The Book of Gutsy Women, Hilary & Chelsea Clinton (ISBN 9781471172175, Simon & Schuster)

I came across this book a long time ago, not long after it was first published in 2020. This was near the end of Trump’s first presidency and after the debacle of Hilary’s election campaign in 2016. The book is basically a collection of short articles about women that inspired Hilary and Chelsea Clinton. The book is divided in sections per area the women were active in, like for example, human rights, women rights, sports and so on. This is both the strength and the weakness of the book. I got to know quite a few women I had never heard of before (many are women that were politically active in the US). It gives a nice history of human rights in the US from the early 19th century until now. With what is going on in the US today it is has gained some renewed relevance I would say. There are roughly 100 chapters of a few pages, one, or in a few cases more than one, woman discussed in each chapter. The chapters are as a result short enough to also inform about women active in areas that are not necessarily of direct interest of the reader. The chapters are so short it would almost feel as an act of laziness of lack of commitment to skip a chapter. The result is that you will probably come away with a slightly broader horizon after reading the book. For in depth profiles adddtional reading will be needed. That is the main disadvantage of the book, there is not enough space to cover so many women on a few hundred pages in any detail. And this concept also means that there is no story arc to pull you into the book. From that point of view I found that the book required a bit more discipline to keep on reading and finish. One of the goals of the book is to promote more female ‘heroines’ and role models. Reading this book I can only agree that many women that made important contributions to humanity are all too easily forgotten in the mists of time. I will try to make an effort to consciously cover some of the women I find inspiring in other posts every now and then. A first example is Lise Meitner, about whom you can read in other blog posts on the site, for example this post but she is mentioned in multiple other posts as well.