Friday 06-03-2020 - 10:52

With International Women’s Day fast approaching, there is nothing better than immersing yourself in fantastic books, films and experiences curated and inspired by powerful women. Here are our top picks for you LJMU female powerhouses this Women’s History Month!

 

 

Events:

Women’s Strike March and Rally, The Bombed Out Church, Sunday 8^th March @ 12:30pm – Feminist Society are going, so feel free to join them!

 

Wednesday 11^th March @8am – Business Breakfast: Mind the Gap diversity inclusion seminar by the University of Liverpool business school! An early start in the day but that definitely adds to the powerful business woman vibe we all like to channel!

 

 

Wednesday 25^th March @7pm @ Goodison Park, EFC women’s v LFC women’s football derby! FemSoc have some free tickets left so just drop them a message to watch this historical match!

 

 

Take part in an immersive and inclusive procession where Latin American women will share music, poems, dance and objects in a circle as an offering to our ancestors. Saturday, 14^th March @ the Tate

 

Visit the Joseph Cotgrave exhibition at the Output Gallery on Seel Street. This current exhibition uses sculpture, installation and sound to open up the conversation around the culture of the gay scene, chem sex, and the stigma surrounding HIV. Open 11-6 everyday until March 15^th!  

 

Good as Hell – Bad Girl Bangers! Get your Lizzo x Eilish x Beyoncé fix all in one at this pre-IWD night out at Camp and Furnace this Friday! Tickets starting at £5!

 

The Dressed to Impress exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery showcases women’s and men’s fashion during the 18^th century, offering exclusive and fascinating insight into social culture at the time.

 

Books:

• We should all be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • Adichie perfectly articulates why we should all embrace feminism in order to achieve a better society for all. Adichie writes with clarity, realness and offers an all-encompassing view on the intersectionality within feminism. A great read and its pocket-size nature makes it perfect for enjoying on a commute or coffee break.
• Women and Power: A Manifesto, Mary Beard
  • Beard explores how history, and the modern day, has treated powerful women. Beard’s voice comes through in this book and offers an earnest insight into the problems that women face on the path to power. The relationship women have with power and the struggle of going beyond the male template is well presented in this fantastic book.
• The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
  • Atwood depicts the gruesome western world in a future dystopian society that has abandoned women’s rights and uses religion as inspiration for how to control women’s sexuality and reproductive rights. It is told through the eyes of a handmaid, exploring the trails and tribulations of this chilling simulation.
• Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez
  • Invisible Women reveals the fundamental flaws in a world designed by, and built for, men, that causes the other half of the globe, women, to be ignored and overlooked. Perez explores the impact of this in the capacity of technology, medical research and government policy. A fantastic book for understanding engrained issues in the twenty-first century.
• Know My Name: A Memoir, Chanel Miller
  • Miller writes about the reality of a sexual assault victim and her journey towards healing. This book challenges the way we think about sexual assault and what is acceptable. This book is regarded widely as a modern classic.
• 50 Shades of Feminism, Lisa Appignanesi, Rachel Holmes & Susie Orbach
  • The antidote to the idea that being a woman is all about submitting to desire. There are many more shades than that and here are fifty women to explore them.  In this volume, fifty women young and old - writers, politicians, actors, scientists, mothers - reflect on the shades that inspired them and what being woman means to them today. (goodreads.com)
• The Psychology of Time Travel, Kate Mascarenhas
  • The story of four female sceintieists working together to build a time machine in the 1960s. ‘Traversing the decades and told from alternating perspectives, The Psychology of Time Travel introduces a fabulous new voice in fiction and a new must-read for fans of speculative fiction and women’s fiction alike.’ (goodreads.com)
• The Help, Kathryn Stockett
  • In pitch-perfect voices, Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't. (goodreads.com)

 

Films and documentaries:

• On the Basis of Sex
  • On the Basis of Sex is a 2018 American biographical legal drama film based on the life and early cases of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, directed by Mimi Leder
• Bombshell
  • The film stars Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie, and is based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment.
• Mary Queen of Scots
  • Based on John Guy's biography Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart. The film stars Saoirse Ronan as Mary, Queen of Scots and Margot Robbie as her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, and chronicles the 1569 conflict between their two countries.
• Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer
  • The film follows the court cases on the Russian feminist/anti-Putinist punk-rock protest group Pussy Riot.
• Pride
  • Based on a true story, the film depicts a group of lesbian and gay activists who raised money to help families affected by the British miners' strike in 1984, at the outset of what would become the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign.
• Laila at the Bridge
  • Laila Haidari survived child marriage and her own traumatic past to battle one of the deadliest problems in Afghanistan: heroin addiction. As the "mother of the addicts," she must prevail over a crisis of addiction and a corrupt government in a country on the verge of collapse.
• POSE – on BBC iPlayer
  • POSE is an American drama television series about New York City's African-American and Latinx LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming ballroom culture scene in the 1980s.
• Hidden Figures
  • Hidden Figures is loosely based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly about black female mathematicians who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Space Race.
• I Am Not an Easy Man – Netflix
  • Damien is a shameless chauvinist who has all the benefits of living in a patriarchal society. After a bump to the head, Damien passes out. When he wakes up, he finds himself in what seems to be an alternate universe where gender roles are reversed and women have the power.
• Made in Dagenham
  • This film dramatises the true story of the Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968 that aimed for equal pay for women. 
• Legally Blonde
  • The film tells the story of Elle Woods, a sorority girl who attempts to win back her ex-boyfriend by getting a Juris Doctor degree.
• Fleabag
  • Phoebe Waller-Bridge plays Fleabag, a free-spirited but angry, confused, and sexually active young woman living in London.