In the year that we are celebrating the centenary of (some) women getting the vote, gender equality is apparently still over 200 years away. Across the world women continue to make positive gains, but serious issues remain. The second biggest global crime issue – after drug abuse – is sex trafficking; the majority of its victims are young women. Campaigns such as #MeToo and #TimesUp aim to motivate everyone to think, act and be more gender inclusive. We’ve selected just a few books, some of which deal with current issues, and some which celebrate those brave women who challenged the status quo.
A practical call to arms that challenges the persistent inequality of power between men and women. Why is gender inequality so stubbornly persistent? Power. Even today, power remains concentrated in the hands of men right across the worlds of business, politics and culture.
A hundred years on, Diane Atkinson celebrates the lives of the women who answered the call to ̀Rise Up’; a richly diverse group that spanned the divides of class and country, women of all ages who were determined to fight for what had been so long denied.
In her first book, Stacey draws on her encounters with these brave and wonderful women, using their experiences as a vehicle to explore issues at the centre of female experience. From gender equality and domestic violence, to sex trafficking and sexual identity, Stacey weaves these global strands together in an exploration of what it is to be women in the world today.
An expert on innovation argues that many capable women are losing out at work, and that this harms businesses, individuals, and society. Women now outperform men at every level of education, yet in the workplace they are under-promoted and under-paid.
`Telling my story of first, surviving genocide and then, as a captive of ISIS is not easy, but people must know.’ The remarkable and courageous story of Nadia Murad, a twenty-three-year-old Yazidi woman who is working with Amal Clooney to challenge the world to fight ISIS on behalf on her people.
Please, Let Me Go tells the shocking true story of Caitlin Spencer, a survivor of sex trafficking in England. From the age of 14, Caitlin was completely controlled, repeatedly raped, provided with alcohol, given drugs, sold and passed on to new gangs over and over again.
A gripping and visceral narrative that interweaves the real-life stories of women who are fighting gross inequality all over the world.
Groomed by Casey Watson
Casey Watson, who writes under a pseudonym, is a specialist foster carer. She and her husband, Mike, look after children who are particularly troubled or damaged by their past. Before becoming a foster carer Casey was a behaviour manager for her local comprehensive school.
100 fascinating and brilliantly written stories about history’s bravest, baddest but little known ‘nasty’ women from across the world. These are the women who were deemed too nasty for their times.
A gripping memoir about a young woman from Saudi Arabia who becomes the accidental leader of a wildly subversive movement to put women behind the steering wheel.
If gender equality promises benefits not just to women, but to everyone, why aren’t we embracing it?
Of Women by Shami Chakrabarti
A powerful, urgent and timely polemic on why women still need equality, and how we get there. It is the greatest human rights abuse on the planet. It blights first and developing worlds, rich and poor women’s health, wealth, education, representation, opportunity and security everywhere.
