Research Guides: NYU Reads: Women's Rights

Women's Rights

'The collateral consequences of mass incarceration have been equally profound. We ban poor women and, inevitably, their children from receiving food stamps and public housing if they have prior drug convictions. We have created a new caste system that forces thousands of people into homelessness, bans them from living with their families and in their communities." Just Mercy, Chapter 16

Many of the cases that Stevenson describes in Just Mercy show us the overlapping effects that race, gender, and class have on his client's interactions with the criminal justice system. These resources give voice to issues facing women, especially women of color and poor women, and the fight for women's rights. Subjects include feminism, reproductive justice, and the systemic effects of sexism.

Essays & Articles

"If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” - "A Black Feminist Statement" by the Combahee River Collective

A Black Feminist Statement
by Combahee River Collective
Reproductive (In)justice: Women and Mothers in Prison
by Lillian Hewko, J.D
Women of Color and the Hidden Trauma of Police Brutality
by Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Incarcerated Women and Girls
by The Sentencing Project

Print Books & eBooks

Print Books

Resistance Behind Bars by Victoria Law
Publication Date: 2009
An expose determind to challenge and change oversights currently prevalent in the incarceration of women. It examines daily struggles against appalling prison conditions and injustices.
Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
Publication Date: 2018
Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.Far too often, Black women's anger has been caricatured into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy. But Cooper shows us that there is more to the story than that. Black women's eloquent rage is what makes Serena Williams such a powerful tennis player. It's what makes Beyoncé's girl power anthems resonate so hard. It's what makes Michelle Obama an icon. Eloquent rage keeps us all honest and accountable. It reminds women that they don't have to settle for less.

eBooks

"What appealed to me about Black feminism was it asserted that we deserve space. We deserve space. If you're not dealing with these issues that we have on our backs all the time, you're not getting free, period, dot." - Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, from How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

How We Get Free by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Editor)
Publication Date: 2017
"If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free." --Combahee River Collective Statement Winner of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction The Combahee River Collective, a path-breaking group of radical black feminists, was one of the most important organizations to develop out of the antiracist and women's liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s. In this collection of essays and interviews edited by activist-scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, founding members of the organization and contemporary activists reflect on the legacy of its contributions to Black feminism and its impact on today's struggles. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes on Black politics, social movements, and racial inequality in the United States. Her book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation won the 2016 Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book. Her articles have been published in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, Jacobin, New Politics, The Guardian, In These Times, Black Agenda Report, Ms., International Socialist Review, and other publications. Taylor is Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University.
Feminism Is for Everybody by bell hooks
Publication Date: 2014
What is feminism? In this short, accessible primer, bell hooks explores the nature of feminism and its positive promise to eliminate sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. With her characteristic clarity and directness, hooks encourages readers to see how feminism can touch and change their lives--to see that feminism is for everybody.
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Publication Date: 2007
Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope.
Feminist Manifestos by Penny A. Weiss (Editor)
Publication Date: 2018
A wide-reaching collection of groundbreaking feminist documents from around the world Feminist Manifestos is an unprecedented collection of 150 documents from feminist organizations and gatherings in over 50 countries over the course of three centuries. In the first book of its kind, the manifestos are shown to contain feminist theory and recommend actions for change, and also to expand our very conceptions of feminist thought and activism. Covering issues from political participation, education, religion and work to reproduction, violence, racism, and environmentalism, the manifestos together challenge simplistic definitions of gender and feminist movements in exciting ways.
Arrested Justice by Beth Richie
Publication Date: 2012
Through the compelling stories of Black women who have been most affected by racism, persistent poverty, class inequality, limited access to support resources or institutions, Beth E. Richie shows that the threat of violence to Black women has never been more serious, demonstrating how conservative legal, social, political and economic policies have impacted activism in the U.S.-based movement to end violence against women. Richie argues that Black women face particular peril because of the ways that race and culture have not figured centrally enough in the analysis of the causes and consequences of gender violence.

Videos

bell hooks and Laverne Cox in a Public Dialogue at The New School
(YouTube video, 1 hour 36 minutes and 8 seconds) A public dialogue between bell hooks & Laverne Cox. Laverne Cox is a critically acclaimed actress who appears in the Netflix original series Orange is the New Black, playing the groundbreaking role of “Sophia Burset,” an incarcerated African American transgender woman. Laverne is the first trans woman of color to have a leading role on a mainstream scripted television show. bell hooks (née Gloria Watkins) is a leading scholar whose writings cover a broad range of topics including gender, race, teaching, and contemporary culture.

Podcasts

Intersectionality Matters!
Intersectionality Matters is a podcast hosted by Kimberle Crenshaw, the lawyer, civil rights advocate, scholar who developed the theory of intersectionality - the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender, which lend to overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

NYU Reads