10 Cheap & Easy Gift Ideas to Raise the Consciousness of the People in Your Life This Holiday Season
December 8, 2009
by Anna Belle Pfau
|Are you looking for a way to express your political values this holiday season? Do you know someone who needs to have their eyes opened to the realities facing women yesterday, today, and tomorrow? Are you hoping to finally convince your judgmental mother/father, sister/brother, spouse or friend that your dedication to working on women’s issues is valid and maybe even important enough for them to help? Well, don’t waste your breathe arguing one more time over Christmas dinner. Instead, consider one of these consciousness-raising books as a gift this holiday season. Most of these books range in price from $10 to $20. With selections from women’s history to current and future political activism, there’s probably something on this list that will open the mind of your friend or family member. Each selection is linked to Amazon, so if you’re interested, just click the link to find out more! As a bonus, all of these books were written by women (with the occasional male co-author), so these holiday gift ideas also support the economic interests of women.
No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting
by Anne Macdonald
For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of Advice for Women
by Barbara Ehrenreich
From Outrage to Courage: Women Taking Action for Health and Justice
by Anne Firth Murray
When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
by Gail Collins
33 Things Every Girl Should Know About Women’s History: From Suffragettes to Skirt Lengths to the E.R.A.
by Tonya Bolden
1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Women’s History
by Constance Jones
Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women’s History of the World
by Rosalind Miles
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
by Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn
America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines
by Gail Collins
Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: Why Women’s Lives Aren’t Getting Any Easier–And How We Can Make Real Progress For Ourselves and Our Daughters
by U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney
Feel free to offer your own suggestions in comments!

I suggest “Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America, by Sara Evans.
Discovered this year books by Cornelia Funke, many of them now translated into English (very good translations), the most known are the inkheart trilogy, others for smaller and older girls feature female knights.
“Igraine the Brave” where a girl goes for adventure instead of being the princess. my 9 y/o enjoyed it and will present it to her class.
Here are a couple records of women’s extraordinary creativity and resiliance that I enjoyed:
Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey
*****A
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by the new agenda and Vonetta J. Hunter, VDayWestport. VDayWestport said: Nifty find: New Agenda: great voice for all women, 10 gift ideas to raise consciousness http://bit.ly/7xfRKr [...]
Leave your Response
Supporting women.
Ending sexism.
Finding common ground.
We’re in the Media »
Click to see our latest stories in the media
More Stories »Recent Comments
The Latest from our Blog
Archives
Blogroll
Find the New Agenda Online
Subscribe Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS)
The New Agenda is a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls by bringing about systemic change in the media, at the workplace, at school and at home. More...