I don’t think that I will ever be able to adequately convey the importance of reading in your adult life. While reading can be a means of pleasure or stress release, it is also one of the best ways to stay informed and present in times of crisis or turmoil. Over the past year and a half, I have begun to lean on non-fiction to learn more about topics that are important to me. Reading women’s non-fiction has opened my eyes to the ways in which women are targeted by society every day. 

   Here are just a couple titles that have stayed with me long after I’ve finished them.

   “Men Who Hate Women” by Laura Bates might be the most horrifying book I have ever read in my life, simply because all the horrific events in this book are 100% real. Bates’ book explores the hate-fueled words and actions of largely online groups of men who despise women. Packed full of first-hand experience and interviews with former members of these communities, Bates shows readers the unapologetic, hateful speech these men exercise online but face no real consequences for. Bates emphasizes how the problematic beliefs and actions of these communities have bled through into all aspects of the non-digital world, yet the existence and actions of these communities are often ignored or denied, with the blame instead being placed on women, as it usually is.

   If you only take one thing away from this article, let it be that you must read “Invisible Women” by Caroline Criado-Perez. This book details how the gender gap in data collection makes it so that women are inherently disadvantaged in countless aspects of society. From transportation to snow removal, data for innovation is based on the average man – completely leaving the average woman out of consideration. This means women must pay with their time, money and lives throughout their day-to-day lives. Ever since I read this book, I can’t help but observe what was discussed in its pages as I look around me and reflect on my own experiences. 

   The last book I will recommend is “What Do We Need Men For” by E. Jean Carroll. I picked this book up after finishing “This American Ex-Wife” by Liz Lenz – which I also highly recommend – because both books can be classified as general non-fiction and memoirs. Carroll’s book follows her as she embarks on a road trip from Vermont to Louisiana where she stops in every woman-named town and asks its residents, “What do we need men for?” Hearing from such an array of voices mixed in with Carroll’s own experiences with less than pleasant men is what makes this book phenomenal. It feels as though she was wrapping the most serious of traumas up in the tender blanket of comedy.

   Carroll quips, “Men have had enough nice books written about them. Not this one, ladies!”

   Biographies, memoirs and historical fiction bear just as much weight as other non-fiction books when you want to be mindful about reading women’s literature; however, what social science books do that these other books cannot is highlight the experiences of all women, rather than a specific person or group. Whether you want to learn more for yourself or for the sake of others, the power that non-fiction holds right now is immeasurable. 

   Happy reading!