Consciousness Raising: WGSS
a masterlist of non-fiction (including memories) books on Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. many of these are from my classes in university. however, I have not read all the books on this list, so some are included based on the summary, reviews, and of course your suggestions!
created by axelaubl
last updated June, 2026
Comments
Any recommendations are welcome!
As I said, I have not read all the books on this list; some I own and some are suggestions from you lovely folks. I started with those from classes (one of my minors was WGS but I majored in history, so that explains the historical subject bias in the list!). Not all are necessarily views I personally endorse (eg Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's We Should All Be Feminists is colored by her bioessentialist cissexism, but it does serve as a decent intro to feminism for true beginners, especially due to its short size)
So, as always, read critically and keep learning my friends!
If we’re doing overview of gender studies we need Andrea Dworkin!! I do not endorse all of her views either haha but I think she should be here. Pornography is probably her most well known.
ETA Simone de Beauvoir (unless I missed her here?) Le Deuxième Sexe/The Second Sex. Not everything in there is great but it’s a foundational text and kicked off the second wave.
