CityView Magazine

52 March 2021 GOOD READS OF THE WOMEN, BY THE WOMEN, FOR THE WOMEN BY DIANE PARFITT M arch is Women's History Month. What better way to celebrate women than to recognize books about women, by women and those especially appealing to women? is may not seem unusual now, but during the 18th and 19th centuries, most authors were male. Female authors were uncommon and oen used a male pseudonym or gender neutral name to overcome the difficulty of getting their works published in a patriarchal society. Fortunately, women now feel free to publish their works under their own name. Most of the books below should appeal to men and women alike, though a few might suit women more. So, while we applaud both male and female writers, March is the month for the girls! 1. "WE SHOULD ALL BE FEMINISTS" BY CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE "Feminists" and "feminism" have been used as derogatory terms by some for as many years as the movement has been around. Opponents try to denigrate feminism by putting forth the belief that it is a social movement that wants to reverse gender roles between men and women. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie argues that feminists advocate for equality between men and women, and that the concept is rooted in inclusion and awareness. Empowering women is not equivalent to taking away opportunities from men. Feminism merely normalizes women's success and still allows men to strive to achieve even more in life. 2. "THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL" BY JANICE P. NIMUR A A reviewer of this book in "e Washington Post" wrote, "At a time when awarding medical degrees to women seemed laughable at best and immoral at worst, Elizabeth Blackwell persisted in making a life in medicine." I found this quite interesting - but immoral? Apparently the thought of women sitting in a medical school class with men discussing the human body was just too much for the poor men to bear. And then to go into the clinical area and examine someone's body? Oh, the horrors. Did they forget that women nurses had been ministering to male patients for centuries? In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to earn a medical degree, and her sister, Emily, joined her shortly aer. Together they founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first hospital staffed entirely by women. Today, women comprise 50.5 percent of all medical school students. ey were only 10 percent of my husband's medical school class in the 1970s, more than 100 years aer the Blackwell sisters! e improvement since then can be attributed to the growth of the women's movement that started in the 60s and 70s. 3. "A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN" BY MARY WOLLSTONECR AFT Writing in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecra produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, this book attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative femininity and instead laid out the principles of emancipation. ese include equal education for girls and boys, an end to prejudice and defining women by their profession, not their partner. 4. "WHO COOKED THE LAST SUPPER? THE WOMEN'S HISTORY OF THE WORLD" BY ROSALIND MILES Women have long been absent from history books. Why? Because men wrote the books! Women's roles "I WOULD VENTURE TO GUESS THAT ANON, WHO WROTE SO MANY POEMS WITHOUT SIGNING THEM, WAS OFTEN A WOMAN." – Virginia Woolf 1 6 2 3 4 5 7

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