Books That Every Self-Respecting Feminist Should Read

"The right book at the right moment might change everything." This is an excerpt from Changing My Mind, an essay collection by Zadie Smith. Zadie Smith is a brilliant, gorgeous, elegant, unforgettable writer and indomitable feminist, and in this quote she is particularly prescient. Books have the power to inspire a movement, educate a lone maverick, or grab an entire generation's imagination by the collar and throw it directly through a glass ceiling.

More than 50 years ago, Betty Friedan released her galvanizing masterwork, The Feminine Mystique. This well-researched take-down piece on the cult of 1950s housewife domesticity is widely credited for launching the "second wave" of American feminism, which you probably know as "the women's liberation" movement of the 20th century.

I first read Betty Friedan in college circa 2002 when, just coming out of high school, I still thought "feminism" meant female chauvinism that was to be avoided. I read Friedan again (and many other vital feminist manifestos) more than a decade later as I studied for my PhD in literature and feminist topics — this time as a wife myself, a soon-to-be mother of a daughter, and a ride-or-die feminist badass to the core. We're in the fifth wave of feminism now, folks, which is wide and varied enough to encompass both the relatively buttoned-up Pantsuit Nation ladies, as well as the balls to the wall Pussy Riot types (heck yeah), but especially strives to achieve intersectionality — meaning an understanding of how "women's overlapping identities — including race, class, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation — impact the way they experience oppression and discrimination."

Are you one of these women? One that's awake enough and audacious enough to call yourself a feminist? Then consider these books, old and new, required reading. Support your fellow badass feminists and be ready to school some haters on the basics of queendom.

Smart, funny, topical, to-the-point. Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a much-beloved TED Talk negotiating a contemporary point of view on gender, race, nationality, love, feminism, etc., and it turned into this book. This is a great one to give to your friend who says she "doesn't need feminism" when you suspect she doesn't quite understand it.

Our dear former President Obama saw fit to include this feminist bible in a list of books he'd like to recommend to his daughters. And what's that old saying again? If t's good enough for the Obamas, it's good enough for us. This mid-century novel in four sections follows the main character's four different notebooks in which she compartmentalizes the central issues of her life. In a black notebook she writes about racial experience, in a red one about her politics, in a yellow one she writes a novel with a female protagonist, and in a blue one she keeps her diary. The style of the writing isn't always my absolute favorite, but the ideas and mechanics are masterful. Finally, as the main character feels she is losing her mind, she tries to put all the stories together.

I love Lindy West. I first connected with her cool, unapologetic, outspoken brand of thinking when she was a staff writer at Jezebel. For the past few years she has been blowing up on the scene as a writer, film critic, and feminist, and now she has written a dream anthem for the 21st century American woman. Check out Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman before it's adapted for TV.

You may have heard of the Bechdel Test. Do you know where it came from? Alison Bechdel is a rad-as-hell writer, cartoonist, and graphic novelist, and she came up with the idea for a 1985 strip called "The Rule" (viewable here) for her larger comic series "Dykes to Watch Out For." Now her years of strips are collected in one "illustrated soap opera" text, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, which is not to be missed.

For me, this is an absolute dream book (old crones unite!). I skimmed it in grad school (sorry, Professor Howard) but dug into it in earnest a couple of years ago, and it was so rad that I felt like I had circus music playing in my head as I read it. An early 20th century maiden aunt is pitied by everyone because she's not married. Instead of becoming permanent hired help in her married sister's home, she decides to move to a small town, become a witch, make fun of her haters, and dance with the devil (literally). You do you, right?

In Kate Chopin's novella The Awakening, Edna Pontellier represents a woman torn between the pressures of convention — of enacting the duties expected of her as a wife and mother in a certain time and class, and the freedom of identifying as an individual — allowing a seductive life that allows her to shirk traditional roles and responsibilities, and to be governed by her emotions. Does this sound like a familiar conundrum to anyone out there ... even 118 years later? What Edna experiences in her romance-fueled awakening is the idea that she has, and has had the capability all along, to have an individual identity outside of her husband, her children, or any particular "other." Sounds great, right? Well, if you don't know the ending, I won't spoil it for you.

A young adult Iranian lesbian/trans forbidden love story? Yes, please! Sara Farizan is an Iranian-born American millennial feminist writer, and she is making her voice heard admirably. Even though the complexity of the language is accessible for younger readers, the ideas and emotions in this necessary tome are sophisticated. Give it a read.

If you want to make a difference in the world (whatever that means), you have to know about all the times our fellow feminist queens made a difference before you were there to do it. This is by no means a complete list, since (thank goodness) the words of wise women can't be fully contained on the page. So let us know what other rad books you would recommend to a baby feminist. Share this list. Add fuel to your fire to stay passionate and awake into perpetuity. Support your fellow women. Support their work. Read, repeat, write, lend, discuss, recommend, annotate, quote, gift, and otherwise disseminate these books by brave women into the stratosphere.