While women make up over half of readers in the United States, books by women do not receive even close to half of the attention as those by men—not in book reviews by your favorite publications nor in prestigious literary awards. Between 2000 and 2015, not a single book by a woman from the point of view of a woman won a Pulitzer.Data, scholars, and common sense tell us that this isn't because men are simply better writers, but rather because of a deeply ingrained gender bias that's present in the publishing industry, the media, the hearts of fancy book reviewers, and readers across the world. Changing this requires deliberate actions from within each of these categories, but today we can start with the latter.
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Whether you like to curl up with a bound paper book, pull out your kindle on a crowded train, or have Alexa read to you while you hold a plank, here are nine books we hope you're inspired to read this International Women's Day, alongside excerpts, essays, or interviews from their authors that we've published in the past year.Magical Negro, published earlier this month by Tin House, is actually Parker’s third collection of poetry, following Other People’s Comforts Keep Me Up At Night and There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé . It continues a dialogue started by those predecessors—one about selfhood in the wake of a harsh history. Parker’s poetry seamlessly intertwines moments of intimate introspection, euphoria, desire, and sorrow with reflections on the psychological and spiritual legacy of Black America: the displacement caused by the transatlantic slave trade, the harm of racial discrimination, the systemic erasure of Black narratives, and the resilience of a people who—despite everything—continue to survive."When we were conceiving the idea for this book, I was like well how do I make this like relevant to right now? We were coming up to the 40th anniversary of the Combahee River Collective Statement (1977). A lot of people don't know who was involved in it. They talk about Audre Lorde. They talk about Chirlane McCray. But, a lot of people don't know how they came together and put this revolutionary document together where they were like Black women deserve blank. They ain't talking about Black men. They ain't talking about white women. We are saying that Black women specifically deserve X, and they were a queer collective, which is already radical in itself. These were brilliant minds, academics coming together again, radical in itself, and they're coming together as Black women in one space, and they are bringing knowledge and gender."
Magical Negro by Morgan Parker
Reclaiming Our Space by Feminista Jones
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Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism by Kristen R. Ghodsee
Revolting Prostitutes by Juno Mac and Molly Smith
Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay by Phoebe Robinson
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