Body Politics - Books

A memoir from bestselling 'House of Glass' author Hadley Freeman, recounting her battle with anorexia from ages 14-17 in psychiatric hospitals, tracking the recovery journeys of women she was hospitalized with 20 years later, and revealing the deep connection between eating disorders and the difficulties girls face coming of age. Called 'riveting' by The New York Times.

Memorial Sloan Kettering oncologist and medical historian Dr. Elizabeth Comen unveils the collective medical history of women, exploring how medicine has long misunderstood women's bodies and how these historical oversights continue to affect women's health today.

A radical work by Cambridge economist Victoria Bateman, who has appeared naked on TV, stage, art and protests, using body and brain to deliver her message. Questions: Despite feminism's promises, why do women's bodies remain at mercy of state, society and religion? Are sexy and smart mutually exclusive? Traces bodily modesty pendulum from ancient Egypt to present, calling feminists to unite against female body repression.

UnHerd columnist Mary Harrington introduces 'reactionary feminism,' critiquing modern feminism as serving only elite professional women. She argues technological progress commodifies women's bodies and reproductive abilities, calling for a fundamental reassessment of what 'progress' means for most women.

A groundbreaking work from strength coach and social justice educator Chrissy King that blends memoir, inspiration, and practical exercises. The book reveals how diet culture and the fitness industry are rooted in white supremacy and Eurocentric beauty standards, moving beyond body positivity to something more revolutionary: body liberation, recognizing that none of us are free until all of us are.

A sharp work by feminist writer Glosswitch exploring why women in their forties and beyond seem to enrage almost everyone. In an era of identity politics, middle-aged women are portrayed as bigoted, entitled, and morally inferior. Smith traces history to reveal why this specific form of misogyny is so rampant today. Shortlisted for the 2023 Nero Book Awards.

A lifetime's work from the Tony Award-winning author of The Vagina Monologues. Spanning forty years of journals, V's Reckoning is a powerful collage of poetry, prose, dreams, and letters that chronicles her journey from childhood trauma to global activism, showing how to transform personal pain into collective power and write oneself into freedom.

Acclaimed humor writer Elissa Bassist's memoir about reclaiming her authentic voice in a culture that doesn't listen to women. Between 2016-2018 she saw 20+ medical professionals for mysterious ailments, until an acupuncturist suggested her physical pain could be caged fury. This is medical mystery, cultural criticism, and rallying cry. Semi-finalist for 2023 Thurber Prize for American Humor.

Starting from the Limit is a correspondence dialogue between Japanese feminist scholar Chizuko Ueno and former AV actress and writer Suzumi Suzuki. Two generations of women engage in candid dialogue on topics including body, sexuality, work, love, and mother-daughter relationships, presenting the collision and conversation between feminist thought and the lived reality of young women.

Edited by Alice Wong, Disability Visibility gathers first-person writing by contemporary disabled people, bringing disability culture, media representation, embodiment, law, art, and everyday life into public view.

Mieko Kawakami's 'Breasts and Eggs' is a monumental work of contemporary Japanese literature that challenges traditional feminine norms. The novel follows three women: Natsu, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko's daughter Midoriko. Through their intersecting lives, Kawakami explores questions of female agency, bodily autonomy, reproductive ethics, and the societal pressures placed on women's bodies in modern Japan.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha frames disability justice as practical knowledge from sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown communities, centering collective access, care webs, and liberation where no one is left behind.

Convenience Store Woman is an Akutagawa Prize-winning novel by Japanese author Sayaka Murata. The protagonist, Keiko Furukura, is a 36-year-old woman who has worked at the same convenience store for 18 years and has no interest in society's expectations for women—marriage, children, a 'real' career. With dark humor, the novel sharply questions society's definition of 'normal' and its oppression of women who don't conform.

Alison Kafer links disability, queer, and feminist theory to challenge the ableist idea of a normal future and to imagine crip futures grounded in coalition, care, and justice.

Edited by Kim Q. Hall, Feminist Disability Studies systematically links feminist theory and disability studies, examining embodiment, ability norms, public policy, representation, sexuality, and public life as co-producers of gendered and disabled inequality.

The Vegetarian is a Man Booker International Prize-winning novel by Korean author Han Kang. It tells the story of Yeong-hye, an ordinary housewife who, in order to reject human violence, decides to stop eating meat and eventually wants to transform herself into a tree. It is a fable about female bodily autonomy, refusal of social norms, and the quest for a purely 'harmless' existence in a violent world.

Flights is a masterpiece by Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, deeply imbued with feminist meaning. Through a constellation of stories about travel, anatomy, and preservation, Tokarczuk challenges traditional patriarchal concepts binding women to 'home' and 'settlement,' proposing a new female subjectivity based on mobility and the radical autonomy of the body.

Happening is an autobiographical novella by French Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux, documenting her true experience of undergoing an illegal abortion as a university student in 1963. With calm and precise prose, this work transforms a personal bodily experience into a profound reflection on class, gender, and body politics.

Gloria Steinem's 1992 classic work combines feminist politics with personal growth, exploring issues of self-esteem, self-identity, and inner liberation.

Naomi Wolf's 1990 classic feminist work reveals how the 'beauty myth' in modern society has become a new mechanism of social control used to restrict women's freedom and development.

A Woman's Story is an autobiographical work by French Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux, documenting her mother's life from working-class daughter to small shopkeeper. This is a concise yet powerful work about class, women's fate, and the mother-daughter relationship, and a representative example of Ernaux's 'auto-socio-biography' writing style.

Julia Kristeva's 1980 important theoretical work deeply explores the core concept of 'abjection,' analyzing how humans construct subjectivity through the expulsion of the 'other,' profoundly influencing feminist theory, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies.

Adrienne Rich's 1976 classic feminist work deeply analyzes how motherhood as an institution is shaped and controlled by patriarchy while exploring the liberating potential inherent in the experience of mothering itself.

Thus She Is (Ainsi soit-elle) is a foundational text of modern French feminism, selling over a million copies and defining a generation. With passionate prose, Benoîte Groult indicts misogyny in all its forms, from linguistic sexism and the erasure of women's history to the physical brutality of female genital mutilation, calling on women to reclaim the definition of their own existence.

An experimental literary masterpiece by French radical feminist Monique Wittig. In this book, Wittig attempts to create a purely lesbian erotic space that completely excludes men through the violent reconstruction of language. She deconstructs traditional descriptions of the body, reshaping female subjectivity with anatomical precision and poetic frenzy.

Miss Sophia's Diary is a groundbreaking novella by modern Chinese author Ding Ling, published in 1928. Written in diary form, the novel boldly explores the emotional world, sexual desires, and spiritual anguish of a 'New Woman.' As one of the most important feminist texts after the May Fourth Movement, it pioneered placing female desire at the center of narrative, challenging the repressive literary portrayals of women.