2019: The Year of Reading Women

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It’s commonly reported that CEOs read far more than the average American. Bill Gates reads 50 books a year, Warren Buffett reads 500 pages a day, and 88% of financially successful people read at least 30 mins per day. The evidence is fairly damning.

So, we decided if we want to be bad boss bitches, we better start cracking them books. The GayBae team set a goal for ourselves to read 50 books this year, and we added the extra caveat that 80% of those books will be written by women.

Why 80%?

According to the latest data published by the U.S. Census Bureau, women on average earn 80% of what men earn. We hate that statistic, so we’re reclaiming it — spending 80% of our earning power to support women authors.

Highlights

As we go through this process, we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite works — as always with an emphasis on queer women and a focus on the political and social climate of the world today.

A Woman Who Needs No Introduction

For our first review, let’s talk about “Becoming” by Michelle Obama. While not a queer woman, Michelle Obama needs no introduction, and her new book kept us turning the pages faster than a lesbian swiping through her Tinder profile. This was the book that we needed to get us through 2019. Yes, we know it’s only February.

It’s a humbling, revelatory account of a black woman from the South Side of Chicago’s gradual ascent through a system that wasn’t built to help her succeed. She persisted in spite of the roadblocks, apprehension, and resistance to the idea of strong women of color in power. The book is broken up into three primary sections: Becoming Me, Becoming Us, and Becoming More.

Becoming Me

The first part of the book details Obama’s climb through education — graduating from Princeton University and Harvard Law School — and eventually landing a highly coveted job at a top law firm.

It’s easy to see why this period of time would inspire Michelle to value early education and fight for equal opportunity and access. Her very practical Midwestern mother, who reminds us of our own, puts it most succinctly––Michelle and her brother were no more special or talented than the rest of the kids in their neighborhood, but they were simply put in the right rooms and had advocates.

Becoming Us

In this section, Michelle shows a incredible strength through her honesty and vulnerability. She writes about the trials, tribulations, and frustration towards Barack during his various campaigns, of how his own ascent impacted their personal relationship and her ambitions. The feelings of having to take a back burner to his political aspirations are an all too familiar account of professional women in America — who are taught and told to “have it all”.

Becoming More

After the various campaigns and making it into the White House, Michelle has a chance to create her own national platform. Although she had her own career prior to the White House, becoming First Lady gave her the unique opportunity to promote awareness on the national stage, and she seized the moment.

One of her crowning achievements was the White House garden, where they grew organic vegetables, and used it as the cornerstone of her Let’s Move! Campaign — a Task Force on Childhood Obesity with the goal of solving childhood obesity within a generation. Her passion for helping children is apparent throughout the book, but the attention to long term health and wellness is particularly inspiring and a far cry from the current fast food administration.

Why We Loved It

This book made us feel so much. It’s a celebration of access to opportunity, perseverance, and passion for making positive changes. It made us want to call our moms. It made us want to find an amazing mentor. And as cliche as it sounds, it made us want to be the change we want to see in our currently fractured and divided society.

Michelle Obama is incredibly relatable in this book, even as one of the most recognizable figures in the world. We’re so happy she’s still using her platform to help others, inspire a new generation of women, and provide hope in a bleak moment in America’s history.