My experience is derived from actual experience and my fight to survive. I found it within me to keep my wits about me and think, think, think about my surroundings and my assailant's movements and vulnerabilities. I waited for the one and only moment I would have to escape. Once free, I sought help and I told my story again and again until I found justice.
I wrote
Rising from Rape: A Memoir of Survival and Justice
It introduced me to the status of women in ancient times when society worshipped the moon, a feminine deity. Women led religious rituals and they were regarded as the givers of life. By contrast, by the time of King David, man worshipped the Sun, a male deity, and women's status was lowered to become regarded as mere bearers of life.
Here is a classic study of the feminine principle in myths, dreams, and religious symbolism. In presenting the archetypal foundations of feminine psychology, the author shows how the ancient religious initiations of the moon goddess symbolized the development of the emotions. Understanding the psychological meaning of these initiations, she believes, can help to heal the troubled relations between men and women today.
Lee Madigan, a clinical psychologist in Orange County, CA, specializes in treating victims of violent crime. She wrote her book after hearing repeating themes among her patients. I learned that the blame I was receiving, the adverse reactions I was experiencing, the microaggressions, were very common and not my fault. It helped me heal.
This text attempts to expose the blind, subtle betrayal of the rape victim by the perpetrators of the "second rape"- the police, medical and mental health workers and the criminal justice system.
Ellen and I participated in the same self-defense course, Impact Personal Safety, in San Diego County, CA. The course taught me how to deliver a knockout punch against an assailant. That skill gave me confidence that I could protect myself and I finally broke out of the protective shell in which I'd been encased since my attack. Her book reinforced the truth that it's okay and, in fact, life-saving, to fight back.
BEAUTY BITES BEAST is not a “how-to” book, it is a “how-come” book. As in, “how-come” every woman and girl needs to know how to defend themselves. They, like all females of other species in the world, are capable of defending themselves and their loved ones — if they learn how. It is not the female’s size, it is her culturally induced ignorance that makes her think she is helpless. BEAUTY BITES BEAST is a clarion call to “sleeping beauties,” so they can wake up and take charge of their own self-defense — emotional, verbal and physical. The book also…
I can easily relate to the two female main characters who face life-threatening danger in performing their work and gender bias among coworkers. Despite it, they succeed. During my recovery, my counselors impressed upon me that women should build supportive partnerships with other women. It's not only constructive but very empowering. Together, like the characters in this book, we can build the careers we envision, and achieve rhe recognition we deserve.
Two bodies. A dangerous secret. A terrifying force. The latest "excellent" novel in wildly popular series featuring archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson (Publishers Weekly).
Lucas Tappan, a wealthy and eccentric billionaire and founder of Icarus Space Systems, approaches the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute with an outlandish proposal—to finance a careful, scientific excavation of the Roswell Incident site, where a UFO is alleged to have crashed in 1947. A skeptical Nora Kelly, to her great annoyance, is tasked with the job.
Nora's excavation immediately uncovers two murder victims buried at the site, faces and hands obliterated with acid…
I ordered the book because the author was described as intelligent, honest, and hopeful. She had to be hopeful; I knew that from experience. She waited 30 years for her story to receive widespread attention. Mine remained archived for 20. For both of us, society had to evolve enough to address the subject in a meaningful way. Like me, she reveals the stigmas and assumptions about the crime and its victims that make recovery such a challenge.
"What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is brilliant, frank, empowering, and urgently necessary. Sohaila Abdulali has created a powerful tool for examining rape culture and language on the individual, societal, and global level that everyone can benefit from reading." ―Jill Soloway
In the tradition of Rebecca Solnit, a beautifully written, deeply intelligent, searingly honest―and ultimately hopeful―examination of sexual assault and the global discourse on rape told through the perspective of a survivor, writer, counselor, and activist
After surviving gang-rape at seventeen in Mumbai, Sohaila Abdulali was indignant about the deafening silence that followed and wrote a fiery…
As a new attorney, Pamela Braswell was confident her career was about to skyrocket. Instead, she narrowly escaped death at the hands of a serial rapist and killer—his only surviving victim. Twenty years later, the moratorium on executions in California that put his execution on hold ended, but the governor announced he wouldn't enforce the death penalty. Braswell's firsthand true crime narrative gives a victim's perspective of the harrowing investigation, the revelations in the press, the grand jury indictment, and capital murder trial. Through it all, her refusal to be a victim transforms her view of the world—and its heroes.
I’m an OB/GYN, passionate about adventuring beyond what’s expected. This has led me to pivot multiple times in my career, now focusing on writing. I’ve written a play, The Post-Roe Monologues, to elevate women’s stories. I cherish the curiosity that drives outer and inner exploration, and I love memoirs that skillfully weave the two. The books on this list feature extraordinary women who took risks, left comfort and safety, and battled vulnerability to step into the unknown. These authors moved beyond the stories they’d believed about themselves–or that others told about them. They invite you to think about living fuller and bigger lives.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
The team attempts a new route up the East Face without the use of supplemental oxygen, Sherpa support, or chance for rescue. When three climbers disappear during their summit attempt, Zieman reaches the knife edge of her limits and digs deeply to fight for the climbers’ lives and to find her voice.
The plan was outrageous: A small team of four climbers would attempt a new route on the East Face of Mt. Everest, considered the most remote and dangerous side of the mountain, which had only been successfully climbed once before. Unlike the first large team, Mimi Zieman and her team would climb without using supplemental oxygen or porter support. While the unpredictable weather and high altitude of 29,035 feet make climbing Everest perilous in any condition, attempting a new route, with no idea of what obstacles lay ahead, was especially audacious. Team members were expected to push themselves to their…
