Women Unbound: a New Reading Challenge

Yesterday afternoon, after finishing up Adventure Divas, I popped on to Twitter and mentioned that it would be neat if someone hosted a women’s studies reading challenge next year. Somehow, the idea took off, and pretty soon lots of book bloggers were all brainstorming, and two hours later we had a challenge name Women Unbound, rules, dates (November 2009-November 2010) and by two hours after that we had the blog and some beautiful buttons.

I’m still not sure how it all happened, but Aarti of BookLust, Care of Care’s Online Book Club, and I are now co-hosting a shiny new challenge that begins on Sunday. What I really love about how it came together was that so many different people were involved, and every small contribution built up into a whole challenge! On that theme, Aarti has some great ideas for activities and events to do to make the challenge more interactive, and we are definitely looking for contributors, so if you have any interest in women’s issues hop on over there!

We ended up deciding that the challenge would include both nonfiction and fiction books. But I know that many book bloggers tend to shy away from nonfiction, and trying to figure out which fiction books ‘count’ can be tricky. So I went through the books I’ve read this year and last, and picked out all of the ones that I gave at least three stars (i.e.: I liked it) that I think would be great challenge choices. I’m going to list them all here, with links to my reviews whenever they exist and a brief explanation of why they’re ‘women’s studies’ books, so that if you’re not sure what the challenge is asking of you, you have some examples. I’ll be making a list of the books I plan to read for the challenge in the next few days, but for now I figure this is enough. :) I’ve only included one book by each author, even if I’ve read more of theirs, so be sure to look up an author’s backlist of they sound interesting! (Oh, and the only order they’re in is reverse chronological order of when I read them, and I list all the ones with reviews first and the non-reviewed ones last. It would be too much work to alphabetise them all!) ETA: Just to clarify, I’ve already read and enjoyed all of these books, and the links are to my reviews. So this is a resource for other challenge participants!

Nonfiction

• Death and the Maidens by Janet Todd: because it’s about Mary Wollstonecraft’s daughters Fanny and Mary.
• Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner: because it’s a memoir of a woman finding her religion
• You’d Be So Pretty If.. by Dara Chadwick: because it’s about body image and mothers and daughters.



• I’m Looking Through You by Jennifer Finney Boylan: because it’s a memoir by a transgendered woman.
• Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott: because it’s a collection of essays about motherhood and being a feminist Christian.
• The Curse of the Good Girl by Rachel Simmons: because it’s about how US society affects girls.
• A Guide to Elegance by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux: because it’s a guide for women to being stylish.
• Wanderlust and Lipstick by Beth Whitman: because it’s a guide for women solo travellers.
• My Invented Country by Isabel Allende: because it’s a memoir by a woman author.
• Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman: because it’s a memoir by a woman who travelled the world on her own.
• Shooting the Boh by Tracy Johnston: because it’s an adventure travelogue by a woman that includes worries about menopause.
• Women by Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag: because it’s a photography book featuring only women.
• Alligators, Old Mink and New Money by Alison and Melissa Houtte: because it’s a memoir of a woman entrepreneur.
• Queen of Scots: the True Life of Mary Stuart by John Guy: because it’s a biography of a queen.
• You’re Wearing That? Mothers and Daughters in COnversation by Deborah Tannen: because it’s about mother-daughter relationships.
• I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron: because it’s essays on various aspects of womanhood.
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel: because it’s a memoir by a woman artist (and lesbian).
• Blonde Like Me by Natalia Ilyin: because it’s meditations on how society views blondes.



• American Chica by Marie Arana: because it’s a memoir by a woman.
• American’s Women by Gail Collins: because it looks at ordinary woman in the US throughout history.
• West With the Night by Beryl Markham: because it’s a memoir by a female pilot.
• The Habit of Being by Flannery O’COnnor: because it’s a letter collection by a female author.
• Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris Hollaway: because it’s memoir by a female Peace Corps volunteer about midwivery.
• Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters ed. by William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh: because it’s a letter collection by a female author.
• The Bone Woman by Cleo KOff: because it’s a memoir by a female anthrolpologist.
• Wild Swans by Jing Chang: because it’s a bio/memoir of three generations of women in China.
• Unhooked by Laura Sessions Stepp: because it looks at the sexual choices made by US female college students today.
• Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall: because it’s by a famous woman scientist.
• Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder: because it profiles a woman teacher during a schoolyear.
• Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee: because it’s a biography of a famous woman author.
• The Body Project by Joan Jacobs Brumberg: because it looks at body image among US teenage girls since the 1900s.
• Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen: because it’s a memoir by a woman author.
• Adventure Divas by Holly Morris: because it’s a memoir by Morris, who began a business and tv series travelling the globe interviewing strong women.
• Expat ed. by Christina Henry de Tessan: because all of the essays are written by women.
• Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn: because it’s about the three biggest problems killing women in the developing world, and what we can do to change them.
• Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Lauren Thatcher Ulrich: because it’s a look at history from the women’s perspective.
• Cunt by Inga Muscio: because it’s a feminist manifesto.
• Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters by Courtney Martin: because it looks at how society affects girls’ views of themselves.
• Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman: because it looks at relationships between teenage girls.
• Girl, 13 by Starla Griffin: because it profiles 13-year-old girls aorund the world.
• The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fesler: because it’s about single women in the 50s and 60s who became pregnant and were forced to give up their children.

Fiction
As I went through my ‘books read’ lists, I realised I was consistently picking fiction that had the following qualities: 1) woman protagonist, 2) women were always the subjects and never felt like objects, 3)the woman-ness was essential to the book; take it away and the book wouldn’t hold together, and 4)the book made me reflect on myself as a woman, either my coming-of-age or how my society affects me or something else. I’m not saying this is the only way to decide if a work of fiction should count as ‘women’s studies,’ but if you’re not sure where to begin, these make good criteria.

• Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: because the story revolves around a woman imprisoned for murder and there’s a lot of examining of Victorian expectations of women.
• Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset: because the book follows one woman from early childhood to death, and there’s a definite look at how women were treated in medieval Norway.
• Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: because this book is about the plight of governness, which is definitely a women’s issue.
• The House You Pass on the Way by Jacqueline Woodson: because the protagonistist is girl unsure of her sexuality and that drives the book.
• Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris: because several of the characters, including one main one, are women in Saudi Arabia, and there is a lot of focus on how the laws there affect women.
• The New Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson: because the protagonist is a middle-aged woman who talks about menopause, motherhood, and casual sex, among other things.
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell: because almost all of the characters in the story are women looking out for each other.
• “Wit” by Margaret Edson: because the main ‘voice’ of the play is an accomplished woman lit professor looking back on her life.
• A Golden Age by Tahmina Anam: because the book revolves around one woman trying to survive as a widow and mother in East Pakistan/Bangladesh.
• Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie: because the book is about the every day life of teenage girlsin 70s Cote d’Ivoire.
• Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan: because it deals with issues of rape better than any book I’ve ever read.
• The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby: because the protagonist is a medieval Japanese author, and there’s a lot ofemphasis on how societal rules govern her life.
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston: because the protagonist is a strong black woman who has lessons in love for readers today.
• A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie King: because the protagonist is an intelligent, independent young woman and she’s investigating a woman who preaches feminist theology.
• Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters: because almost all of the characters in the story are women, an the protagonist is a lesbian struggling to come to terms with restrctive Victorian society.
• Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto: because the protagonist is a young Japanesewoman.



• To the North by Elizabeth Bowen: because the two main characters are sisters in 20s England.
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson: because it identifies the anguish of a teenage girl victim so well.
• My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin: because the protagonist is a fiery young woman in pioneer Australia.
• Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky: because the protagonist is a teenage girl discovering her sexuality.
• Pirates! by Celia Rees: because the protagonist is a young woman who ends up becoming a pirate and dealing with that all-boys atmosphere.
• The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Earnest Gaines: because it’s a fictional story about a 100-year-old black woman, and many of her experiences are as a lover and mother.
• Zel by Donna Jo Napoli: because it’s a retelling of “Rapenzel” and the girl is at the heart of it.
• Beauty by Robin McKinley: because it’s a retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” and focuses on Belle.
• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: because the protagonist is a young girl who has to deal with an abusive father.
• Hearts and Minds by Rosy Thorton: because the protagonist is a woman professor facing concerns about her job and her family.
• I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith: because the protagonist is a teenage girl in 30s England who comes of age.
• The Small Room by May Sarton: because the protagonist is a new professor at a private women’s college, so almost every character is a woman.
• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd: because all of the primary characters are women and there’s feminist theology.
• Emma by Jane Austen: because all of Austen’s works are about ‘the women’s sphere’.
• Beloved by Toni Morrison: because almost all of the main characters are women, and mother love is at the heart of the story.
• The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James: because the protagonist is a woman who must decide who to marry and then live with the consequences.
• The Book of Night Women by Marlon James: because the protagonist is a strong enslaved woman and she joins a group of other strong slave women planning a revolt.
• The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea: because the protagonist is a woman in 1800s Mexico, and the book looks at her position in that society.
• No Name by Wilkie Collins: because it follows two sisters who have to deal with losing their family name and inheritance in Victorian England and each fight back in different ways.
• The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery: because it’s all about a girl growing up.