ashe dryden

Quite regularly I'm asked about books that would be good to read to learn more about topics I discuss regularly, including intersectionality, feminism, womanism, and social justice. Thanks to the help of twitter and my ever-growing GoodReads list, here is a list for you. Many of the books can easily fit into more than one category, so may appear under multiple headings.

The list is comprised of both 101-level and some more advanced books on these subjects. Much of this is from an American cultural perspective. I haven't personally read all of them, but most I haven't read are on my to read list. If I've missed something you think is fundamental, please let me know. 

There are quite a few other topics I'd like to cover here, but I am going to consider this post a living document. I'm also trying to figure out the best way to distill this information into a more easily consumable list.

Note: Most links are through Amazon Affiliates, the funds from which help me buy books for research :)

Gender, Sex, and General Feminism, Womanism

• Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics by bell hooks
• Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano
• How to Suppress Women's Writing by Joanna Russ
• The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf
• Myths Of Gender: Biological Theories About Women And Men by Anne Fausto-Sterling
• Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity by Matt Bernstein-Sycamore
• Gender Outlaw and Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein
• Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis
• Cybersexism: Sex, Gender, and the Power of the Internet by Penny Red
• Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks
• Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins
• Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future by Jennifer Baumgardner
• No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women by Estelle Freedman
• Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine
• Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
• Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism by Penny Red
• Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom by Wendy Kline
• The Socialist Feminist Project: A Contemporary Reader in Theory and Politics by Nancy Holmstrom
• The Big Feminist BUT by Shannon O'Leary
• Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
• But Some Of Us Are Brave: All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men: Black Women's Studies
• Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations by Kimberly Springer
• Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio
• The Gender Book by Boston Bostian, Mel Reiff Hill, Jay Mays
• Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism By Trinh T. Minh-Ha
• I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism by Lee Maracle
• Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study by Paula Rothenberg
• The Ruptures Of American Capital: Women Of Color, Feminism, And The Culture Of Immigrant Labor by Grace Kyungwon Hong 
• Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy by Grace Chang
• The Gender Knot by Allan Johnson

Masculinity

• Masculinities by R.W. Connell
• Refusing to Be a Man by John Stoltenberg
• The End of Manhood by John Stoltenberg
• The Will to Change by bell hooks
• We Real Cool by bell hooks
• Manhood in America by Michael Kimmel
• Men's Lives by Michael Kimmel and Michael Messner
• Men and Feminism by Shira Tarrant
• Macho Paradox by Jackson Katz
• Excluded by Julia Serano
• Boys Will Be Boys: Deconstructing Masculinity & Manhood by Michael Kimmel (video)

Race and Ethnicity

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander and Cornel West
• Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• How to Be Black by Baratunde Thurston
• The Mismeasure of a Man by Stephen Jay Gould
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum
• Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez by Richard Rodriguez
• Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom by Leslie Delpit
• Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis
• Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks
• Black Power : The Politics of Liberation by Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton
• Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism by Patricia Hill Collins
• Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins
• Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
• Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
• Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom by Wendy Kline
• Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
• But Some Of Us Are Brave: All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men: Black Women's Studies
• Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations by Kimberly Springer
• Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism by Trinh T. Minh-Ha
• I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism by Lee Maracle 
• Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study by Paula Rothenberg
• Black Labor, White Wealth : The Search for Power and Economic Justice by Claud Anderson
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown
• The Ruptures Of American Capital: Women Of Color, Feminism, And The Culture Of Immigrant Labor by Grace Kyungwon Hong 
• Basic Call To Consciousness by Akwasasne Notes
• Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy by Grace Chang
• Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement

Sexuality and Orientation

• Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity by Matt Bernstein-Sycamore
• Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism by Patricia Hill Collins
• Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
• Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio
• Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study by Paula Rothenberg

Ability

• My Body Politic by Simi Linton
• Disability and Passing by Jeffrey A Brune and Daniel J Wilson
• Madness by Marya Hornbacher
• No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement by Joseph Shapiro
• The Disability Studies Reader by Lennard J Davis
• A Disability History of the United States by Kim Nielsen

Language Dominance

Class and Labor

• Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis
• Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks
• Punching Out & Other Writings by Martin Glaberman
• The Socialist Feminist Project: A Contemporary Reader in Theory and Politics by Nancy Holmstrom
• Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study by Paula Rothenberg
• Black Labor, White Wealth : The Search for Power and Economic Justice by Claud Anderson
• The Ruptures Of American Capital: Women Of Color, Feminism, And The Culture Of Immigrant Labor by Grace Kyungwon Hong 
• Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy by Grace Chang

The Intersection of Difference and Technology

• Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do by Claude M. Steele
• Women, Technology, and the Myth of Progress by Eileen B Leonard

Domestic, Sexual, and Systemic Societal Violence, Rape Culture

• Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Herman
• The Color of Violence by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
• Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide by Andrea Smith
• The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities by Ching-In Chen

American Exceptionalism, American Revisionist History

• The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz
• The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
• Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
• Who Owns History?: Rethinking the Past in a Changing World by Eric Foner

Prison Industrial Complex

General Anti-Oppression and Social Justice

Additional Resources

• Melissa Harris-Perry's Black Feminism Syllabus
• @FeministaJones' 12 books on Feminism, with a focus on Black Feminism