March is Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day fell on 8^th March, which means that it’s time for another book display update from the Trainees! In this post, you will find information all about the book displays that were put together in the Social Science Library, New College Library, Taylor Institution Library, and the Sainsbury Library at Saïd Business School.

If you would like to find out more information about Women’s History Month or International Women’s Day, why not have a look at the International Women’s Day website. To find other resources on Women’s History, check out the Bodleian’s Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies LibGuide.

Gia Simmons – Social Science Library

Happy Women’s History Month! We do love our book displays here at the SSL and this month is definitely no exception. For this display, I was able to collaborate with a few colleagues to create an extensive two-part book display.

While creating this display, I decided to set myself a challenge. I wanted to include at least one book on the subject of at least one woman from as many of the subjects that are housed in the Social Science Library as possible. This was definitely not an easy feat as we house a wide variety of subjects such as Politics & International Relations, Economics, Anthropology, Geography, International Development, Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Sociology and more. For the other section of the display, one of my colleagues compiled the books on women’s history more generally.

In deciding to try and create a display with women from each of our subjects, I was able to explore new historical figures that I had not been previously aware of. Some of the subject librarians in the SSL were kind enough to give me some suggestions of women to research and I added many of them to the display. Here is the list of books about these women that were included in this display with the name of the women written in bold:

• Becoming/Michelle Obama https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990225479650107026
• The impact of war on children: a review of progress since the 1996 United Nations Report on the impact of armed conflict on children/Graça Machel https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990152729910107026
• Jacinda Ardern: a new kind of leader/Madeline Chapman https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990226655670107026
• Living for change: an autobiography/Grace Lee Boggs https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990132428420107026
• Vindication: a life of Mary Wollstonecraft/Lyndall Gordon https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990159973620107026
• Dust tracks on a road: an autobiography/Zora Neale Hurston https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990102991660107026
• ‘They say’: Ida B. Wells and the reconstruction of race/James West Davidson https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990165797190107026
• Simone de Beauvoir/Judith Okely https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/fnp0l/alma990162281360107026
• The life of Isabella Bird/Anna M. Stoddart https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma991025406227607026
• Feminism and voluntary action : Eglantyne Jebb and Save the Children, 1876-1928/Linda Mahood https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma991025464234907026
• Helena Normanton and the opening of the bar to women/Judith Bourne https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991022207784507026
• Joan Robinson/G.C. Harcourt and Prue Kerr https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/1tb00os/alma990171409740107026
• Barbara Ward: her life and letters/Jean Gartlan https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990172717330107026
• The best we could do: an illustrated memoir/Thi Bui https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/q6b76e/alma991025464235307026
• Wangari Maathai’s registers of freedom/[edited and with an introductory essay by] Grace A. Musila. https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma991025332624407026
• Women political leaders in Africa/Rosemarie Skaine https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma990167170320107026
• Mary Robinson: An authorised autobiography/Olivia O’Leary and Helen Burke https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma990138280170107026

The theme for International Woman’s Day this year was Accelerate Action. Although I did not follow a specific theme for this display, the inclusion of women from a wide range of disciplines was of paramount importance to me, as each of these women have been a notable force for change in their fields. Some of these women you may have heard of, some you may be unfamiliar with. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend that you look into the impact that they have made on their fields. If you would like more information on the book display, I also wrote a blog post for the Social Science Library Blog.

Jess Pascal – New College Library

For this year’s Women’s History Month display, I first checked out last year’s display so I could avoid repeating too many books and give others a chance in the limelight, though some were just too good to miss! In the same spirit, I drew on as many interesting acquisitions I’ve seen recently as possible – this is an advantage of processing the majority of new books that come into the library. A particularly useful source of new books about women’s history was the Warden’s kind donation of all the books longlisted for the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize for non-fiction books, which is associated with New College. This included several titles on women’s history, including The Waiting Game and Shakespeare’s Sisters. 

Fortunately, there were a lot of books to choose from on women’s history – the hardest part of this display was getting my initial longlist down to just 12 books! In line with the UN’s theme for International Women’s Day this year, ‘For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment’, I aimed to represent a diverse cross-section of women’s history within the scope of the library’s collections. Nevertheless, the display has a bias towards English women, as they are most represented in the library here at New College to align with teaching priorities. 

Books used: 

Ackelsberg, Martha A. Free Women of Spain : Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women. AK Press, 2005. 

Briggs, Robin. The Witches of Lorraine. Oxford University Press, 2007. 

Burke, Jill. How to Be a Renaissance Woman : The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity. Profile Books Ltd, 2023. 

Clark, Nicola. The Waiting Game : The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2024. 

Ferry, Georgina. Dorothy Hodgkin : A Life. Granta Books, 1998. 

Gregory, Philippa. Normal Women : 900 Years of Making History. William Collins, 2023. 

Jenkins, Lyndsey. Sisters and Sisterhood : The Kenney Family, Class, and Suffrage, 1890-1965. Oxford University Press, 2021. 

Romney, Rebecca. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf : The Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend. Ithaka, 2025. 

Rupp, Leila J. Worlds of Women : The Making of an International Women’s Movement. Princeton University Press, 1997. 

Saunders, Corinne J., and Diane Watt, editors. Women and Medieval Literary Culture : From the Early Middle Ages to the Fifteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, 2023. 

Simone, Nina, and Stephen Cleary. I Put a Spell on You : The Autobiography of Nina Simone. Second Da Capo Press edition., Da Capo Press, 2003. 

Targoff, Ramie. Shakespeare’s Sisters: Four Women Who Wrote the Renaissance. riverrun, 2024. 

Lindsey Evans – Taylor Institution Library

For our Women’s History Month display, I was keen to showcase books and films about women’s achievements across the breadth of cultures represented in the library’s collections. Since the Taylor covers a very wide range of modern European languages – from French to Frisian, Spanish to Yiddish – this gave plenty of scope. Almost a daunting amount of scope, in fact.  

For the broad topic of ‘women’, it would have been impractical to canvas everyone in the team of subject librarians for recommendations. (Also this month we have a dedicated St Patrick’s Day display going up, which has been curated by our Celtic subject librarian, Janet.) And so I began a solo process with SOLO, the catalogue, to narrow things down. 

Initially my thinking went to works by, or about, celebrated female authors and feminist theorists, past and present. (“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” wrote Simone de Beauvoir, on whom there are several hundreds of books in the Taylor, for example.) Another consideration in my mind, however, was to highlight the impact of women whose voices might be less well known. In the end, I settled on a range of titles documenting women’s contributions to art, politics or society at different points in history and in various language communities. These women include crofters in the Hebrides, Welsh women shaking up the status quo, powerful noblewomen of 18^th-19^th century Russia, female creators in 19^th century Germany, and sisters (in the literal sense of blood relatives) who were active in Irish public life over the ages. 

With the Taylor being home to a large DVD collection, and even a bookable space for library users to watch them in, it’s also great to be able to publicise films as well as books on a theme. I chose a sample of films by foreign-language female directors to highlight women’s contribution to cinema. I aimed to include some directors who are less familiar to Western audiences, so alongside the French filmmakers Agnès Varda, Céline Sciamma and Claire Denis, we also find the Czech director Věra Chytilová, Ann Hui of Hong Kong and the Saudi Arabian director Haifaa al-Mansour. 

Charlotte Edwards – Sainsbury Library

As the Sainsbury Library is embedded into Saïd Business School , I was able to see the celebrations for International Women’s Day extend through the whole school. We had a women’s day themed social, the catering team put together a great cake display (photographed by my supervisor) and there was a book talk by Iris Bohnet and Siri Chilazi on their new book Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results (which I of course included in our book display in the library!).  

More focussed in the library, I also gave the Sainsbury Library Women in Business Libguide a refresh, including some of the books I found as part of my book display research.  

It was nice to be able to highlight some physical books unique to the Sainsbury Library: 

• Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results / Iris Bohnet & Siri Chilazi 
  • A book talk was hosted at Saïd Business School on 10^th March when Bohnet and Chilazi presented their evidence-based approach to create fairness in the workplace by providing an even playing field. In line with this year’s theme, Accelerating Action, they present ‘Actionable solutions’ to establish this fairness in the workplace.  
• The Mental Load: A Feminist Comic / Emma 
  • Appearing on our Inclusive Leadership reading list, I discovered this book by a colleague’s recommendation. This comic covers the sometimes-frustrating reality of being a woman in a male dominated workplace in an engaging, easily digestible form. And yes, I ended up reading this in one sitting.  
• The Lockdown Lowdown: Women and Covid, a gendered pandemic / Sarah Lightman (ed.)  
  • The Lockdown Lowdown: Graphic Narrative for Viral Times are graphic narratives written by a diverse range of artists during the first COVID lockdown in 2020. The series highlights the strange experiences and emotions felt during this time. This special edition of The Lockdown Lowdown demonstrates how women experienced the pandemic differently to men, both negatively and positively. In a textbook-heavy library it is exciting and refreshing to find other narrative forms such as The Lockdown Lowdown and The Mental Load.  
• Beyond Leaning In / Melanie Ho 
  • This book is based on research about Business but is formatted as a novel. Ho creates a narrative intended to begin a conversation between people from friends and family to co-workers. The variety of characters across different genders and ages aids in giving readers new perspectives on the issue as to why it is so hard to close the gender gap. 
• Why do so many Incompetent Men become Leaders? (and how to fix it) / Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic 
  • When browsing our shelves in the Annexe, I came across this book and admittedly loved the title. Chamorro-Premuzic explores why competent women and men who don’t fit the stereotypical leader profile (many organizations identify leadership with negative qualities like overconfidence and narcissism) are passed over for leadership roles. And the negative impact of this. Chamorro-Premuzic explains what really makes a leader and how new systems could rectify having the wrong people in charge.  
• Women’s Economic Empowerment: Insights from Africa and South Asia /  
  Kate Grantham (ed.), Gillian Dowie (ed.) & Arjan de Haan (ed.) 
  • Aimed at students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers, this book presents research coming from the International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) programme. The research covers topics such as unpaid domestic work and childcare, the influence of social and cultural norms that prevent women participating in better paid economic sectors and more in the Global South.  

When researching for books I tried to keep my focus very Business and Management based, drawing on some books that are on reading lists for Inclusive Leadership. As World Book Day was happening whilst I was compiling my display (for which we had another book display) I also thought to include some more general feminist literature, so some of my book display picks may already be known to you, but hopefully there is something new here as well. 

Other Books Included: 

• African Women and Intellectual Leadership: Life Stories from Western Kenya / Maurice Nyamanga Amutabi (ed.) – Ebook 
• Bad Feminist / Roxane Gay 
• Boss Lady: How three women entrepreneurs built successful big businesses in the mid-twentieth century / Edith Sparks 
• Sister Outsider / Audre Lorde 
• The Authority Gap: Why women are still taken less seriously than men, and what we can do about it / Mary Ann Sieghart 
• The Woman President / Ramona Vijeyarasa 
• We should all be Feminists / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 
• Women & leadership : lessons from some of the world’s most powerful women / Julia Gillard & Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala 
• Women in Leadership: Contextual Dynamics and Boundaries / Karin Klenke 
• Women, Money, Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality / Josie Cox 
• Women’s Contributions to Development in West Africa: Ordinary Women Extraordinary Lives / Kelly Ann Krawczyk (ed.) & Bridgett A. King (ed.)