Celebrating Women’s Heritage: Recommended Reading
March is Women’s History Month. During the month of March 2023, the Popular Reading Display in the Hill Library's Learning Commons celebrates women’s leadership and revolutionary action. Learn more about Women's History Month.
Published March 2023
Being Heumann: an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist
Authors: Judith Heumann and Kristen Joiner
Summary: Judy Heumann has been a disability rights activist her whole life. She fought for fair education after being described as a “fire hazard” because of her mobility device, for her teaching license after being denied because of her paralysis, and for disabled peoples' rights in the movement leading up to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Women of Color In STEM: navigating the double bind in higher education
Editors: Beverly Irby, Nahed Abdelrahman, Barbara Polnick, and Julia Ballenger
Summary: The representation of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields has lagged behind progress made in other fields like law and business. This book explores the environmental and social barriers that researchers have revealed that continue to block women’s advancement in STEM and the inclusion of women of color in higher education.
We Are Still Here: Afghan women on courage, freedom, and the fight to be heard
Edited by: Nahid Shahalimi
Summary: After the United States ended their occupation of Afghanistan, the Taliban rapidly eroded over two decades of progress in social, political, and economic freedoms for women. We Are Still Here shares thirteen first-hand accounts of courageous Afghan women who refuse to be silenced.
A House of My Own: Stories from My Life
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Summary: Home has always been an inspiration for Sandra Cisneros. From the formative years in Chicago that inspired her award-winning The House on Mango Street to Iowa, Massachusetts, Greece, Bosnia, and San Antonio, she writes about the places she has lived. But a house of her own, a place where she could truly take root, has eluded her until she set down roots in Mexico City.
Honeypot: Black Southern women who love women
Author: E. Patrick Johnson
Summary: Dr. E. Patrick Johnson collects and shares the lives of queer Black women from all walks of life through a mixture of magical realism, Black storytelling traditions, and poetry. He is led through their real-life stories by a mythical shapeshifting trickster, to unpack patriarchy, class, sex, gender, and the challenges that these women face.
Conversations with Octavia Butler
Edited by: Conseula Francis
Summary: The science fiction worlds of Nebula and Hugo award winning author Octavia Butler challenged notions of race, sex, gender, and humanity. Through interviews ranging from 1980 until just before her sudden death in 2006, Conversations with Octavia Butler celebrates her prolific and trailblazing career.
Indigenous Activism: profiles of Native women in contemporary America
Edited by: Clifford E. Trafzer, Donna L. Akers, and Amanda K. Wixon
Summary: Indigenous Activism celebrates the strength and vibrancy of eighteen Native American women dedicated to the ongoing preservation and welfare of their people. These stories are about restoring traditional lifeways, preserving ancestral lands, leadership in tribal governments, and the ongoing fight against assimilation and cultural genocide.
Broad Band: the untold story of the women who made the Internet
Author: Claire L. Evans
Summary: From Ada Lovelace to Stacy Horn, the foundational contributions of women to the internet are often overlooked and written out of history. Visionary women have always been at the vanguard of technology, turning up at the beginning of every important wave of innovation and touching our lives in ways we didn’t realize, until now.
Dolly Parton, gender, and country music
Author: Leigh H. Edwards
Summary: Adeptly playing off stereotypes to critique and subvert tropes of femininity, Dolly Parton fashioned an iconic style and enduring entertainment career. Her witty music attracts a diverse fan base that spans country and pop and embraces feminists and gay rights advocates.
Data Feminism
Authors: Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein
Summary: Data science is power, and data never, ever "speak for themselves." Data has been used to expose injustice, improve health outcomes, and topple governments. But wielded carelessly or maliciously, it has also been used to discriminate, surveil, and oppress. In Data Feminism, Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein present a new way of thinking about data science and data ethics informed by intersectional feminist thought.
First: Sandra Day O'Connor
Author: Evan Thomas
Summary: When Sandra Day O'Connor graduated from law school near the top of her class, no firm would interview her. In a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she became a law maker—the first woman majority leader in any state senate. After a distinguished career over a quarter-century long, she was appointed as the first woman to the Supreme Court where she served another quarter century.
Jane Crow: the life of Pauli Murray
Author: Rosalind Rosenberg
Summary: Growing up in the South as a mixed-race orphan and struggling with gender identity throughout life, Pauli Murray channeled the discrimination she faced into social change. After being rejected by the University of North Carolina because of her race, she went on to become the first African American to graduate from Yale Law School, and her legal scholarship has been key to civil rights advancements.