Women's HistoryBooks

Leila Ahmed traces how gender, law, and religious authority changed across Islamic history, then shows how colonial rule turned the veil and the ‘woman question’ into political symbols.

From early computing and programming languages to network directories and online communities, Claire L. Evans reconstructs women’s history as programmers, infrastructure maintainers, and creators of internet culture.

Qiuyuan is the debut work of Chinese amateur author Yang Benfen, written at the age of 80. Centered on the life of the author's mother Liang Qiufang (nicknamed Qiuyuan), it tells the story of an ordinary Chinese woman who lived through war, famine, and political upheaval throughout the 20th century. This is a moving work about women, memory, and history, as well as a heartfelt retrieval of the countless Chinese women lost to history.

A sweeping historical novel set on the Korean island of Jeju, following the intersecting fates of two female divers over several decades. From the Japanese colonial era through the Korean War and into the present, the story depicts the resilient lives, solidarity, and ultimate forgiveness of women caught in the tides of history.

A memoir by legendary feminist activist Gloria Steinem, chronicling her decades of travel and the conversations she held with the people she met along the way. It beautifully illustrates how moving, listening, and organizing can transform the world and shape the self.

The final autobiography written by the legendary poet Maya Angelou. Addressing her early abandonment by her mother, years of estrangement, and a dramatic eventual reconciliation, this work beautifully maps how one woman learned to be independent, to forgive, and to blossom into a world-renowned writer through the complexities of maternal love.

Janet Abbate traces the historical shift from women’s high participation in computing work to the formation of masculinized professional identity.

The madness known as the 'ideal womanhood' imposed on American women throughout the 20th century. This sociological entertainment dismantles etiquette education, strange beauty regimens, and patriarchal social expectations through extensive archival research and sharp humor.

An autobiographical graphic novel depicting the tumultuous years of the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War through the eyes of a young girl. It explores a rebellious spirit seeking freedom, identity struggles, and oppression by state power. A deeply human and powerful record of resilience told through stark black-and-white drawings.

A monumental work of non-fiction intended to reclaim transgender history and pride. Covering from ancient communities to contemporary activism, it reveals through abundant illustrations how gender diversity has been suppressed and how it has been fought for with unyielding will.

A record of the soul's cry and intellectual legacy of Black women thinkers from the 19th century to the present. A monumental anthology that can be called a canon of Black Feminism, gathering the 'Words of Fire' spoken to shatter the triple constraints of racism, sexism, and class oppression.

Through education, women’s status, and racial politics, Anna Julia Cooper asks who may speak for Black communities and how Black women can reshape knowledge and public life.

Published in Philadelphia in 1887, Pandita Ramabai's English-language book examines childhood, marriage, and widowhood for high-caste Hindu women, and makes self-reliance, education, and locally grounded women teachers central to reform.

Writing as Linda Brent, Harriet Jacobs shows how slavery governed Black women's bodies, motherhood, and family - and how concealment, labor, and authorship became means of survival and testimony.

This 1850 dictated narrative follows Truth’s escape from slavery in New York, her pursuit of a son illegally sold south, and her efforts to claim authority through religious interpretation and public speech.

Mary Prince’s 1831 narrative links enslavement to bodily labor, family separation, marriage, and constrained freedom, while its editorial framing raises questions about testimony and authority.

Christine de Pizan’s 1405 French work addresses women across social ranks, linking learning and counsel to household and political power while preserving medieval hierarchies.

Written around 1000, The Pillow Book turns lists, poems, and courtly fragments into a woman's literary authority - while revealing the elite world that both enabled and limited that voice.