16 Books for 16 Days of Activism

As we kick off 16 Days of Activism for Gender-based Violence, here are some ACWS staff book recommendations to add to your reading list as you learn more about gender-based violence and domestic abuse. From informative pieces by experts in the field, to intimate memoirs from survivors of violence, here are the books we at ACWS encourage you to read.  

Content Warning // the following contains descriptions of gender-based violence, sexual assault, and domestic abuse. If you are experiencing domestic violence, please call our 24/7 toll-free line at 1-866-331-3933. 

1. Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self by Susan J. Brison

At once a personal narrative of recovery and a philosophical exploration of trauma, this bravely and beautifully written book examines the undoing and remaking of a self in the aftermath of violence. It explores, from an interdisciplinary perspective, memory and truth, identity and self, autonomy and community. It offers imaginative access to the experience of a rape survivor as well as a reflective critique of a society in which women routinely fear and suffer sexual violence.

“This book had an extraordinary impact on my career. When I read this book in graduate school, it was the first time I felt like I could use research to work on issues that were deeply significant to me, personally. This book is an astonishing example of the power and importance that lived experience plays in research. Dr. Brison is herself a survivor, and she uses insights gained from her own lived experience to generate insightful analyses of how gender-based violence operates in society, and how it impacts survivors on the deepest level.” – Miranda Pilipchuk, ACWS. 

2. A Typology of Domestic Violence: Intimate Terrorism, Violent Resistance, and Situational Couple Violence by Michael P. Johnson 

Johnson argues that domestic violence is not a unitary phenomenon. Instead, he delineates three major, dramatically different, forms of partner violence: intimate terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple violence. He roots the conceptual distinctions among the forms of violence in an analysis of the role of power and control in relationship violence and shows that the failure to make these basic distinctions among types of partner violence has produced a research literature that is plagued by both overgeneralizations and ostensibly contradictory findings.

“It’s the basis for how we understand Coercive Control.” – Jill Shillabeer, ACWS.

3. Persophone’s Children: A Life in Fragments by Rowan McCandless 

“Persophone’s Children: A Life in Fragments, a memoir by Winnipeg author Rowan McCandless, is unlike any memoir that you might have read before. Through an inventive series of written texts like a TV script, a crossword puzzle, a contract, encyclopedia entries and field notes, McCandless retraces her lived experiences as a Black, biracial woman as she escapes from an abusive relationship with her male partner. Read together as a whole, the memoir gives readers an intimate insight into the ways in which different parts of McCandless’ life intersects in complex ways, for example, her childhood experiences with an absent father, intergenerational trauma, and the pervasiveness of anti-Black racism in Canada. One important message that resonates with me the most is the importance of a community of support – McCandless was able to leave her abusive relationship by first working with a counsellor for victims of domestic abuse to create a safety plan, followed by executing the plan with the help of her family and the support of other fellow writers. Through the act of writing, she was also able to reclaim her voice that has been long repressed by her abuser and to finally tell her story on her own terms. This memoir, told with incredible literary skill, is a creatively rebellious endeavour. It is also a finalist for the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction.” – Wei Ling Goh, ACWS. 

4. The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America by Sarah Deer 

The book explores the history of rape and sex trafficking in North America, and provides historical and contemporary examples of federal complicity in the high rate of rape committed against Native women. The book considers a wide range of colonial violence, including rape, sex trafficking, and incarceration, Deer explores how tribal nations and anti-rape activists can leverage the tribal self-determination efforts of the 21st century to end violence against women. Deer bridges the gap between Indian law and feminist theory by explaining how intersectional approaches are vital to addressing the rape of Native women. The book offers specific recommendations for tribal legal reform and concludes with a consideration of how to document success.

“This book is a profound description of the both link between colonialism and gender-based violence against Indigenous women and girls, and Indigenous approaches to addressing and ending gender-based violence against Indigenous women and girls. It completely changed the way I, as a settler, understand and write about gender-based violence. I’m convinced it should be mandatory reading for all settlers, and especially for those interested and invested in addressing gender-based violence.” – Miranda Pilipchuk, ACWS. 

5. Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement by Tarana Burke 

Tarana Burke is the founder and activist behind the largest social movement of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the me too movement, but first she had to find the strength to say me too herself. Unbound is the story of how she came to those two words, after a childhood growing up in the Bronx with a loving mother that took a terrible turn when she was sexual assaulted. She became withdrawn and her self split: there was the Tarana that was a good student, model kid, and eager to please young girl, and then there was the Tarana that she hid from everyone else, the one she believed to be bad. The one that would take all the love in her life away if she revealed.

“Through sharing the most intimate, inner details of her own story, she provides a beautiful narrative of moving past the shame and guilt survivors feel to a place of empathy for our past selves and a place of empowerment for our future selves.” – Chantelle Chornohus, ACWS. 

6. Transgressed: Intimate Partner Violence in Transgender Lives by Xavier L. Guadalupe-Diaz 

Transgender people face some of the highest rates of violence in the US and around the world, particularly within romantic relationships. In Transgressed, Xavier L. Guadalupe-Diaz offers a ground-breaking examination of intimate partner violence in the lives of transgender people. 

Drawing on interviews and written accounts from transgender survivors of intimate partner violence, he sheds much-needed light on the dynamics of abuse that entrap trans partners in violent relationships. Transgressed shows how rigidly gendered discussions of violence have served to marginalize and silence stories of abuse. Ultimately, these stories of survival follow their unique journeys as they navigate–and break free–from the cycle of abuse, providing us with a better understanding of their experiences.

7. Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture by Kaitlynn Mendes, Jessica Ringrose, and Jessalynn Keller 

From sites like Hollaback! and Everyday Sexism, which document instances of street harassment and misogyny, to social media-organized movements and communities like #MeToo and #BeenRapedNeverReported, feminists are using participatory digital media as activist tools to speak, network, and organize against sexism, misogyny, and rape culture. As the first book-length study to examine how girls, women, and some men negotiate rape culture through the use of digital platforms, including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and mobile apps, the authors explore four primary questions: What experiences of harassment, misogyny, and rape culture are being responded to? How are participants using digital media technologies to document experiences of sexual violence, harassment, and sexism? Why are girls, women and some men choosing to mobilize digital media technologies in this way? And finally, what are the various experiences of using digital technologies to engage in activism?

8. In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado 

For years Carmen Maria Machado has struggled to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex relationship. In this extraordinarily candid and radically inventive memoir, Machado tackles a dark and difficult subject with wit, inventiveness and an inquiring spirit, as she uses a series of narrative tropes—including classic horror themes—to create an entirely unique piece of work which is destined to become an instant classic.

In The Dream House “is horrifying and beautiful and excellent. [Carmen Maria Machado] does a really great job of playing on various narrative tropes to reflect the disorienting and discomfiting nature of an abusive relationship.” – Hannah Friesen, ACWS. 

9. Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence 

The editors and contributors to Color of Violence ask: What would it take to end violence against women of color? Presenting the fierce and vital writing of organizers, lawyers, scholars, poets, and policy makers, Color of Violence radically repositions the antiviolence movement by putting women of color at its center. The contributors shift the focus from domestic violence and sexual assault and map innovative strategies of movement building and resistance used by women of color around the world. The volume’s thirty pieces—which include poems, short essays, position papers, letters, and personal reflections—cover violence against women of color in its myriad forms, manifestations, and settings, while identifying the links between gender, militarism, reproductive and economic violence, prisons and policing, colonialism, and war.

“This book became an instant classic, and is widely considered to be the foundational anthology about gender-based violence against women of color. The authors come from many different communities, backgrounds, and perspectives, and all of them have incredibly important things to say about race, gender, violence, and advocacy.” – Miranda Pilipchuk, ACWS. 

10. The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help by Jackson Katz 

“These pages will empower both men and women to end the scourge of male violence and abuse. Katz knows how to cut to the core of the issues, demonstrating undeniably that stopping the degradation of women should be every man’s priority.” 
-Lundy Bancroft, author of Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

FUN FACT: Jackson Katz helped ACWS build Leading Change! 

11. Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation by Beth E. Richie 

Black women in marginalized communities are uniquely at risk of battering, rape, sexual harassment, stalking and incest. Through the compelling stories of Black women who have been most affected by racism, persistent poverty, class inequality, limited access to support resources or institutions, Beth E. Richie shows that the threat of violence to Black women has never been more serious, demonstrating how conservative legal, social, political and economic policies have impacted activism in the U.S.-based movement to end violence against women.

“This book provides a deeply important account of the intersection of race, gender-based violence, and systemic oppression in the lives of Black women. Dr. Richie gives a powerful analysis of how systems and institutions perpetuate gender-based violence against Black women, and can cause the same kinds of harm to Black women on a broad scale as the more immediate harms of intimate partner violence. As a white researcher who has both experienced gender-based violence and dedicated my work to addressing and ending it, this book made visible to me intersections of gender-based violence that I will never experience but that are absolutely crucial for everyone working in the field to understand.” – Miranda Pilipchuk, ACWS. 

12. Violence Against Indigenous Women: Literature, Activism, Resistance by Allison Hargreaves 

Violence against Indigenous women in Canada is an ongoing crisis, with roots deep in the nation’s colonial history. Despite numerous policies and programs developed to address the issue, Indigenous women continue to be targeted for violence at disproportionate rates. What insights can literature contribute where dominant anti-violence initiatives have failed?   

Centering the voices of contemporary Indigenous women writers, this book argues for the important role that literature and storytelling can play in response to gendered colonial violence. Indigenous communities have been organizing against violence since newcomers first arrived, but the cases of missing and murdered women have only recently garnered broad public attention. Violence Against Indigenous Women joins the conversation by analyzing the socially interventionist work of Indigenous women poets, playwrights, filmmakers, and fiction-writers.

13. The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities by Ching-In Chen, Andrea Smith, Jai Dulani, & Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha 

Long demanded and urgently needed, The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities finally breaks the dangerous silence surrounding the “secret” of intimate violence within social justice circles. This watershed collection of stories and strategies tackles the multiple forms of violence encountered right where we live, love, and work for social change, and delves into the nitty-gritty on how we might create safety from abuse without relying on the state. Drawing on over a decade of community accountability work, along with its many hard lessons and unanswered questions, The Revolution Starts at Home offers potentially life-saving alternatives for creating survivor safety while building a movement where no one is left behind.

“This anthology examines a particularly tricky issue for many folks advocating for or working in the gender-based violence sector: as we try to make change, how do we address the violence and abuse that happens in change-making communities themselves? This book brings together various authors to share their experiences and perspectives on how social movements can and should work to address violence that is happening within their own communities even as they work to address violence on a larger scale.” – Miranda Pilipchuk, ACWS. 

14. The Politicization of Safety: Critical Perspectives on Domestic Violence Responses by Jane K. Stoever 

What is the future of feminism and the movements against gender-based violence and domestic violence? Readers are invited to question assumptions about how society and the legal system respond to intimate partner violence and to challenge the domestic violence field to move beyond old paradigms and contend with larger justice issues.

15. Some Men: Feminist Allies and the Movement to End Violence Against Women by Michael A. Messner, Max A. Greenberg, & Tal Peretz 

What does it mean for men to join with women as allies in preventing sexual assault and domestic violence? Based on life history interviews with men and women anti-violence activists aged 22 to 70, Some Men explores the strains and tensions of men’s work as feminist allies. When feminist women began to mobilize against rape and domestic violence, setting up shelters and rape crisis centers, a few men asked what they could do to help. They were directed “upstream,” and told to “talk to the men” with the goal of preventing future acts of violence.

Some Men explores the promise of men’s violence prevention work with boys and men in schools, college sports, fraternities, and the U.S. military. It illuminates the strains and tensions of such work–including the reproduction of male privilege in feminist spheres–and explores how men and women navigate these tensions.

16. We Need To Do This: A History of the Women’s Shelter Movement in Alberta and the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters by Alexandra Zabjek 

Based on dozens of in-depth interviews, this important book tells the stories of women whose voices may never otherwise never have been heard: entry-level workers at fledgling shelters fighting battling the assumption that their facilities would create crime, small-town shelter directors forced to self-censor or lose community—and financial—support, Indigenous women fighting to serve their sisters in Indigenous spaces. 

We may be a bit biased, but we think this book is a must read! – ACWS staff