Feminist PsychologyBooks

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.

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.

This work demonstrates how feminist theory emerges from everyday life, exploring the revolutionary potential of the 'feminist killjoy' figure. Ahmed combines affect theory, queer phenomenology, and intersectional feminism to analyze how feminists become estranged from worlds by naming problems, and create survival strategies to cope with the walls of racism and sexism.

Amina Mama exposes psychology’s role in producing racist images and develops a historically grounded account of how Black women create subjectivity against racial and gender domination.

The myth of the wild woman exists in various cultures, from fairy tales to folk legends. Often she is portrayed as a fearsome being, but in Jungian analyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés's assessment, she is something completely different: an inner leader and behavioral pattern capable of guiding women on their own healing journey. First published in 1992, Women Who Run with the Wolves earned Estés praise from many of her feminist contemporaries - including Alice Walker and Maya Angelou, two other authors on this list.

This groundbreaking work challenges male-centric theories of moral development, proposing an alternative model of moral reasoning based on care, relationships, and responsibility. By listening to women's voices, Gilligan discovered the 'ethics of care' as a different moral voice, fundamentally transforming psychology's, ethics', and feminist theory's understanding of moral development.