Women's History Month
Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week." Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as "Women’s History Week." In 1987 after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month." Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, US presidents have issued a series of annual proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.”
Art Club (Arrupe College of Loyola University Chicago), created by Laura Perez and Sarah Tejada (Class of 2018) -
Image courtesy of the Women and Leadership Archives, Loyola University Chicago
- National Women's History Museum For the last twenty years, the National Women’s History Museum has served as the largest online cultural institution dedicated to US women’s history.
- Smithsonian American Women's History Museum To create a more equitable America, the Smithsonian is researching, disseminating, and amplifying the histories of American women through its American Women’s History Initiative in preparation for the future Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.
- Women & Leadership Archives - Loyola University Chicago Established in 1994, the Women and Leadership Archives (WLA) collects, preserves, and makes available permanently valuable records of women and women’s organizations, which document women’s lives, roles, and contributions.
International Women's Day is celebrated in various countries across the world to recognize the political and social achievements of women.
- International Women's Day Global news, events, and resources.
- UN Women UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. has the goals of promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. by bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact.
The National Women’s History Alliance, which spearheaded the movement for March being declared National Women’s History Month, has announced the women’s history theme for 2023, “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories.”
Throughout 2023, the NWHA will encourage recognition of women, past and present, who have been active in all forms of media and storytelling including print, radio, TV, stage, screen, blogs, podcasts, and more. The timely theme honors women in every community who have devoted their lives and talents to producing art, pursuing truth, and reflecting the human condition decade after decade. (Source: NWHA)
- GenderWatch This link opens in a new windowIndex of some-full text articles and abstracts related to gender studies, including women's studies, feminism, masculine studies, masculinity studies, transgender studies, LGBTQ, LGBTQA, and sexuality.
- Women's Studies International This link opens in a new window
- Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowFull-text archive of consumer magazines aimed at a female readership including Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Woman's Day. Also includes titles such as Parents, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, and Essence. Coverage: 19th century - 2005.
- Women and Social Movements Scholar's Edition This link opens in a new windowFull-text primary sources related to the history of women in American social movements. Coverage: 1600 - 2000.
- Women's Studies & Gender Studies Locate core research resources related to women's studies and gender studies
Streaming Films
The Color Purple by
Walker's masterpiece about the love between women isn't just an LGBT classic, it's a must-read book in just about every way. Made into a major motion picture, this National Book and Pulitzer Prize-winner follows the story of two sisters living very different lives and the unbreakable bond between them, even through impossible circumstances.
Call Number: PS3573.A425 C6 1992ISBN: 0151191549Publication Date: 1992-05-22
The Joy Luck Club by
Master storyteller Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters in this New York Times bestseller. "The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational."--Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians In 1949 four Chinese women-drawn together by the shadow of their past-begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Nearly forty years later, one of the members has died, and her daughter has come to take her place, only to learn of her mother's lifelong wish--and the tragic way in which it has come true. The revelation of this secret unleashes an urgent need among the women to reach back and remember...
Call Number: PS3570.A48 J6 1989ISBN: 0399134204Publication Date: 1989-03-22
Women with Big Eyes by
Women with Big Eyesis Mexican novelist Ángeles Mastretta's most widely read work, now available for the first time in an English translation. Each of the stories in Women with Big Eyesreveals a different woman, yet they are linked by a single thread: the uniting revelation that women share an unnamed force, whether it comes in the form of iron resolve, flaming passion, or simply the knowing and mystical ways to nurture a soul. Mastretta's women are vibrant, sly, wise, earthy, and full of life, with stories that mesmerize. From these pages, they gaze at you, into you, each representing an aspect of what it means to be a woman with big eyes-able to see the world for what it is, to wink at it, and to make an uncompromising life within it. Ángeles Mastretta is a delightful storyteller, and these tales are shot through with sex and laughter. Women with Big Eyes makes a perfect, exquisite gift for any woman with a passionate heart and radiant eyes.
Call Number: PQ7298.23.A795 M38913 2003ISBN: 1573223468Publication Date: 2003-11-10
Juliet Takes a Breath by
Juliet Milagros Palante is leaving the Bronx and headed to Portland, Oregon. She just came out to her family and isn't sure if her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan, sort of, one that's going to help her figure out this whole "Puerto Rican lesbian" thing. She's interning with the author of her favorite book: Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women's bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff.Will Juliet be able to figure out her life over the course of one magical summer? Is that even possible? Or is she running away from all the problems that seem too big to handle?With more questions than answers, Juliet takes on Portland, Harlowe, and most importantly, herself.
Call Number: PS3618.I8457 J85 2016ISBN: 9781626012516Publication Date: 2016-01-28
Indiana by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9780199540488Publication Date: 2008-08-01Indiana, the first novel George Sand wrote without a collaborator, is both a vivid romance and a powerful plea for change in inequitable marriage laws and in the place of women in society.
The Women's Room by
The twenty-one-million copy bestselling novel and provocative feminist classic that changed the world when it was first published in 1977 "With The Women's Room, Marilyn French joined Simone de Beauvoir, Ralph Ellison, and that very small group of writers whose words spark a movement." --Gloria Steinem In the 1950s, many American women left education and professional advancement behind in order to marry, only to find themselves adrift and unable to support themselves after divorcing their husbands twenty years later. Some became destitute; a few went insane. But many went back to school in the heyday of the Women's Liberation movement, and were swept up in the promise of equality for both sexes. The Women's Room tells the story of one such woman: a suburban 1950s housewife named Mira who divorces her loathsome husband and returns to graduate school at Harvard. Loosely based on Marilyn French's own life, the story of Mira and her friends offers wry, piercing insight into the inner lives of a generation of American women. A powerful indictment of the patriarchal social norms of the time, it caused an uproar when it was first published in 1977, changing the course of the feminist movement forever. Today, it remains timely and eerily relevant--a courageous novel infused with revolutionary fervor that examines the world of hopeful believers looking for new truths.
Call Number: PS3556.R2 W6ISBN: 9780143114505Publication Date: 2009-05-27
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by
Written during a time of great political turmoil, social anxiety, and against the backdrop of the French Revolution, Wollstonecraft's argument continues to challenge and inspire. This revised and expanded Third Edition is again based on the 1792 second-edition text and is accompanied by revised and expanded explanatory annotations. "Backgrounds and Contexts" is also significantly expanded and contains twenty-four works organized thematically into these groupings: "Legacies of English Radicalism," "Education," "Wollstonecraft's Revolutionary Moment," and "The Wollstonecraft Debate." Opinions on a variety of reforms that may be compared and contrasted with Wollstonecraft's include those by John Milton, John Locke, Mary Astell, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Hannah More, Richard Price, Edmund Burke, Maria Edgeworth, and William Godwin, among others. "Criticism" includes six seminal essays on A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Elissa S. Guralnick, Mitzi Myers, Cora Kaplan, Mary Poovey, Claudia L. Johnson, and Barbara Taylor. A Chronology of Wollstonecraft's life and work and a Selected Bibliography are also included.
Call Number: HQ1596 .W6 2009ISBN: 9780393929744Publication Date: 2009-06-02
Loose Woman by
Seductive, earthy, at times confessional, Sandra Cisneros's vibrant new collection of poetry celebrates the female aspects of love - from the reflective to the overtly erotic - in a voice recognizable from her powerful works of fiction. These poems offer narratives as formally elegant as they are emotional and accessible. They are bound together by the voice of one woman, whose language spans cultures and continents. She is a woman who finds great strength from her roots in the barrio, and who knows better than to take herself too seriously, even as she struggles with the anguish of making sense - and making love - in a world she feels compelled to write about. With a multiplicity of moods tumbling through its lines - joyous and introspective, tender and ruthless, self-mocking and sincere, often funny and sometimes wild and rude - Loose Woman offers intoxicating poems of extraordinary insight and vivid imagination.
Call Number: PS3553.I78 L66 1994ISBN: 0679416447Publication Date: 1994-04-26
Their Eyes Were Watching God by
Initially published in 1937, this novel about a proud, independent black woman has, since its reissue in trade paper in 1978, been the most widely readand highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature. With this richly illustrated new edition, the novel is finally accorded the treatment it deserves as a classic.
Call Number: PS3515.U789 T639 1991ISBN: 0252017781Publication Date: 1991-10-01
The Complete Poetry by Call Number: PS3551.N464 A6 2015bISBN: 9780812997873Publication Date: 2015-03-31
A History of Twentieth-Century American Women's Poetry by Call Number: PS151 .H57 2016ISBN: 9781107137561Publication Date: 2016-06-20
Complete Poetry and Prose by Call Number: Online & PQ1628.L2 A23 2006ISBN: 0226467163Publication Date: 2007-11-01
The Disappearing L by
"LGBT Americans now enjoy the right to marry-- but what will we remember about the vibrant cultural spaces that lesbian activists created in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s? Most are vanishing from the calendar-- and from recent memory. The Disappearing L explores the rise and fall of the hugely popular women-only concerts, festivals, bookstores, and support spaces built by and for lesbians in the era of woman-identified activism. Through the stories unfolding in these chapters, anyone unfamiliar with the Michigan festival, Olivia Records, or the women's bookstores once dotting the urban landscape will gain a better understanding of the era in which artists and activists first dared to celebrate lesbian lives. This book offers the backstory to the culture we are losing to mainstreaming and assimilation. Through interviews with older activists, it also responds to recent attacks on lesbian feminists who are being made to feel that they've hit their cultural expiration date."
Call Number: HQ76.96 .M67 2016ISBN: 9781438461779Publication Date: 2016-09-01
A Black Women's History of the United States by
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
Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9780807033555Publication Date: 2020-02-04
Black Feminism Reimagined by
In Black Feminism Reimagined Jennifer C. Nash reframes black feminism's engagement with intersectionality, often celebrated as its primary intellectual and political contribution to feminist theory. Charting the institutional history.
Call Number: Online & HQ1197 .N37 2019ISBN: 9781478002253Publication Date: 2018-12-06
Reshaping Women's History by
"Award-winning women scholars from nontraditional backgrounds have often negotiated an academic track that leads through figurative--and sometimes literal--minefields. Their life stories offer inspiration, but also describe heartrending struggles and daunting obstacles. Reshaping Women's History presents autobiographical essays by eighteen accomplished scholar-activists who persevered through poverty or abuse, medical malpractice or family disownment, civil war or genocide. As they illuminate their own unique circumstances, the authors also address issues all-too-familiar to women in the academy: financial instability, the need for mentors, explaining gaps in resumes caused by outside events, and coping with gendered family demands, biases, and expectations. "
Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9780252050749Publication Date: 2018-09-25
Feminism for the Americas by
Reveals the story of six dynamic women who drove Pan-American feminism from the 1920s-1940s: Uruguayan Paulina Luisi, Brazilian Bertha Lutz, Chilean Marta Vergara, Cuban Ofelia Dominguez Navarro, Panamanian Clara Gonzalez, and U.S. citizen Doris Stevens. The deep friendships and intense rivalries among these women during an era marked by imperialism, racism, and fascism gave rise to a feminism sensitive to multiple forms of oppression.
Call Number: HQ1460.5 .M35 2019ISBN: 9781469649696Publication Date: 2019-03-04
U. S. Women's History by
Spanning the antebellum era to the present day, the ten original essays in U.S. Women's History represent a cross-section of current scholarship, examining both the causes that have united American women and the conflicts that have divided them. The book offers a fresh take on familiar events and figures, from Rosa Parks to Take Back the Night marches, while vividly conveying the multi-textured and multi-hued tapestry that is U.S. women's history.
Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9780813575858Publication Date: 2017-01-25
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf by
A "choreo-poem" reflecting the views of a black American woman regarding the women of her race.
First published in 1975, Shange's choreopoem has been read and performed because it truly revealed what it meant to be of color and female in the twentieth century. Here is the complete text, with stage directions of the dramatic prose poem that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world.
Call Number: PS3569.H3324 F67 2010ISBN: 9781451624205Publication Date: 2010-11-09
The Glass Universe by
The little-known true story of the unexpected and remarkable contributions to astronomy made by a group of women working in the Harvard College Observatory from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s.
Call Number: QB34.5 .S63 2016ISBN: 9780670016952Publication Date: 2016-12-06
The Moment of Lift by
"For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down. In this moving and compelling book, Melinda shares lessons she's learned from the inspiring people she's met during her work and travels around the world. As she writes in the introduction, 'That is why I had to write this book -- to share the stories of people who have given focus and urgency to my life. I want all of us to see ways we can lift women up where we live.' Melinda provides an unforgettable narrative backed by startling data as she presents the issues that most need our attention -- from child marriage to lack of access to contraceptives to gender inequity in the workplace. And, for the first time, she writes about her personal life and the road to equality in her own marriage. Throughout, she shows how there has never been more opportunity to change the world -- and ourselves. Writing with emotion, candor, and grace, she introduces us to remarkable women and shows the power of connecting with one another. When we lift others up, they lift us up, too."--Dust jacket.
Call Number: HQ1155 .G38 2019ISBN: 9781250313577Publication Date: 2019-04-23
My Own Words by
In this witty, engaging, New York Times-bestselling book, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg discusses gender equality and the work of the Supreme Court as well as her own fascinating personal life and the impact of her Jewish faith.
Call Number: Online & KF373.G565 G56 2016ISBN: 9781501145254Publication Date: 2018-08-07
The Purpose of Power by
rst edition.
Description
"Coupled with the speed and networking capacities of social media, #blacklivesmatter was the hashtag heard round the world. But Alicia Garza well knew that the distance between a hashtag and real change would take more than a single facebook to cover. It would take a movement. Garza was a lifelong activist who had spent the previous decades educating herself on the hard lessons of organizing. She started as a kid, working on sexual education for her peers, and then moved on to major campaigns around housing, policing, and immigrant and labor rights in California and then nationally. The lessons she extracted were different from the "rules for radicals" that animated earlier generations of lefitists; they were also different than the charismatic, patriarchal model of the American Civil Rights Movement. She instead developed a mode of organizing based on creating deep connections with communities, forging multiracial, intersectional coalitions, and, most of all, calling in all sorts of people to join the fight for the world we all deserve.
Call Number: Online & HM881 .G37 2020ISBN: 9780525509691Publication Date: 2020-10-20
We Are Here by
Curated by Jasmin Hernandez, the dynamic founder of Gallery Gurls, We Are Here presents the bold and nuanced work of Black and Brown visionaries transforming the art world, with a particular focus on queer, trans and nonbinary artists. This collection features fifty of the most influential voices in New York, Los Angeles, and beyond. Striking photography of art, creative spaces, materials, and the subjects themselves is paired with intimate interviews that engage with each artist and influencer, delving into their creative process and unpacking how each subject actively works to create a more radically inclusive world across the entire art ecosystem.
Call Number: N6490 .H4645 2021ISBN: 9781419747595Publication Date: 2021-02-02
We Should All Be Feminists by
In this essay -- adapted from her TEDx talk of the same name -- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning author of Americanah, offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author's exploration of what it means to be a woman now -- and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.
Call Number: Online & HQ1206 .A35 2015ISBN: 9781101911761Publication Date: 2015-02-03
Women Who Run with the Wolves by Call Number: GR470 .E88 1992ISBN: 9780345409874Publication Date: 1996-11-27
Abina and the Important Men by Call Number: KRX46.M36 G48 2012ISBN: 0199844399Publication Date: 2011-09-02
Coretta Scott King - I Kept On Marching by Call Number: Lewis Library Curriculum Collection (6th Floor) E185.97.K47 K89 2015
Disability Visibility (Adapted for Young Adults) by
A young adult adaptation of Alice Wong's Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century"-- Provided by publisher.
According to the last census, one in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some are visible, some are hidden-- but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Wong brings together an urgent, galvanizing collection of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers. Inside you will find activists, authors, lawyers, politicians, artists, and everyday people whose daily lives include the vast richness and complexity of the disabled experience. They invite readers to question their own assumptions and understandings, while documenting disability culture in the now.
Call Number: HV1552.3 .D572 2020ISBN: 9780593381670Publication Date: 2021-10-26
Good night stories for rebel girls : 100 tales of extraordinary women by Call Number: Lewis Library Curriculum Collection (6th Floor) CT3207 .F38 2017
History vs Women: the Defiant Lives That They Don't Want You to Know by Call Number: HQ1121 .S27 2018ISBN: 9781250146731Publication Date: 2018-10-02
Magnificent Minds: sixteen pioneering women in science and medicine by Call Number: Lewis Library Curriculum Collection (6th Floor) Q141 .N758 2015
Not for Ourselves Alone by Call Number: HQ1412 .W36 1999ISBN: 0375405607Publication Date: 1999-10-19
Remarkable Minds: seventeen more pioneering women in science and medicine by Call Number: Lewis Library Curriculum Collection (6th Floor) Q141 .N7585 2015
