Members of Belles women's service organization, one woman facing forward talking to other women

Women's History Month at LMU

March 1-31

This March, LMU honors Women’s History Month. Join us as we celebrate and promote gender equity, on and off the bluff.

 

Large group shot of women from the Belles service organization

Recommended Reads

The librarians and staff of the William H. Hannon Library have curated the following recommended books for learning more about women’s history. Want to explore more titles? Check out the full list at LMU Library Staff Picks and the library’s Women’s Suffrage list.

 

Cover of

And Yet They Persisted

By Johanna Neumann

In this sweeping history, the author demonstrates that American women defeated the male patriarchy only after they convinced men that it was in their interests to share political power.

Cover of

My Beloved World

By Sonia Sotomayor

An instant American icon, the third woman, and the first Hispanic on the U.S. Supreme Court, the author tells the story of her life before becoming a judge.

Cover of

We Should All Be Feminists

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The author offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness. 

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Brown Girl Dreaming

By Jacqueline Woodson

In vivid poems, the author shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the civil rights movement.

Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam

By Sylvia Chan-Malik

An exploration of how U.S. Muslim women’s identities are expressions of Islam as both Black protest religion and universal faith tradition.

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women became Gospel Truth

By Beth Allison Barr

“Biblical womanhood” isn't biblical: It arose from a series of clearly definable historical moments and is more about human power structures than the message of Christ.

 

Ninth Street Women: Five Painters and the Movement that Changed Modern Art

By Mary Gabriel

These women changed American art and society, tearing up the prevailing social code and replacing it with a doctrine of liberation.

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval

By Saidiya Hartman

Recreates the experience of young urban black women in the early twentieth century who desired an existence qualitatively different than the one scripted for them.

Religious Communities

Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary

RSHM

The Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary founded Marymount College, which affiliated and later merged with Loyola University to become Loyola Marymount University; their emphasis on teaching the fine and performing arts was one of their unique contributions when the institutions merged. 

 

More About RSHM

Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange

CSJ

The Sisters of Saint Joseph of Orange have been part of the LMU Community since the affiliation and merger of Loyola University and Marymount College and, since that time, around one-third of the Sisters have participated in the LMU community as administrators, staff, faculty and students. 

 

More About the Sisters