March was Women’s History Month, with International Women’s Day on the 8th March. I love this time of year, seeing every amazing woman celebrated. Not only do we look back at history and commemorate women’s fight for equality, but we look forward to the future and give focus to the issues that still cloud our society. It shines a light on the daily fight women are still struggling with – from gender quality to reproductive rights to an end to violence against women.

It’s so important to recognise these issues, so I made it my mission to challenge myself to read some books to celebrate! In this list we have an eclectic mix of memoir, self-help, journalistic explorations, and feminist manifestos.

Women Don’t Owe You Pretty – Florence Given

This is marketed as a very accessible entry point for anyone looking to explore feminist fiction (me!), with a specific emphasis on themes like body dysmorphia and body image, modern beauty standards, all within the constraints of a patriarchal society.

I didn’t think it added anything new to the feminist conversation. I didn’t feel like I got anything from this beyond a reinforcing of everything I already knew, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. like I said, the concepts are easy to grasp and the writing is highly accessible. Given’s views aren’t radical, and perhaps some things are oversimplified, but it was a solid entry-point for my first book!

Educated – Tara Westover

Educated is something I’ve been meaning to read for ages. A memoir by Tara Westover, she details her childhood born into a devout Mormon family, who spent their days preparing for the end of the world. She recounts how she, nor any of her six siblings, ever saw a doctor and how she was 17 before she ever set foot in a classroom. We go on a journey with her, from the remote plains of Idaho to sitting in a lecture hall at BYU, to Harvard and Cambridge.

The only thing that I would have liked to seen is if Tara had dwelled a bit more on the process of her gaining her education, and how she got her degree and especially her higher education and time at Cambridge, which all felt rather rushed at the end.

‘I am not the child my father raised, but he is the father who raised her.’

It was such an enlightening and inspiring story, one that I would truly recommend to everyone. It may have converted me to the genre of memoirs, so if anybody has any good recommendations similar, please send them my way! (Although I doubt you’ll beat this.)

In Defence of Witches – Mona Chollet 

I LOVED this one. Mona Chollet is a French journalist. She explores in great depth the historical repercussions of the widespread witch trials. It really opened my eyes to the horror of these witch hunts. When I think of witch hunts, I, like most people, think of the Salem Witch Trials, based in and around Boston and Massachusetts in the late 17th Century. Little did I know, the witch trials were so much more widespread and vicious than that one craze. It’s estimated that over a million women died – and yet people still throw the term ‘witch hunt’ around jovially?

It has viscerally altered my perception, both harrowing and information. Highly, HIGHLY, recommend for anyone, especially if you have an interest in history like I do!

All In Her Head – Dr Elizabeth Comen

This was a particularly emotional read. Dr Elizabeth Comen had worked in an oncology ward, specialising in breast cancer, for years. In the introductory chapter, she details her experience with this. Something sticks out – how apologetic all these women are, for inconveniencing other people with their suffering. The inciting incident, the moment that resolved Dr Comen to write this book, was when a terminal patient apologised for sweating profusely (a symptom of the illness). Thus Dr Comen embarks on a mission to take her readers through each of the eleven discrete organ systems, and how historical mistreatment, abuse and gaslighting of women have influenced medical practices and stigma today.

Let me know if you have any recommendations! Fiction, non-fiction, anything, send my way. It doesn’t have to be Women’s History Month to read books by and about amazing women 🙂