For as long as medicine has been a practice, women's bodies have been treated like objects to be practiced on: examined and ignored, idealized and sexualized, shamed, subjugated, mutilated, and dismissed. The history of women’s healthcare is a story in which women themselves have too often been voiceless—a narrative instead written from the perspective of men who styled themselves as author…
Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development to health care to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this…
When Malala was born in Mingora, Pakistan, her father was determined she would have every opportunity that a boy would have. Malala loved getting an education, but when a hateful regime came to power, girls were no longer allowed to go to school. Malala spoke out, which made her a target for violence. Still, she resolved to become an activist for girls' education. This story of the education ad…
Aged six, Evonne read a magazine article about a young girl who made it to centre court at a magical place called Wimbledon. Somehow, she knew she had to get there. Fast forward 15 years, and Evonne was the first Indigenous Australian to win Wimbledon, aged 20 years old. A pioneer of Indigenous rights and women in tennis, this inspiring story features a facts and photos section at the back.
Aretha grew up in a family of musicians, singing with heart and soul in her father's gospel choir. She went on to bring that feeling to her own music, creating some of history's best-loved songs that still spark hope in listeners today. This inspiring story about the Queen of Soul features a facts and photos section at the back.
Billie Jean King grew up surrounded by sport of all kinds. But the first time she played tennis, she knew she would become World No. 1. On and off the court, she strived for equality, blazing a trail for women in sport and showing the world that women's tennis deserved to be taken seriously. Billie Jean continues to teach young players the value of teamwork and the importance of equality in spo…
Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. She began it soon after she had finished Emma, completing it in August 1816. She died, aged 41, in 1817; Persuasion was published in December that year (but dated 1818). Persuasion is linked to Northanger Abbey not only by the fact that the two books were originally bound up in one volume and published together, but also because both stories are…
Discover the remarkable achievements of female life scientists in this fascinating book. Learn more about this STEM topic through inspirational women such as Mary Anning, Dian Fossey and Sylvia Earle, and find out how they overcame prejudice and other obstacles to achieve scientific greatness.
This is a troubling story of crime, sin, guilt, punishment and expiation, set in the rigid moral climate of 17th-century New England. The young mother of an illegitimate child confronts her Puritan judges. However, it is not so much her harsh sentence, but the cruelties of slowly exposed guilt as her lover is revealed, that hold the reader enthralled all the way to the book's poignant climax.