5 February Books for Badass Women
The new year is off to a strong start with so many great books our for, by and about badass women! Check out these February releases!
Since the 2016 election, many women across the country have felt rage, fury, and frustration, wondering how we got here. Some act by calling their senators, some write checks, some join activist groups, march, paint signs, grab their daughters and sons, and raise their voices. But for so many, they also turn to their greatest comfort—their kitchen.
Baking has a new meaning in today’s world. These days, baking can be an outlet for expressing our feelings about the current state of our society. Rage Baking offers more than 50 cookie, cake, tart, and pie recipes as well as inspirational essays, reflections, and interviews with well-known bakers and impassioned women and activists including Dorie Greenspan, Ruth Reichl, Carla Hall, Preeti Mistry, Julia Turshen, Pati Jinich, Vallery Lomas, Von Diaz, Genevieve Ko, and writers like Rebecca Traister, Pam Houston, Tess Raffery, Cecile Richards, Ann Friedman, Marti Noxon, and many more.
Timely, fun, and creative, this cookbook speaks to both skilled and beginner bakers who are looking for new ways to use their sweetest skills to combine food and activism. Containing a collection of recipes that are satisfying and delicious, Rage Baking unites like-minded women who are passionate about baking and change.
Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others?
In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminism delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux. An unforgettable debut, Kendall has written a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought and in deed.
The girls at North Bay Academy are taking sides. It all started when Mike Parker's girlfriend showed up with a bruise on her face. Or, more specifically, when she walked into the principal's office and said Mike hit her. But the students have questions: Why did she go to the principal and not the police? Why did she stay so long if he was hurting her? Obviously, if it's true, Mike should be expelled. But is it true? Some girls want to rally for his expulsion - and some want to rally around Mike. The only thing that the entire student body can agree on? Someone is lying. And the truth has to come out.
A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are--and have always been--instrumental in shaping our country
In centering Black women's stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women's unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.
A Black Women's History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women's lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices: enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women's history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation.
Every day, all over the world, women are catcalled and denigrated simply for walking down the street. Boys will be boys, women have been told for generations, ignore it, shrug it off, take it as a compliment. But the harassment has real consequences for women: in the fear it instills and the shame they are made to feel.
In Stop Telling Women to Smile, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh uses her arresting street art portraits to explore how women experience hostility in communities that are supposed to be homes. She addresses the pervasiveness of street harassment, its effects, and the kinds of activism that can serve to counter it. The result is a cathartic reckoning with the aggression women endure, and an examination of what equality truly entails.
And here’s an extra recommendation to inspire the badass girls in your life…
Did anyone ever get anywhere by being quiet? To change anything, you have to make some noise! From the creators of the award-winning Kazoo magazine comes a look at the lives of 25 extraordinary women through the eyes of 25 extraordinary comic artists. In chapters titled Grow, Tinker, Play, Create, Rally, and Explore, you'll meet Eugenie Clark, who swam with sharks, Raye Montague, who revolutionized the design process for ships, Hedy Lamarr, a beautiful actress and brilliant inventor, Julia Child, a chef who wasn't afraid to make mistakes, Kate Warne, the first female detective, who saved the life of President-Elect Abraham Lincoln, and many more.
In 25 distinct styles from some of the most exciting comic artists, Noisemakers is for everyone who is not afraid to use their voice and for those who could use a little boost.
Looking for books and gifts for you and the badass women in your life? Visit our Badass Women’s Book Club Online Store! I do earn a small commission from sales made from this site (and the links above!) – so thank you in advance for your support!