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We live in an increasingly polarized world and feminist literature has never been as important as it is today. It’s our only hope of a better, more inclusive world as reading about diverse cultures and experiences can make us more receptive to ideas that we might not necessarily agree with. I have seen staunch people change their views on gender and sexuality because they read or watched something that triggered an emotional response in them. It doesn’t happen overnight but there’s a chance that even people with strict traditional moral values might change their minds and be open to new ideas if they find works that resonate with them. This week, I’m recommending five of my favorite feminist reads that I think everyone, especially men, should read. 

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

I first heard about this book from a BookTuber I follow. She spoke so highly of it that I wanted to get a copy as soon as I could. And I wanted a physical copy of the book because I was a little in love with its gorgeous, well thought out cover. ‘Three Women’ is a non-fiction book by Lisa Taddeo. It’s her debut novel and it follows the sexual and emotional lives of three women from different backgrounds and regions in the United States. Taddeo interviewed these three women and their families and friends over the course of eight long years. What I especially enjoyed about the book is that it reads like fiction rather than non-fiction. There’s almost a thriller element to it. The book details women’s complex emotions on desire and power and sheds light on how most women are the victims of misogyny even when it might not be obvious. I think it’s a must read for women of all ages and it’s an even more important work for men to pick up. 

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This slim book by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was published in 2014 and talks about the meaning of feminism and its importance in the 21st century. Adichie draws from her own life experiences and things that she has been told by other women. The main argument of the essay is, like the title suggests, everyone should be a feminist and Adichie shows how we can do better so that there is gender equality in the world. She urges readers to challenge old beliefs on gender that promote inequality between men and women. I read the book every six months or so because it’s short and the ideas presented in it make me think in different ways with every read. I also enjoy Adichie’s writing. Her novel ‘Purple Hibiscus’ is one of my absolute favorites. In ‘We Should All Be Feminists’, her voice rings loud and clear, inspiring you to do whatever you can to break free from cultural and social constructs that tell you that you are less than a man. I also tend to carry this book in my bag and dip in and out whenever I have some free time. Even if I read just a few lines, I find my mind becomes alert and I like how that feels. 

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

I didn’t read this book for the longest time because it was everywhere and I felt I knew everything there was to know about it without even owning a copy. ‘The Color Purple’, which was published in 1982, won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Everyone I knew, even those who didn’t read a lot, had read this book and I kind of felt left out so I finally gave in and bought a copy. The book has been targeted by censors many times, mainly for the explicit content so I also wanted to find out what the fuss was all about. The book has been adapted into feature films, musicals and even a radio series. The protagonist of the novel is sexually abused by her father and then her husband and the book details her journey of finding herself despite her circumstances. I must admit that it’s a difficult novel to read but it’s also an essential read as it makes you aware of the atrocities women suffer at the hands of men and why it’s important to speak up about gender equality and sexuality. 

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

I have multiple copies of Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’ as it’s a book I keep lending out and people keep forgetting to return it and I always like having a copy at hand. One of my friends recently gifted me a special edition of the book that has become one of my prized possessions. It’s an extended essay based on two lectures that Woolf delivered in 1928 at women’s colleges. The idea of the work is basically that for women to achieve greatness and come up with good literary work, they must have two things and that both of these are non-negotiable: financial resources, and time and space in the form of ‘a room of one’s own’. You get the sense of how important financial freedom is, especially for women. It gives them independence and agency besides allowing them to pursue what they love. It’s narrated by an unnamed female character, making you feel like it could very well be you telling your story. There’s a television adaptation of the book that compliments it really well. But I suggest you read the book first and then watch it on screen for maximum impact. 

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

I believe there is a right time to read ‘The Awakening’ by Kate Chopin. Otherwise, it can come across as boring. I had almost given up on it after multiple tries when I picked it up on whim one day and really enjoyed it. It’s considered a landmark work of early feminist literature as it depicts female sexuality with brutal honesty and challenges traditional gender roles. It was originally titled ‘A Solitary Soul’ and depicts a young mother’s struggle to achieve sexual and personal freedom. When it was first published in 1899, it was criticized for its portrayal of marital infidelity. It has also been described as a case study of 19th century feminism as the theme of the novel is women’s bodily autonomy—the right to have control over one’s body and identity. Feminists back then argued that the only way a woman could gain freedom was by refusing men’s control over their bodies. They focused on a wife’s right to say no to sexual advances from her husband. The novel is laced with symbolism and thus feels a little heavy so I suggest you read it when you are in the right frame of mind for it as it will keep you up at night. 

I like rewatching movies I watched when I was in school or college as it reminds me of a time when life was simple, besides filling me with nostalgia of an age when my biggest worries were finishing the homework, getting permission to use the landline phone, and not having enough pocket money. 

Most of the movies that are being made today are so elaborate that the charm of a straightforward story is sometimes missing. There is so much happening that it confuses you. Even simple romances have grand settings and convoluted plots. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that but compared to the movies I grew up watching, I find movies today to be unrealistic and over dramatic. 

Recently, thanks to all the OTT platforms available today and the relaunch of old movies in high definition, I’ve gotten to enjoy some of my favorite Julia Roberts’ movies. These have calmed my overactive mind and soothed my soul and this week I’m recommending three of those movies because I feel everyone could do with a little cheer in their lives. 

Notting Hill

The movie was released in 1999 and features Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in leading roles. It’s essentially a love story of a small town British bookseller (Grant) and a famous American actor (Roberts). It’s funny and heartwarming, with all the hallmarks of a classic romance, including but not limited to unexplained attraction, heartbreak, deceit, and finding your way to the one you were meant to be with despite the circumstances. The dialogues are witty and all the actors are convincing in their roles. You might be able to predict the ending but it’s still enjoyable to watch it all unfold. It has a 7.2 rating on IMDb and is available on Netflix and Amazon Prime. 

Pretty Woman

Featuring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, ‘Pretty Woman’ is a 1990 film that will make you laugh till your belly hurts. I must have watched it a dozen times when I was in high school. A rich businessman (Gere) hires a prostitute (Roberts) to accompany him to social events but the trouble starts when he falls in love with her and they try to bridge the gap between their worlds. Robert shines in her role, leaving you wanting to be every bit as sassy and confident like her. The romantic comedy has a 7.1 rating on IMDb and was originally intended as a dark cautionary tale about prostitution and class divide. 

Erin Brockovich 

The movie is based on a true story and is a feel-good film that makes you believe in the power of sticking to what is right and following your heart. A single mother (Roberts) becomes a legal assistant and discovers that a powerful California-based energy corporation has been polluting the city’s water supply. She’s determined to see that they are punished and provide compensation to those whose health has been impacted by it. It’s a feisty movie that has you rooting for Erin all throughout. The movie came out in 2000 and got Roberts the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. 

The different forms of life present in the earth at this moment makes for a small fraction of all those that have inhabited our planet since life started around 3.7bn years ago. All those near infinite life forms are connected with one another by the chain of descent or of common origin. Although this notion itself was not new even in his time, Charles Darwin was the first person to systematically elaborate and justify the idea now popularly known as evolution by natural selection. In the book, ‘The Origin of Species’, published in 1959, he explains in great detail the exact mechanism by which the process takes place. It’s considered among the greatest  and most beautiful scientific achievements of all time.

The first premise to understanding Darwin’s theory is that each living form struggles to survive and leave as many offspring as it can. A parent form produces offspring, not all of which are uniform. They may randomly and minutely vary in aspects like habits, constitution, and organization. If these differences are in some way favorable to the bearer, that form is likely to live longer and reproduce more of its kind. When many of such minute variations accumulate over a long period of time, the living forms can acquire different appearances from the parent form so as to appear unrelated to one another. Over a span of time, many such forms grow in complexity, occupying different places within the economy of nature, giving rise to an immensely vast number of species that we see populating the world.

It’s admirable to be able to state these principles with clarity especially at a time when the creationist dogma of Christianity that each species was separately created by God was what most people accepted unquestionably. However, Darwin goes many steps further and illustrates different aspects related to nature, contrasting between how those facts become unexplainable under the theory of creation and how they are naturally explained by the theory of natural selection. 

One such interesting fact is that embryos of species which vary greatly during adulthood are much more alike. This fact is explained by the principle that major variations specified above occur in the species during the age when they are most active or when they are adults and are accordingly inherited at similar ages. Hence the embryo of various related species with common progenitors being alike is explained on the view of species arising through natural selection. However, if they were created separately the question as to why embryos of differently created species should have been so alike cannot be reasonably answered.

Various body parts of different species with widely different functions like the wings of birds, fins of fish and legs of dogs share common structure in the underlying bone indicating their common origin. Natural selection has taken a single raw material from a common parent and out of that, it has formed different organs that would be beneficial to different species in their respective environments by the mechanism of accumulating small variations over a period of time. Again, under the false belief of godly creation of different species separately, these structures remain unexplained.

Besides giving these and more explanations in great detail evidencing the power of natural selection, Darwin takes on many challenges posed against the theory and answers each of them. One such challenge is the fact of the same species appearing in geographical regions vastly far from each other without it being found in the intermediate regions giving the illusion of being created separately in two regions. This he explains by referring to the possible geological changes over the long course of history whereby it’s possible that different continents weren’t as separate in the past as it is now. That would have allowed species from one region to have migrated to another region after which the two regions separated. Migration has been a powerful force in populating the entire planet with different variations of life forms. There are many interesting ways life forms can migrate from one place to another. Seeds of plants can stick into the feet of birds which fly to faraway islands and drop it there unknowingly. Even more amazingly, when some fish swallows the seed of a plant and later some bird devours the fish then goes on a long flight to another distant island, often enough the seed still retains the capacity for germination after the bird regurgitates the undigested seed. 

Even today, many people strongly oppose evolution by natural selection due to ideological biases or ignorance. Although the theory explains so many of the phenomena found in nature which are otherwise completely inexplicable, scientific evidence for it is overwhelming and so much of its predictions have come true. Few findings in the history of science would have had such a powerful impact paving the way for many further discoveries and progress. The Origin of Species is a great read for anyone who wants to reflect upon the diversity of life and wonders where it all came from.

Though I generally tend to read thrillers when I need to distract myself from what is happening around me, there are some non-thriller titles that I pick up when my heart feels heavy and I need something to cheer me up. Books like ‘Matilda’ and ‘The Twits’ by Roald Dahl and anything by David Sedaris and Nick Hornby have witty writing and funny plots and I would recommend these if you were looking for some fun reads. 

But for me, there are some OG (cue in an eyeroll here for the millennial slang) of funny books the thought of which just instantly cheers me up. I can pick these books up and because I know the plot like the back of my hand I don’t even have to read it cover to cover. I just randomly flip to a page and read a passage or a line here and there. This week, I thought I’d share them with you as we could all do with some joy in our hectic lives.

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

Published in 1889, ‘Three Men in a Boat’ by Jerome K Jerome is a hilarious book about a two-week boating vacation. It was initially meant to be a serious travel guide but ended up becoming an account of three friends and their dog on a boating trip. The author and his friends are tired of regular life and decide to take a vacation. The book describes the adventures of the friends during their trip along the River Thames from Kingston to Oxford. There are mishaps and comic encounters that will leave you in splits. The writing is also funny and you get glimpses of London that will make you feel like you are actually there.

Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

I love Helen Fielding for creating Bridget Jones. In my head, she’s not just a fictional character but someone who actually lives somewhere in this world and ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ is actually her diary. The book is well written, funny, and relatable. You are privy to the character’s weaknesses and flaws and that makes her extremely endearing. Her thoughts are laugh out loud funny. You can’t believe she is serious about all the things she stresses about. Reading the book or even parts of it always brings my deepest insecurities to the surface and forces me to look at them in a light manner. It was published in 1998 but it’s as relevant today as it was back then.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Tina Fey is an American actress, writer, and comedian. She gained popularity for creating and starring as Liz Lemon in the popular show ‘30 Rock’. She created the musical adaptation of the popular movie ‘Mean Girls’. She has appeared in the Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Her memoir ‘Bossypants’, which was subject to a bidding war among publishers, came out in 2011. I asked a cousin who was in the US to send me a copy of the book as it wasn’t available in Nepal back then. I’m someone who never asks for such favors so you can imagine how badly I wanted to read the book. Bossypants is funny, inspirational, and makes you want to take life a little less seriously.