Reviews of Non-Fiction

[Dan]

Please post non-fiction reviews here.

[Kathleen]

She Speaks: The Power of Women's Voices
'She Speaks' is a collection of speeches by women on a variety of different issues, chosen and introduced by British Labour MP Yvette Cooper. The anthology is intended to dispute the notion that women's voices were not made for oratory, the excuse given in a Penguin book of historic speeches published in the 1990s for the male dominance in their choices.

The anthology ranges from famous speeches of the past by figures such as Boudicca, Queen Elizabeth I and Sojourner Truth through to modern day individuals such as Emma Watson, Michelle Obama and Greta Thunberg. They cover a variety of topics including women's suffrage, slavery, racism, equal pay, LGBTQ rights, extremism and climate change.

The anthology is, by its very nature, selective, but it highlights how frequently certain issues recur and, sadly, how some of the topics raised are ones that are still not resolved even now.


This review first appeared at Pan Historia and is by Lesedi Aygul