It’s time for a new generation of feminists to take up the torch. But where to begin? Should teens hit the ground running with The Feminine Mystique? Or maybe a fantasy novel about dismantling entrenched structures of power? Yes and yes. If you need suggestions, here are 10 feminist books for teens.
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We Should All Be Feminists is a long-form essay by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a New York Times best-selling author and leading light in postcolonial feminist thought. Adapted from her TEDx talk of the same name, We Should All Be Feminists is an eloquent and deeply personal piece of prose about the importance of embracing feminist thought, no matter who you are. Combining personal anecdotes with observations of society as a whole, the book is a call to action for feminist thinkers everywhere.
Children of Blood and Bone is a fantasy series inspired by West African culture. The plot centers around the young Zélie, whose people have had their magic stolen under the rule of a ruthless tyrant. To bring magic back to the surviving members of her community, Zélie teams up with a rebel princess who is hellbent on striking back against the monarchy. It’s an epic novel, the story of two young women who master themselves and their latent abilities to topple an oppressive regime. These two are everything a young feminist should aspire to be.
Alok Vaid-Menon’s Beyond the Gender Binary may be a small book, but it packs some huge ideas. From the mind of one of the leading nonbinary thinkers of today, Beyond the Gender Binary is an essay about the nature of the gender binary, how society enforces gender roles, and how a person can live a life free of those roles to pursue a gender expression that is uniquely personal to them. A core component of feminist thought is the understanding of how entrenched power structures use gender to establish hierarchy and dominance. When the binary is broken, so too is that power.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is a novel about 16-year-old Starr Carter, who witnesses the death of her best friend in a senseless act of police violence. Thrust into the public eye as a key witness to the killing, Starr finds that the weight of a budding movement for social justice rests on her young shoulders. The Hate U Give is the story of a young girl’s stand against oppression and highlights the importance of intersectionality in the pursuit of feminist liberation.
Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is a novel about mental illness and the myriad ways that women are punished for suffering from it. The young and brilliant poet Esther Greenwood finds her mental health to be in steep decline in her 20s, and she soon finds herself a victim of a medical system that is, on the surface, designed to help. The Bell Jar is a story about how many women find themselves pathologized in a society that refuses to understand their struggles, and that the path to mental wellness must often, sadly, be walked alone.
Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness is a critique of the gender binary masquerading as sci-fi fiction. Damn good science fiction. A human emissary lands on the planet Gethen to make contact with the dominant alien people that call the place home. He is baffled by the aliens’ androgynous physiology, as the people of Gethen only take on sexual characteristics during a brief mating period. The people of Gethen teach both the astronaut and the reader that gender as a construct is primarily one used to establish social control and dominance. Without it, the people of Gethen are nearly entirely free from humanity’s favorite pastime: war.
Lyra Belacqua, the heroine of His Dark Materials, is on a quest to smash the ultimate patriarch. Not the heavily gendered Edwardian society she finds herself living in. Not the oppressive religious organization that dominates the world. No, the ULTIMATE patriarch: God. On the heels of a secret that threatens to tear the fabric of reality asunder, Lyra journeys across the multiverse to discover the ultimate truth. With the help of talking polar bears, covens of witches, and a ghostly animal familiar, she’s going to topple the Kingdom of Heaven and build a Republic in its place.
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is a memoir by Maya Angelou, one of the greatest minds ever to put pen to paper. Beginning with Angelou’s childhood in a bigoted Southern town and ending as she comes into her power as an adult, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings provides an answer to its titular question. The book is a timeless tale of liberation, the struggle that every human must make against the bonds that hold us back. Bigotry, patriarchy, societal pressure, the soul sings to be free of it all.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a parable about a world where feminism has been all but snuffed out. After the U.S. government is overtaken by a far-right extremist regime, women find themselves enslaved to male captors who dominate the new nation of Gilead. Sold into sexual slavery to a powerful government official, a woman named Offred becomes the spark of a revolutionary wildfire that will bring the nation to its knees.
I Am Malala is the harrowing memoir of a Pakistani teen named Malala Yousafzai, who fought for the education of women and girls while her nation was under Taliban rule. At 15 years old, she was shot in the temple by Taliban assassins while riding a school bus. Did her story end there? Hell no. She survived her attack and continued her activism, becoming the youngest nominee in history for the Nobel Peace Prize. Malala is a feminist icon and a living symbol of resistance in the face of violent oppression. Her brave and selfless actions serve as an inspiration to us all.
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