's March Around the World edited by Samantha Weiner and Emma Jacobs

On January 21, 2017, five million people in 82 countries and on all seven continents stood up with one voice. The Women's March began with one cause, women's rights, but quickly became a movement around the many issues that were hotly debated during the 2016 U.S. presidential race--immigration, health care, environmental protections, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, freedom of religion, and workers' rights, among others. ABRAMS Image presents Why I March to honor the movement, give back to it, and promote future activism in the same vein.

Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening by Manal Sharif

An intimate memoir by a devout Saudi Arabian woman who became the unexpected leader of a movement to support women's rights to drive describes how fundamentalism influenced her radical religious beliefs until her education, a job, and legal contradictions changed her perspectives and made her an accidental activist.

Rwandan Women Rising by Swanee Hunt

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy

In seven essays, Mona Eltahawy explains how we must seize what she calls the feminist revolutionary moment that has galvanized women and queer people across the world.  lluminating her call to action are stories of activists and ordinary women around the world—from South Africa to China, Nigeria to India, Bosnia to Egypt—who are tapping into their inner fury and crossing the lines of race, class, faith, and gender that make it so hard for marginalized women to be heard. Rather than teaching women and girls to survive the poisonous system they have found themselves in, Eltahawy arms them to dismantle it

 

 

To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminsism in Europe edited by Akwugo Emejulu and Francesca Sobande

This book brings together activists, artists and scholars of colour to show how Black feminism and Afrofeminism are being practiced in Europe today. Deeply aware that they are constructed as 'Others' living in a racialised and hierarchical continent, the contibutors explore gender, class, sexuality and legal status to show that they are both invisible—presumed to be absent from and irrelevant to European societies—and hyper-visible—assumed to be passive and sexualised, angry and irrational. Through imagining a future outside the neocolonial frames and practices of contemporary Europe, this book explores a variety of critical spaces including motherhood and the home, friendships and intimate relationships, activism and community, and literature, dance and film.

Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East by Isobel Coleman (e-book only)

Isobel Coleman shows how Muslim women and men across the Middle East are working within Islam to fight for women’s rights in a growing movement of Islamic feminism. Coleman introduces the reader to influential Islamic feminist thinkers and successful grassroots activists working to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women. Their advocacy for women’s rights based on more progressive interpretations of Islam are critical to bridging the conflict between those championing reform and those seeking to oppress women in the name of religious tradition. 

Women and the Vote: A World History by Jad Adams

Before 1893 no woman anywhere in the world had the vote in a national election. A hundred years later almost all countries had enfranchised women, and it was a sign of backwardness not to have done so. This is the story of how this momentous change came about. The first genuinely global history of women and the vote, it takes the story of women in politics from the earliest times to the present day, revealing startling new connections across time and national boundaries—from Europe and North America to Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Muslim world post-9/11. A story of individuals as well as of wider movements, it includes the often dramatic life-stories of women's suffrage pioneers from across the world, painting vivid biographical portraits of everyone from Susan B. Anthony and the Pankhursts to hitherto lesser-known activists in China, Latin America, and Africa.

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Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!

Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.