After a beautiful summer celebrating womanhood with the Eras tour, the Renaissance tour, women’s soccer, and the historic release of Barbie, it felt as if the world was celebrating women’s hobbies instead of dismissing them. That triumph was short lived once award season began and the Oscar nominations were released. The brilliant director of Barbie, Greta Gerwig, and “Barbie” herself, Margot Robbie, were both not nominated for their respective roles, yet Ken, was.
Though Ryan Gosling is one hundred percent deserving of his nomination, the irony of the real-world paralleling the exact plot of Barbie, which showcases a society that only recognizes and rewards the Kens was not lost on any woman. Ryan, your performance was absolutely ‘kenough’.
Barbie was the first female-directed movie to gross $1 billion and is the 14th highest grossing movie of all time. Barbie takes a comedic, sometimes exaggerated, yet profound approach in showcasing how women are treated and how harmful patriarchy is. Instead of succumbing to that frustration, here are six books about women overcoming the restrictions of the patriarchy to continue to inspire us.
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
Men Explain Things to Me is a collection of essays that highlights how power is wielded today, brings awareness to the staggering inequalities that women experience, and holds a scope up to the contemporary violence against women. While there are many points of comic relief in these essays, the statistics of gendered violence create an undeniable picture of the pain and danger women face.
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Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
Bright Young Women centers around a brutal attack on a sorority house in 1978 and the two women who find themselves on a collision path in search of the truth. The title is a play on the words of the Florida judge who called Ted Bundy “a bright young man”, which weaves itself seamlessly into the story as it addresses the important issue of how the media and law enforcement perpetuate false narratives about male serial killers, focusing on their intelligence while simultaneously silencing the victims in favor of more salable headlines.
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Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Starting out as a successful female chemist on an all-male team at the Hastings Research Institute, Elizabeth Zott is far from your average woman in the 1960s. Her male colleagues treat her more as a secretary and frequently steal her work. That is, until Calvin Evans, another brilliant chemist, falls in love with her. A few years later, Elizabeth Zott is not only a single mother, but now the star of America’s most beloved cooking show “Supper at Six.” Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.
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In a Not So Perfect World by Neely Tubati Alexander
Sloane is in the running for her dream job in the video game design industry. The only problem? The company is run by a boys club with demands that put her dating life on ice. At first, that hardly seems like an issue after a bad breakup. However, when Sloane’s hunky hallway neighbor invites her on a tropical getaway in order to make his ex jealous, living up to the one-sided standards of her potential employers becomes fraught with difficulty. As Sloane prepares for the interview of her life in Turks and Caicos, she must not only battle the male-dominated mindset that believes it can control her personal life, but also her heart that’s begging her to dream a little bigger.
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The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
Five years ago, Geeta lost her no-good husband. He walked out on her, and she has no idea where he went. In Geeta’s village in India, everyone thinks she killed him. Which has its perks; people leave Geeta alone. Until the women of her village start to seek Geeta’s advice in husband disposal, and suddenly her dangerous reputation is a double-edged sword. When plans go south for a widow-to-be, everything changes for Geeta and the other women in the village.
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Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See
In this story of women helping women, Tan Yunxian was born into an elite family, yet her life has been riddled by tragedy. Raised by her grandparents to be useful, Yunxian learns early on about Chinese medicine from her grandmother, one of the only female doctors in China. She learns about the Four Examinations and all about women’s illnesses, most relating to childbearing. Yunxian forms a fast friendship with midwife-in-training, Meiling, and they vow to be friends forever. When Yunxian enters an arranged marriage, she is forbidden to see Meiling, to help the women and girls in the household, or to leave the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights. Yunxian must question what it takes for a woman to break free of the traditions that hold her back from healing and treating women from all walks of life.
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Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
In this unique short story collection, Machado unleashes pure honesty when it comes to the violence forced on women’s bodies. Balancing between otherworldly and earthy, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties gives shape to the complexities of women’s physical and emotional lives.
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Habitations by Sheila Sundar
This novel is a profound meditation on the many meanings of home told through the character Vega Gopalan as she moves from India to the United States and navigates through the many chapters of life from first love to single motherhood. Sundar highlights the ways in which women are forced to navigate multiple loyalties, including the most important one: to themselves.
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Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
This novel follows the life of Civil Townsend, a nurse at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic in 1973, as she works to help women gain autonomy over their bodies and choices. Assigned to two young girls who don’t have anyone to advocate for them, Civil grapples with her responsibility and role, becoming more than just their nurse. Until one day she arrives at their door to learn the unthinkable has happened, and nothing will ever be the same for any of them.
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Memphis by Tara Stringfellow
In the summer of 1995, ten-year-old Joan, along with her mother and sister, escapes her father’s volatile temper to find refuge in Memphis, revealing a family history marked by violence that traces back to her grandfather, the first Black detective in the city, who was lynched shortly after building the house. Amidst family secrets, Joan finds solace in painting, specifically portraits of the Memphis community, and through Miss Dawn’s stories, she connects with a tradition of perseverance and unfulfilled dreams, realizing her path is still up to her to determine.
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Untamed by Glennon Doyle
In this empowering memoir Glennon Doyle explores the liberation found in listening to her inner voice and rejecting societal expectations. The book is a journey of self-discovery, initiated by love at first sight during a conference, she endeavors to live authentically rather than conforming to roles of deemed “good” by society. Through personal stories, Doyle offers a perspective of self-trust and the courage to embrace both desires and boundaries.
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Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Girl, Woman, Other centers on the lives of twelve mostly female, black, and British characters as they tell passionate stories of their lovers, families, and friends. Each character provides a distinct and diverse voice all stemming from different backgrounds yet connecting with one another through race, age, class, and/or sexuality. This witty and emotional social novel about modern Britain and womanhood is filled with struggles, pains, love, and hope.
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