International Women’s Day: Books to Empower and Inspire
Perlego’s people share their favourite female authors
At Perlego, we draw strength from diversity. As a truly international team, we’re always keen to share our knowledge and experiences, and learn from one another. Our hiring process involves a proactive search for diverse candidates, including women and people from BAME backgrounds, to ensure that our talent pool is as representative as possible.
Our company strives to support and promote women in tech; we have a growing number of women in leadership and management roles, and 27% of our product developers, designers and engineers are female. This sets Perlego above the industry average: according to a report conducted by Tech Nation, only 19% of UK ‘tech workers’ are women. To ensure that we’re developing our people while giving back to the community, Perlego became an official partner of the global mentorship programme run by Like Minded Females (LMF Network).
To celebrate International Women’s Day — and all of our inspirational women at Perlego — I wanted to open up a space for discussing female writers, leaders and change-makers. I started a thread on our dedicated Slack channel so that we could share our favourite female authors and books written by women.
There was something empowering about recalling the books we’d read and loved, learning about different authors from around the world and exploring genres beyond ‘women’s writing’. The result of our discussion is this wide-ranging list of recommendations from the women of Perlego. Hopefully there’s something in here for everyone!
Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong
by Elizabeth Day
Ashleigh
Vice President of People & Operations
“I first fell in love with Elizabeth Day when listening to her podcast, ‘How to Fail’, so when I realised she had a book I jumped on it. In a world where we seem to only celebrate success, it’s easy to forget that failing is an inherent part of all our lives. Elizabeth Day reminds me that, no matter how successful or famous you are, we’re all human; it is our failures and not our success that connects us all.”
The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape Our World
by Ziya Tong
Mariana
Expansion Manager (Spain & Latin America)
“‘Fifty percent of life on Earth is “invisible” yet responsible for making the planet habitable’. Humans tend to forget that there is so much more beyond our own species; we see the world that surrounds us as human-sized, but in reality this is far from the truth. The Reality Bubble reveals some of the hidden forces that shape life on Earth, including what makes up the human body and several biological blind spots we are unaware of.
I enjoyed reading this book because it made me more conscious of the negative impact that our desire for consumption is having on the world and on our species. To some extent, this is a wake-up call for society to stop ignoring what’s happening around us.”
Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power
by Lola Olufemi
Anna
Partner Success Manager
“I love Lola Olufemi’s Feminism Interrupted because it challenges the status quo — not just from a female perspective, but also from a black female standpoint: ‘because we imagine state power as inevitable’, many women simply cannot see their true potential.
Olufemi points out that, not only are 57% of women in prison survivors of domestic abuse, but universal credit benefits are paid into the account of the highest household earner — usually a man — making already vulnerable women even more dependent on their partners.
But women of colour suffer twofold because the state is often racist, as depicted through these stories of black women who have been left in the firing line, neglected and suffering with poor mental and/or physical health. This book is not for the faint-hearted, but will leave you rallying for change.”
Daughter of Fortune
by Isabel Allende
Lina
Senior Product Designer
“I like Isabel Allende because she is a great representative of Latin American culture. By weaving aspects of magical realism into social commentary and political analysis, she became one of the best female Latin American authors. She often draws on her personal experiences to tell the stories in her books, making her a very authentic author.
Growing up, I only learnt about male authors, so Allende was the first female reference point I had in my culture’s literature. Coming across her work was refreshing and encouraging. I admire her as a writer, as a journalist, and for her relentless defence of women’s and children’s rights in Latin America.”
Love Lessons: Selected Poems of Alda Merini
translated by Susan Stewart
Cristina
Vice President of Product
“When we think of 20th-century Italian authors, many famous names come to mind: Quasimodo, Montale, Calvino, Pirandello, Pasolini — the ones we are taught at school in Italy. But Alda Merini, one of the most important poets of the period and a two-time Nobel Prize nominee, is rarely mentioned.
I love Alda Merini’s work because she tells stories that are seldom told, exposing parts of society and history that rarely make it into poetry — such as the lives of misfits and outcasts. In many ways, Merini was an outsider herself: she was a woman in a field dominated by men; she lost her home during the war and ended up living in poverty; she was rejected from high school because her language skills were deemed insufficient (the irony!); and she spent the better part of two decades in mental health institutions, suffering with depression and bipolar disorder.
This is the most comprehensive collection of Merini’s work to appear in English. The poems, meditations and aphorisms span fifty years of her life, giving readers an insight into life as a ‘misfit’ — in the past as well as today. Merini conveys her harrowing personal history in a frank, unembellished style. Her masterful use of archetypes and images give her work a universal, philosophical resonance; at the same time, her irreverent wit and deep affection for her kin make for an intense emotional journey.”
The 21-Day Financial Fast: Your Path to Financial Peace and Freedom
by Michelle Singletary
Clara
Team Lead, Software Engineer
“I’d recommend this book because personal finance is a topic that’s not taught at school but should be, since not knowing about it can get us into difficult financial situations. This book will teach you how to break bad spending habits, how to be debt-free, how to prepare for possible or unexpected contingencies, and other ways to achieve financial freedom.”
Hannah Arendt’s Ethics
by Deirdre Lauren Mahony
Alberta
Business Development Manager
“I was never a fan of philosophy in high school, but Hannah Arendt was the exception. I enjoyed reading the works of the only female philosopher we studied in three years of school because her controversial analysis of human behaviour helps us understand something very hard to conceive: how men and women could take part in the horror of the Holocaust.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Arendt’s ethics and philosophical views on human actions, behaviours and thoughts.”
Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race
by Margot Lee Shetterly
Ellie
Engineering Manager
“I think this is a brilliant story and I’m so glad it has finally been told! The fact that these incredible women were not well-known until now highlights how selective historians can be. Their story marks the evolution of women into engineering roles and has paved the way for the career I am in today. I love the level of detail in the book and I’m a huge fan of mathematics, so I enjoyed being able to keep up with the terminology.”
A Room of One’s Own
by Virginia Woolf
Lucy
Content Executive
“I discovered this book when I was first starting to take a serious interest in feminism, albeit more from an academic than an activist perspective. As one of Western feminism’s founding texts, I wanted to tick this off my list before exploring more contemporary theories and ideas.
Virginia Woolf is a much-loved and highly acclaimed author, and A Room of One’s Own didn’t disappoint. I remember feeling empowered and inspired to be creative, take up space and value my experiences as a young woman.”
A Burst of Light
by Audre Lorde
MK
Community Executive
“Audre Lorde teaches us of the power of anger. This is not an emotion to hide or run from, nor one that should be immediately shut down. The sort of anger she actually has in mind enables you to feel for the downtrodden and marginalised communities she writes about. Yet it’s also an anger that stands alongside an overwhelming love for womankind. The two go hand-in-hand, and Lorde insists that change simply cannot come about without anger.”
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Macarena
Quality Assurance (QA) Engineer
“I would recommend Pride and Prejudice because it’s an accurate reflection of social context and ideas about relationships and love at the beginning of the 19th century. But my favourite features are the character development and plot twists.
I really like that you can see Jane Austen’s personal experiences reflected in her books, and how she focuses on the obstacles women had to overcome in order to be considered intelligent and not inferior to men.”
My Life on the Road
by Gloria Steinem
Alina
Python Software Developer
“Gloria Steinem is a very inspirational woman: a feminist journalist and sociopolitical activist, she gained national recognition as a leader and spokeswoman for the American feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
This book focuses on her travels all over the world, describing her experiences and the women she met who shared their tales and troubles. For me, her stories were surprising and fascinating; they are well-written, full of inspiring ideas and great anecdotes. Reading this book was like sitting with an old friend and listening to her stories.”
The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion
Kim
Design Director
“In my opinion, Joan Didion is one of the greatest female storytellers. She has a very unique ability to capture the raw and harsh realities of life and human emotion in a way that is both beautiful and unsettling.
The Year of Magical Thinking is her heartbreaking story of loss. She takes the reader on her journey, shedding light on the ‘universal madness of mourning’ and the fragility of life: ‘Life changes fast. Life changes in an instant. You sit down for dinner and life as you know it ends’.
Her work is particularly relevant for this strange period of our lives, when the world is facing a great deal of loss and uncertainty.”
Trans: A Memoir
by Juliet Jacques
“The diverse, inclusive space we wanted to create through these book recommendations wouldn’t be complete without a transgender perspective. This memoir is a great introduction to both the personal and political aspects of trans identity, as Juliet Jacques blends her own experiences (and struggles) while transitioning with an analysis of sociocultural issues and debates. It features material from the Guardian columns where she documented the process of her sex reassignment surgery in 2012.
The style of writing is incredibly vivid, taking the reader along on this life-changing journey with Juliet— through all the trials of living as a transgender woman, but also through the moments of joy and serenity that come from a growing sense of self and belonging. The result is a truly inspiring coming-of-age story.”
Editorial note
Upon reflection, this project actually proved to be quite challenging. I wasn’t the only one whose mind went blank when faced with the responsibility of representing — and doing justice to — women’s literary history. Part of me wonders whether this is a sign of how underexposed we still are to women’s writing, even in the twenty-first century; it’s also illustrative of how little we talk about and celebrate it.
IWD is an ideal opportunity to commemorate women’s history, while reflecting on key issues like gender equality and identity. These cultural and critical practices cannot overlook the realities of transgender and non-binary individuals, and they should not underestimate the importance of trans politics. International Women’s Day celebrations need to account for this.
As Perlego’s curation lead, I make a concerted effort to include more diverse voices and perspectives in the content we display. While I think there’s still more work to be done here, initiatives that recognise women’s achievements and support their career development are a great place to start.
