The beauty of this planet is undeniable and abounding. So, too, is the violence and oppression which increasingly permeates all strata of our current political, legal, and socioeconomic systems. Although there is nothing novel about their existence, the internet and technology have transformed our awareness of each other to the effect that we can see more explicitly the myriad ways this violence and oppression devastates our communities on a local and global scale, the worst of its effects disproportionately experienced by people of intersectional identities not favoured by the dominant systems.
This fall and winter, the ugly truth of how violence is enacted upon the mind, bodies, and spirits of women, either with direct intention or as a systemic consequence, has rocked me with waves of deep and visceral depression that I’ve never before experienced in my life. I try not to stew in despair, neither do I want to live in a cognitively dissonant state of willful ignorance at the cost of my humanity. I’m stubbornly struggling to build and maintain a level of resilience which allows me to stay informed while working towards a long range goal of transforming conditions for the better.
These days, I’m finding relief, context, and actionable ideas in the wise words of women who have survived and fought against all manner of exploitation and mistreatment. At times poetic and always enlightening, their deconstruction of the larger forces at play and hard-earned strategic insights geared towards dismantling overarching systems of oppression are giving me hope and motivation. I thought I’d share some titles that I’ve been working my way through in the hopes that you, too, find some hope, encouragement, and knowledge within them!
“If we are not afraid to adopt a revolutionary stance - if, indeed, we wish to be radical in our quest for change - then we must get to the root of our oppression. After all, radical simply means “grasping things at the root”. - Angela Davis.
Against White Feminism : Notes on Disruption, Rafia Zakaria
Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, Mona Eltahawy
Women, Culture, & Politics, Angela Davis
We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngoni Adichie
Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit
Sister Outsider : Essays and Speeches, Audre Lorde
Feminism is For Everybody: Passionate Politics, Bell Hooks
Abolition. Feminism. Now. Angela Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie
Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism by Seal Press
A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf
Daughters of Copper Woman, Anne Cameron
Zami, A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath * great imagery, well written, unique perspective, but has some outdated, offensive terminology.