16 Days of Activism Reading List
Image description: Text '16 Days of Activism Reading List' on a purple galaxy background.
During 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, from November 25 to December 10, we call on everyone to take action.
DWS has got a fab selection of books to deepen our understanding of how gender-based violence happens and to create a world based on consent!
What’s on your 16 Days of Activism reading list?
MODERN HERSTORY: Stories of Women and Non Binary People Rewriting History
By Blair Imani
Image description: Book cover ‘Modern Herstory’ by Blair Imani. Illustrations of different women on a light purple background.
With a radical and inclusive approach to history, Modern HERstory profiles and celebrates seventy women and nonbinary champions of progressive social change in a bold, colorful, illustrated format for all ages. Despite making huge contributions to the liberation movements of the last century and today, all of these trailblazers come from backgrounds and communities that are traditionally overlooked and under-celebrated: not just women, but people of color, queer people, trans people, disabled people, young people, and people of faith. Authored by rising star activist Blair Imani, Modern HERstory tells the important stories of the leaders and movements that are changing the world right here and right now–and will inspire you to do the same.
From Penguin Random House
Women, Race & Class
By ANGELA Y. DAVIS
Image description: Picture of Angela Davis’ book ‘Women, Race & Class’ on slats of wood
Ranging from the age of slavery to contemporary injustices, this groundbreaking history of race, gender and class inequality by the radical political activist Angela Davis offers an alternative view of women’s struggles for liberation.
Tracing the intertwined histories of the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements, Davis examines the racism and class prejudice inherent in so much of white feminism, and in doing so brings to light new pioneering heroines, from field slaves to mill workers, who fought back and refused to accept the lives into which they were born.
'The power of her historical insights and the sweetness of her dream cannot be denied' The New York Times
From Penguin Random House
The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities
by Ching-In Chen (Editor); Jai Dulani (Editor); Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Editor)
Image description: Picture of book ‘The Revolution Starts at Home’ standing up on a desk
The Revolution Starts at Home is as urgently needed today as when it was first published. This watershed collection breaks the dangerous silence surrounding the “secret” of intimate violence within social justice circles. Just as importantly, it provides practical strategies for dealing with abuse and creating safety without relying on the coercive power of the state. It offers life-saving alternatives for survivors, while building a movement where no one is left behind.
“The Revolution Starts at Home is a mirror to look into when doing the work of 'transforming ourselves to transform the world', as Grace Lee Boggs taught us. The voices in this collection speak from their own experiences, modeling vulnerability that, for me, was freeing as I turned to face the patterns of personal and organizational abuse in my life. This book is an offer towards wholeness, and can heal you if you let it.” —adrienne maree brown, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements
From AK Press
Resilience Is Futile: The Life and Death and Life of Julie S. Lalonde
By Julie S. Lalonde
Image description: Cover of Julie S. Lalonde’s book ‘Resilience is Futile’
A memoir of terror. An indictment of a misogynistic system that silences survivors.
For over a decade Julie Lalonde kept a secret. As an award-winning advocate for women’s rights, she criss-crossed the country, denouncing violence against women and giving hundreds of media interviews along the way. Her work made national headlines for challenging universities and taking on Canada’s top military brass. But while appearing fearless on the surface, Julie met every interview and event with the same fear in her gut: was he here?
Fleeing intimate partner violence at age twenty, Julie was stalked by her ex-partner for over ten years, rarely mentioning it to friends, let alone addressing it publicly. The contrast between her public career as a brave champion for women with her own private life of violence and fear meant a shaky and exhausting balancing act.
Resilience Is Futile is a story of survival, courage, and ultimately, hope. But it is also a challenge to the ways we understand trauma and resilience. It is the story of one survivor who won’t give up and refuses to shut up.
From BTL Books
Join Julie and DWS in a conversation about the lies we’re taught about stalking, December 4th on Instagram Live.
Beyond SurvivalStrategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement
by Ejeris Dixon (Editor); Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Editor)
Image description: Cover of book ‘Beyond Survival’
Transformative justice seeks to solve the problem of violence at the grassroots level, without relying on punishment, incarceration, or policing. Community-based approaches to preventing crime and repairing its damage have existed for centuries. However, in the putative atmosphere of contemporary criminal justice systems, they are often marginalized and operate under the radar. Beyond Survival puts these strategies front and center as real alternatives to today’s failed models of confinement and “correction.”
In this collection, a diverse group of authors focuses on concrete and practical forms of redress and accountability, assessing existing practices and marking paths forward. They use a variety of forms—from toolkits to personal essays—to delve deeply into the “how to” of transformative justice, providing alternatives to calling the police, ways to support people having mental health crises, stories of community-based murder investigations, and much more. At the same time, they document the history of this radical movement, creating space for long-time organizers to reflect on victories, struggles, mistakes, and transformations.
From AK Press
Malala: My Story of Standing Up for Girls' Rights
by Malala Yousafzai, Adapted by Sarah J. Robbins
Image description: Cover of Malala Yousafzai’s book ‘Malala: My Story of Standing Up for Girls’ Rights’
Malala’s powerful memoir of risking her life for the right to go to school is now abridged and adapted for chapter book readers.
Raised in a changing Pakistan by an enlightened father from a poor background and a beautiful, illiterate mother, Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. Her story of bravery and determination in the face of extremism is more timely than ever.
In this edition, Malala tells her story in clear, accessible language perfect for children who are too old for Malala’s Magic Pencil and too young for her middle-grade memoir. Featuring line art and simplified back matter, Malala teaches a new audience the value of speaking out against intolerance and hate: an inspiring message of hope in Malala’s own words.
From Hachette Book Group
I AM WOMAN
by Lee Maracle
Image description: Cover of Lee Maracle’s book ‘I Am Woman’
“There is a direct connection between violence against the earth and violence against women” - Lee Maracle
One of the foremost Native writers in North America, Lee Maracle links her First Nations heritage with feminism in this visionary book.
“‘I Am Woman’ represents my personal struggle with womanhood, culture, traditional spiritual beliefs and political sovereignty, written during a time when that struggle was not over. My original intention was to empower Native women to take to heart their own personal struggle for Native feminist being. The changes made in this second edition of the text do not alter my original intention. It remains my attempt to present a Native woman's sociological perspective on the impacts of colonialism on us, as women, and on my self personally.” - Lee Maracle
"Maracle has created a book of true wisdom, intense pride, sisterhood and love." -Milestones Review”
Men Explain Things To Me
by Rebecca Solnit
Image description: Cover of Rebecca Solnit’s book ‘Men Explain Things to Me’
In her comic, scathing essay, "Men Explain Things to Me," Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters.
This updated edition with two new essays of this national bestseller book features that now-classic essay as well as "#YesAllWomen," an essay written in response to 2014 Isla Vista killings and the grassroots movement that arose with it to end violence against women and misogyny, and the essay "Cassandra Syndrome."
From Haymarket Books
The Witches are Coming
By Lindy West
Image description: Cover of Lindy West’s book ‘The Witches are Coming’
In a laugh-out-loud, incisive cultural critique, West extolls the world-changing magic of truth, urging readers to reckon with dark lies in the heart of the American mythos, and unpacking the complicated, and sometimes tragic, politics of not being a white man in the twenty-first century. She tracks the misogyny and propaganda hidden (or not so hidden) in the media she and her peers devoured growing up, a buffet of distortions, delusions, prejudice, and outright bullsh*t that has allowed white male mediocrity to maintain a death grip on American culture and politics-and that delivered us to this precarious, disorienting moment in history.
West writes, “We were just a hair’s breadth from electing America’s first female president to succeed America’s first black president. We weren’t done, but we were doing it. And then, true to form-like the Balrog’s whip catching Gandalf by his little gray bootie, like the husband in a Lifetime movie hissing, ‘If I can’t have you, no one can’-white American voters shoved an incompetent, racist con man into the White House.”
We cannot understand how we got here-how the land of the free became Trump’s America-without examining the chasm between who we are and who we think we are, without fact-checking the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and each other. The truth can transform us; there is witchcraft in it. Lindy West turns on the light.
From Hachette Books
Why Does He Do That: INSIDE THE MINDS OF ANGRY AND CONTROLLING MEN
By Lundy Bancroft
Image description: Cover of Lundy Bancroft’s book ‘Why Does He Do That?’
In this groundbreaking bestseller, Lundy Bancroft—a counselor who specializes in working with abusive men—uses his knowledge about how abusers think to help women recognize when they are being controlled or devalued, and to find ways to get free of an abusive relationship.
He says he loves you. So…why does he do that? You’ve asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men—and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn about:
• The early warning signs of abuse
• The nature of abusive thinking
• Myths about abusers
• Ten abusive personality types
• The role of drugs and alcohol
• What you can fix, and what you can’t
• And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely
From Penguin Random House
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