11 comments

platypusOctober 16, 2023

I would recommend the classic Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World by Rosalind Miles. I read it after seeing it recommended multiple times here on Ovarit and I can honestly say it changed my life.

NovemberinthechairOctober 16, 2023

I think I remember recommending it. Yes, agreed.

firebirdOctober 16, 2023

I enjoyed The Story Of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel. There's other books on women's art history, but this one's the only one I've been able to get my hands on so far, so unfortunately I don't know how it compares.

One of the (too many) books I'm currently reading is Women Warriors: An Unexpected History by Pamela D. Toler. So far it's promising.

epbOctober 28, 2023

Oooh I just checked out Women Warriors from the library but haven't started it yet. Also checked out way too may books this time...

[Deleted]November 4, 2023

Have you watched Women! Art! Revolution!? by feminist artist Lynn Hershman Leeson.

firebirdNovember 5, 2023

I have not, but thank you for the recommendation

WatcherattheGatesOctober 16, 2023

The Woman's Hour by Elaine Weiss is fabulous--I could not put it down!

BellaBlueOctober 16, 2023

Jennifer Worth's memoirs (Call the Midwife series) discusses the lives of women in the slums during the Baby Boom, but Jennifer takes the time to discuss historical events that relate to women.

Before her books, I was completely unaware the English government past a law that allowed women and girls over the age of 13 to be taken by police on suspicion of carrying venereal diseases. Jennifer tells us the story of one 13-year-old girl who was taken, and Jenny describes in uncomfortable detail how the police would put pliers to the cervix and pull on it 😱

epbOctober 28, 2023

Not a historian, so I tend to read glimpses of history* not so much the overarching historical thomes. Here is a list of a few I recently** finished--take it or leave it!

The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After; Little House on the Prairie series; Florence Nightingale; Overture of Hope: Two Sisters' Daring Plan That Saved Opera's Jewish Stars from the Third Reich; The Personal Librarian; The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; The Story of My Life (Helen Keller); Matters of Choice: Puerto Rican Women's Struggle for Reproductive Freedom; The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State; The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty; My Life in France (Julia Child); Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide; Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx; From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death***; First: Sandra Day O'Connor; In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom; History vs Women: The Defiant Lives that They Don't Want You to Know; I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban; Becoming (Michelle Obama); I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

*Sometimes history is very recent... **In the last 5 years ***I count this as women's history because women took care of the dead until very recently

NightWitch41October 16, 2023

Caliban and the Witch is a great book that connects women's oppression to the growth of capital accumulation.

drdeeisbackOctober 16, 2023(Edited October 16, 2023)