As a journalist, I write about women and power. Iâve written about everything from taboos in womenâs health, to the importance of reproductive autonomy, to the ability of women athletes to shape culture. Across all of these subjects, my work is rooted in the desire to explore the factors that drive gender inequity and how we can create lasting cultural changes that will close the gap. If thereâs one thing Iâve learned in writing over 2,500 stories, itâs that gender inequityâfrom the pay gap, to the motherhood penaltyâalways comes back to power. And to one groupâs desire to keep it at all costs.
I wrote
Money, Power, Respect: How Women in Sports Are Shaping the Future of Feminism
White Feminism should be required reading for all but particularly for those interested in building more feminist spaces.
Journalist Koa Beck outlines the history of white feminismâessentially feminism that aspires to gain power within a system that harms marginalized groupsâin a way that challenged me to rethink some of the biggest âfeministâ movements in history.
From suffragettes to girlbosses, she sheds light on the ugly truth at the heart of so many feminist movements, which have often helped to perpetuate inequality, particularly for women of color. Instead, she argues for the building of new systems that center the most marginalized in what is one of the most galvanizing books Iâve ever read.
'Koa Beck writes with passion and insight about the knotted history of racism within women's movements and feminist culture, past and present. Curious, rigorous, and ultimately generous, White Feminism is a pleasure and an education.' Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad 'Intellectually smart and emotionally intelligent, Beck brilliantly articulates how feminism has failed women of colour and non-binary people. She illuminates the broad landscapes of systemic oppression and demands that white feminism evolve lest it continue to be as oppressive as the patriarchy.' Patrisse Khan-Cullors, cofounder of Black Lives Matter, author of When They CallâŚ
For anyone who has ever wondered if there is any truth behind sexist gender stereotypesâwomen are wired to be empathetic caregivers, men are biologically designed to be analytical problem-solvers, for exampleâaward-winning academic and writer Cordelia Fine breaks down whatâs really happening in the âmale brainâ vs. the âfemale brain.â
Spoiler alert: gender differences arenât so much hardwired as they are culturally conditioned. I found Delusions of Gender incredibly informative and empoweringâif stereotypical gender differences are the result of cultural conditioning, that means they can be changed.
It's the twenty-first century, and although we tried to rear unisex children-boys who play with dolls and girls who like trucks-we failed. Even though the glass ceiling is cracked, most women stay comfortably beneath it. And everywhere we hear about vitally important "hardwired" differences between male and female brains. The neuroscience that we read about in magazines, newspaper articles, books, and sometimes even scientific journals increasingly tells a tale of two brains, and the result is more often than not a validation of the status quo. Women, it seems, are just too intuitive for math; men too focused for housework.âŚ
If youâre intrigued by the psychology of relationships this is the novel for you.
Described as a modern-day Rebecca, this is a story of a bereaved manâs obsession with his deceased married lover, Michelle. Determined to find out all he can about Michelleâs life when she wasnât with him,âŚ
Journalist Caroline Criado Perez had me hooked from her opening line: âSeeing men as the human default is fundamental to the structure of human society.â
The âdefault maleâ lives at the heart of gender inequity shaping everything from the way snow plowing schedules are designed to the sometimes fatal gender gap in medical research and pharmaceutical development. This incredibly well-researched book shows just how dangerous chronically overlooking women can be.
Winner of the 2019 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Winner of the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize
Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development, to healthcare, to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this bias, in time, money, and often with their lives.
I love books that challenge me to question established systems and science writer Angela Saini does this with tour-de-force narrative skills in Inferior.
In this book, Saini examines how gender bias influences the scientific community, and critically, the research it produces. She dives right into the idea that men are thought to be superior, and challenges readers to go a level deeper in the debate about why men dominate.
'Inferior is more than just a book. It's a battle cry - and right now, it's having a galvanising effect on its core fanbase' Observer
Are women more nurturing than men?
Are men more promiscuous than women?
Are males the naturally dominant sex?
And can science give us an impartial answer to these questions?
Taking us on an eye-opening journey through science, Inferior challenges our preconceptions about men and women, investigating the ferocious gender wars that burn in biology, psychology and anthropology. Angela Saini revisits the landmark experiments that have informed our understanding, lays bare the problem of bias inâŚ
Act Like an Author, Think Like a Business
by
Joylynn M Ross,
Act Like an Author, Think Like a Business is for anyone who wants to learn how to make money with their book and make a living as an author. Many authors dive into the literary industry without taking time to learn the business side of being an author, which canâŚ
In The Double X Economy, economist Linda Scott lays down an incredibly detailed argument for why gender equality is important economically, not just morally.
What I loved most about this book was that it pushed me to see gender bias more clearlyâit is so tangled up with power that decision makers are often willing to leave money on the table to protect the status quo.
Winner of the 2020 Porchlight Business Book of the Year Award
One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2020. Finalist for the 2020 Royal Science Society Book Prize and the 2020 Porchlight Business Book Awards. Longlisted for the 2020 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year
âLinda Scott shines a light on womenâs essential and often invisible contributions to our global economyâwhile combining insight, analysis, and interdisciplinary data to make a compelling and actionable case for unleashing womenâs economic power.â âMelinda Gates, author of The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World
Sports donât just reflect our cultural attitudes, they shape them. They influence our ideas about what women are capable of, sway our perception of who has the right to identify as a woman or girl, and tell us a lot about the way a given society values women. In Money, Power, Respect journalist Macaela MacKenzie examines how women's sport influences womenâs powerâfrom equal pay, to social justice issues, to the motherhood penaltyâand how the conversations happening in sports ultimately shape our views on what's possible. Featuring in-depth interviews with some of the biggest names in sports, including Billie Jean King, Megan Rapinoe, and Allyson Felix, Money, Power, Respect outlines why what happens in this arena matters for all of us.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didnât matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courtâs overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over womenâs reproductive rights placesâŚ
The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. This book traces the story of the bull in the sky, a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull.