This guide provides assistance with finding scholarly books and articles on feminism from around the world.  The selected list of reference sources are a good place to start for overviews of feminist topics. 

The article databases will provide access to scholarly articles and you may also wish to consult the Primary Sources for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (GSWS) guide to obtain primary sources.

The extensive section on "finding books" on feminism from around the world provides examples of "search strategies", along with highlighting "books on feminism by geographic regions."

Along with documents from United Nations, you may also wish to use the Google's "custom" search engine to find documents from governments around the world.

Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies by email moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Research process

Start Your Research Here -- This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.

Selected reference books

• Bloomsbury Handbook of 21st-century Feminist Theory (2019) 
• Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories
• Encyclopedia of Russian Women's Movements
• Fifty-one Key Feminist Thinkers
• Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History
• Greenwood encyclopedia of LGBT issues worldwide
• Handbook of Arab women and Arab Spring : challenges and opportunities
• Handbook of International Feminisms Perspectives on Psychology, Women, Culture, and Rights
• Handbook of research on women's issues and rights in the developing world
• Handbook of Sex Trafficking: Feminist Transnational Perspectives
• Many Dimensions of Chinese Feminism
• Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History
• Oxford handbook of feminist theory
• Oxford Handbook of Transnational Feminist Movements
• Palgrave Handbook of Women’s Political Rights
• Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy
• Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Feminism (2019)
• Routledge Handbook of East Asian Gender studies
• Routledge handbook of gender, culture, and development in India
• Routledge handbook of gender in South Asia
• Routledge Handbook of Queer African studies
• Routledge Handbook of Queer Development Studies
• Routledge Handbook of Sexuality, Health and Rights
• Routledge Handbook of Sexuality Studies in East Asia
• Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women's Issues and Knowledge [print]
• Routledge international handbook of feminisms and gender studies : convergences, divergences, and pluralities 
• Routledge International Handbook of Race, Class and Gender
• Routledge International Handbook of Veils and Veiling Practices
• Women in Developing Countries: a Reference Handbook [print]
• Women's Lives Around the World: a Global Encyclopedia

For more, try the side tab, Background information

Find journal articles

The article databases will provide access to scholarly articles and you may also wish to consult the Primary Sources for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (GSWS) guide to obtain primary sources.

Search for journal articles on your topic using the databases, below.  For tips on search techniques, please consult: How to find journal articles guide. Use the "Get@SFU" icon will to find copies of articles which are not full-text within the database or to request the article through an inter-library loan request.

• Women's Studies International -- For issues related to gender, sexuality and women's studies
• Academic Search Premier. Multidisciplinary index to academic & popular journals. 
• ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science. Other major topics include: migration, refugees, societal structures, and immigrants

For a more complete list of databases, try: Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies databases

Find books

This section provides examples of "search strategies", along with highlighting "books on feminism by geographic regions."

The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more.  To limit the search results to "books", use the filter (left-hand column in search results) to "resource type" of "books."

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue, either the Basic or the Advanced search

Note: In the searches below, search results have been limited to "Online Resources only" and "Resource type" of "Books". You can further limit by using "Subject" (left-hand column)

Books by an author

Catalogue Search / Browse then change "Title" to "Author" and enter the name of your author (Last name, First name), for example:

• Beauvoir, Simone de
• Butler, Judith

Books about an author

Catalogue Search / Browse then change "Title" to "Subject" and enter the name of your author (Last name, First name), for example:

• Beauvoir, Simone de
• Butler, Judith

Search strategies to find books by topic

For each concept about your topic, write down synonyms or related words.  Below, are examples on how to combine different concepts:

• (Black* OR African) AND (women OR female* OR girl*) AND (feminis* OR struggl*)
• (Black* OR African) AND (LGBT* OR queer* OR transgender* OR gay OR lesbian*)
• ("developing countr*" OR "third world" OR "global south") AND (feminis* OR "women's rights")
• ("developing countr*" OR "third world" OR "global south") AND (LGBT* OR queer* OR transgender* OR gay OR lesbian*)
• (international OR transnational) AND (feminis* OR "women's rights")
• ("Middle East" OR Iran* OR Arab* OR Islam* OR Muslim OR Syria* OR Leban* OR Morroc*) AND (feminis* OR "women's rights")
• (Latin* OR Mexic* OR Brazil* OR Columbia OR Chili OR Peru OR Bolivia*) AND (feminis* OR "women's rights")
• Bangladesh AND (feminis* OR "women's rights")
• (China OR Chinese OR Japan* OR Indonesia* OR Vietnam* OR Korea*) AND (feminis* OR "women's rights")
• (Western OR "United States" OR Britain OR Ireland OR "United Kingdom" OR France) AND (feminism* OR feminist*)
• feminis* AND (theor* OR debate* OR criticism OR critique* OR argument* OR analysis OR framework OR "literature review*")
• (gay OR lesbian* OR gender* OR queer* OR trans OR transgender OR intersex* OR bisex* OR LGBT*) AND (feminis* OR theor* OR rights)
• (abelis* OR disabl* OR crip*) AND (feminis* OR rights)
• (aborig* OR indigenous*) AND (feminis* OR "women's rights")

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words
Use pulldown menu and select, "Source Types" as "Books"
Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

If you have found one book that is particularly relevant to your research, but need more, search that book in the library catalogue and use the subject headings associated with that book!

Selected books - feminism around the world

Africa and the Middle East

• Adornment, Masquerade and African Femininity
• African feminism the politics of survival in sub-Saharan Africa. [print]
• Africana womanism : reclaiming ourselves 
• Arab and Arab American Feminisms Gender, Violence, and Belonging
• Arab feminisms : gender and equality in the Middle East  [print]
• Axis of Hope : Iranian Women's Rights Activism across Borders
• Chihera in Zimbabwe A Radical African Feminist Principle
• Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World [print]
• Islamic feminism and the discourse of post-liberation : the cultural turn in Algeria
• Islamic feminism: discourses on gender and sexuality in contemporary Islam
• Islamic feminism in Kuwait : the politics and paradoxes
• Islamic feminisms : rights and interpretations across generations in Iran
• Legislating Gender and Sexuality in Africa : Human Rights, Society, and the State
• Making waves : French feminisms and their legacies 1975-2015
• Mapping Arab Women’s Movements: A Century of Transformations from Within
• Moroccan feminist discourses
• Palestinian women and popular resistance : perceptions, attitudes and strategies
• Perspectives on feminism from Africa [print]
• Reconfiguring Islamophobia: A Radical Rethinking of a Contested Concept
• Pregnancy and Miscarriage in Qatar Women, Reproduction and the State : Women, Reproduction and the State
• Resilience in South Sudanese women : hope for daughters of the Nile
• Ten thousand roses : the making of a feminist revolution [print]
• Voices of African women : women's rights in Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania [print]
• Women and power in Zimbabwe : promises of feminism
• Women in twentieth-century Africa
• Women's activisim in Africa : struggles for rights and representation [print]
• Women's rights after the Arab Spring : buds without flowers?
• Women's rights in authoritarian Egypt : negotiating between Islam and politics

Asia, Central Asia, East Asia and South Asia

• Asia's unknown uprisings.: (South Korean social movements in the 20th century)
• Birth of Chinese feminism : essential texts in transnational theory
• Contested terrain : reflections with Afghan women leaders
• Criminal love? : queer theory, culture, and politics in India
• Dalit feminist theory : a reader
• Faith and feminism in Pakistan : religious agency or secular autonomy?
• Feminism : an Indian perspective [print]
• Gender challenges
• Gender dynamics, feminist activism and social transformation in China
• Gender history in China [print]
• Gender in South Asia : social imagination and constructed realities
• Gendering caste through a feminist lens [print]
• Global trajectories of queerness : re-thinking same-sex politics in the Global South
• Humanizing the sacred : sisters in Islam and the struggle for gender justice in Malaysia
• Korean Women's Movement and the State: Bargaining for Change
• Leftover Women : The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China
• Many dimensions of Chinese feminism
• New feminisms in South Asia : disrupting the discourse through social media, film and literature [print]
• New South Asian feminisms : paradoxes and possibilities
• North Korea's women-led grassroots capitalism
• Mapping Dalit Feminism: Towards an intersectional standpoint 
• Nomadity of Being in Central Asia: Narratives of Kyrgyzstani Women's Rights Activists
• Pitfalls of Protection: Gender, Violence, and Power in Afghanistan
• Producing inclusive feminist knowledge : positionalities and discourses in the global south 
• 'Queer' Asia : decolonising and reimagining sexuality and gender [print]
• Queer activism in India: A story in the anthropology of ethics
• Readings in Chinese women's philosophical and feminist thought : from the late 13th to early 21st Century 
• Re-presenting feminist methodologies : interdisciplinary explorations
• Rethinking Japanese Feminisms
• Revolutionizing feminism : the Philippine women's movement in the age of terror
• Subaltern movements in India : gendered geographies of struggle against neoliberal development
• Trouble with marriage : feminists confront law and violence in India
• Women and the State in Modern Indonesia
• Women, gender and everyday social transformation in India
• Women, Political Struggles and Gender Equality in South Asia
• Women's human rights in India
• Women in contemporary Indian society [print]
• Women's movements and the Filipina, 1986-2008
• Women's movements in Asia : feminisms and transnational activists
• Women's voices and feminism in Polish cultural memory

Indigenous

• Finding a Way to the Heart: Feminist Writings on Aboriginal and Women's History in Canada
• First voices : an Aboriginal women's reader
• Fourth world : an indigenous perspective on feminism and aboriginal women's activism
• Gender, Power, and Representations of Cree Law
• In good relation : history, gender, and kinship in indigenous feminisms
• Indigenous methodologies : characteristics, conversations and contexts
• Indigenous research : theories, practices, and relationships
• Indigenous Women and Work: From Labor to Activism
• Indigenous Women’s Voices: 20 Years on from Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies
• Making space for Indigenous feminism [print]
• Neoliberal Indigenous Policy: Settler Colonialism and the ?Post-Welfare? State
• Not Sacred, Not Squaws : Indigenous Feminism Redefined
• Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century
• Reproductive justice : the politics of health care for Native American women
• Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies
• Structures of Indifference: An Indigenous Life and Death in a Canadian City
• Transnational testimonios: the politics of collective knowledge production
• Vernacular Sovereignties: Indigenous Women Challenging World Politics
• Violence Against Indigenous Women: Literature, Activism, Resistance
• Women's rights in Native North America : legal mobilization in the US and Canada

Latin and South America

• Costa Rican women's movement : a reader [print]
• Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement
• Feminisms in Movement : Theories and Practices from the Americas
• Feminist and human rights struggles in Peru : decolonizing transitional justice
• Feminist philosophy in Latin America and Spain
• Feminist Policymaking in Chile
• Fighting for abortion rights in Latin America : social movements, state allies and institutions
• Gender inequalities and development in Latin America during the twentieth century
• Indigenous Women’s Movements in Latin America: Gender and Ethnicity in Peru, Mexico, and Bolivia
• Major Concepts in Spanish Feminist Theory
• Narrating a psychology of resistance : voices of the compañeras in Nicaragua
• Revolution question feminisms in El Salvador, Chile, and Cuba
• Theories of the flesh : Latinx and Latin American feminisms, transformation, and resistance
• Translating the queer : body politics and transnational conversations
• Women, feminism, and social change in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, 1890-1940

Western (Europe, North America, United Kingdom)

• Black women, agency, and the new black feminism
• Black women's rights : leadership and the circularities of power 
• Bodies that Birth : Vitalizing Birth Politics
• Contemporary French feminism
• Debating the Woman Question in the French Third Republic 1870 - 1920
• A decolonial Black feminist theory of reading and shade : feeling the university 
• Documenting First Wave Feminisms. Vol. 1, Transnational Collaborations and Crosscurrents
• Documenting First Wave Feminisms: Volume II Canada - National and Transnational Contexts
• Everywhere and nowhere contemporary feminism in the United States
• Feminism is for everybody : passionate politics  / Bell Hooks
• Feminism is Queer: The Intimate Connection between Queer and Feminist Theory
• Feminist Challenge to the Socialist State in Yugoslavia
• Feminist media studies
• Feminist post-liberalism
• Gender : space
• Gender and identity in central and eastern Europe
• Gender trouble : feminism and the subversion of identity (1999 ed. e-book)  [2006 ed. in print] / Judith Butler
• Gender work ; feminism after neoliberalism
• Gendered lives : intersectional perspectives [print]
• Gendered Pasts: Historical Essays in Femininity and Masculinity in Canada
• Genre and the (Post-)Communist Woman: Analyzing Transformations of the Central and Eastern European Female Ideal
• Girlfriends and postfeminist sisterhood
• Hood feminism : notes from the women that a movement forgot [print]
• How we get free : black feminism and the Combahee River Collective
• In their time : a history of feminism in Western society [print]
• Interviews with Mexican women : we don't talk about feminism here
• Introduction to transgender studies
• Looking white people in the eye : gender, race, and culture in courtrooms and classrooms / Sherene H. Razack
• Me, not you : The trouble with mainstream feminism
• Mean girl feminism : how White feminists gaslight, gatekeep, and girlboss 
• Major Concepts in Spanish Feminist Theory
• Only paradoxes to offer French feminists and the rights of man
• Policing the womb : invisible women and the criminal costs of motherhood
• Politics of Third Wave Feminisms: Neoliberalism, Intersectionality, and the State in Britain and the US
• Racialized migrant women in Canada : essays on health, violence and equity
• Radical feminism : feminist activism in movement
• Reading Canadian Women’s and Gender History
• Race, Gender and the Activism of Black Feminist Theory: Working with Audre Lorde
• Revolutionary mothering : love on the front lines
• Separate roads to feminism : Black, Chicana, and White feminist movements in America's second wave
• Speaking of Feminism : Today's Activists on the Past, Present, and Future of the U.S. Women's Movement
• Sisters or Strangers?: Immigrant, Ethnic, and Racialized Women in Canadian History
• Ten thousand roses : the making of a feminist revolution / Judy Rebick [print]
• Third wave feminism and the politics of gender in late modernity
• Third wave feminism and transgender : strength through diversity
• Trans Studies: The Challenge to Hetero/Homo Normativities
•  
  Through feminist eyes : essays on Canadian women's history
• Undivided rights : women of color organize for reproductive justice
• Women and transformation in Russia

World (global, transnational) and other topics

• A force such as the world has never known : women creating change
• Bodies in resistance: gender politics in the age of neoliberalism
• Challenge of local feminisms : women's movements in global perspective
• Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women
• Disability, globalization and human rights
• Dissident friendships : feminism, imperialism, and transnational solidarity
• Dreaming Global Change, Doing Local Feminisms: Visions of Feminism. Global North/Global South Encounters, Conversations and Disagreements
• Ecofeminism towards integrating the concerns of women, poor people, and nature into development
• Ecofeminist natures : race, gender, feminist theory, and political action
• Feminism and women's rights worldwide
• Feminist theory reader : local and global perspectives
• Feminism without borders decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity / Chandra Talpade Mohanty
• Feminist activism, women's rights, and legal reform
• Feminist thought : a more comprehensive introduction
• Film feminisms : a global introduction
• Fourth wave feminism in science fiction and fantasy
• Gender in Human Rights and Transitional Justice
• Global currents in gender and feminisms : Canadian and international perspectives
• Globalization and feminist activism [print]
• Globalizing Feminist Bioethics: Crosscultural Perspectives
• Governance Feminism : An Introduction
• Knowledge As Resistance: The Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering
• Logics of gender justice : state action on women's rights around the world
• Maternal Transition: A North-South Politics of Pregnancy and Childbirth
• Maternities: Gender, Bodies and Spaces
• Naming a transnational black feminist framework : writing in darkness
• Prismatic media, transnational circuits ; Feminism in a globalized present
• Producing reproductive rights : determining abortion policy worldwide
• Re-orienting western feminisms : women's diversity in a postcolonial world
• Reproductive justice and sexual rights : transnational perspectives
• Review of Feminism and Feminists after Suffrage
• Sisters in the mirror : a history of Muslim women and the global politics of feminism
• Solidarities beyond borders : transnationalizing women's movements
• Transnational borderlands in women's global networks : the making of cultural resistance
• Women and the vote : a world history [print]
• Women and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Women and Transitional Justice: Progress and Persistent Challenges in Retributive and Restorative Processes
• Women's activism and second wave feminism : transnational histories
• Women's labor in the global economy : speaking in multiple voices
• Women's Movements in the Global Era: The Power of Local Feminisms

Subject headings to find books

Examples of subject headings (below) will provide a starting point for finding books on feminism and feminists of different parts of the world. The list below is not comprehensive, but the examples provide clues as to how to structure your search. 

Catalogue Search / Browse then change "Title" to "Subject" and enter your subject term, for example:

• African American feminists
• Ecofeminism
• Feminism
• Feminism -- [name of country or region]
• Feminism - Africa
• Feminism -- Arab countries
• Feminism -- Asia
• Feminism -- Canada
• Feminism -- China
• Feminism -- Developing countries
• Feminism -- France
• Feminism -- India
• Feminism -- Iran
• Feminism -- International cooperation
• Feminism -- Islamic countries
• Feminism -- Italy
• Feminism -- Japan
• Feminism -- Latin America
• Feminism -- Middle East
• Feminism -- Methodology
• Feminism -- Moral and ethical aspects
• Feminism -- Periodicals
• Feminism -- Pakistan
• Feminism -- Peru
• Feminism -- Political aspects
• Feminism -- South Asia
• Feminism -- United States
• Feminism & feminist theory
• Feminism and [topic word]
• Feminism  and mass media
• Feminism  and motion pictures
• Feminism on television
• Feminist films
• Feminist geography
• Feminist jurisprudence
• Feminist theory
• Feminist Theory -- Developing Countries
• Feminists
• Feminists -- [country or region] -- [Biography]
• Feminists -- United States -- Biography
• Indian women -- Legal status, laws, etc.
• Indian women -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Canada
• Indigenous women
• Indigenous women -- Canada
• Minority women -- Social conditions
• Minority women -- Social conditions -- [country or region]
• People with disabilities -- Civil rights
• Queer theory
• Reproductive rights
• Reproductive rights -- [country or region]
• Reproductive rights
• Second-wave feminism
• Third-wave feminism
• Women -- Africa
• Women -- Arab
• Women -- Black
• Women -- [country or region] -- Social conditions
• Women -- Africa -- Social conditions
• Women -- Canada  -- Economic conditions
• Women -- Canada -- History
• Women -- Canada  -- Social conditions
• Women -- India
• Women -- India -- Social conditions
• Women --  Pakistan
• Women -- South Asia -- Social conditions
• Women -- Suffrage
• Women -- Suffrage -- [country or region]
• Women -- Suffrage -- Canada
• Women -- Suffrage -- Great Britain
• Women -- Suffrage -- United States
• Women -- Taiwan
• Women -- United States
• Women -- United States -- Social conditions
• Women and [topic]
• Women and the environment
• Women and war
• Women and work
• Women immigrants -- Canada
• Women in workforce
• Women radicals -- United States -- History -- 20th century
• Women's rights
• Women's rights -- [name of country or region]
• Women's rights -- Asia
• Women's rights -- Africa
• Women's rights -- China
• Women's rights -- Great Britain
• Women's rights -- India
• Women's rights -- Iran
• Women's rights -- Latin America
• Women's rights -- South Asia

Government documents, international

Along with documents from United Nations, you may also wish to use the Google search engine to find documents from governments around the world.

• United Nations

  • UNdata A compilation of United Nations and agency statistics, covering economic, social, financial and development topics. In most cases time series are available from 1970 or 1980 and many series are disaggregated to show underlying distributions.
  • UN Women
    • Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women
    • Progress of the World’s Women (series)

• Google custom search for government publications

  • IGO Search
    International governmental organizations (IGOs) are organizations made up of more than one national government—examples include NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the WHO (World Heath Organization). 
    Example: "gender gap"

  • Search for documents from a particular country's domain.  The example below is for India, with country code of ".in"
      Web country codes

    site:.in  intitle:(sex* OR porn*) intitle:(laws OR regulations)

Feminist theory websites

• Feminist Theory Website - "provides research materials" - fields within feminism; national and ethnic feminisms; Individual feminists
• Women’s Studies: Feminist Theory

Selected journals

• Agenda : a journal about women and gender
• Feminist Africa

Library guides

• Library Research Tutorials. Animated tutorials on search techniques for finding books and journal articles.
• Annotated bibliographies
• Evaluating sources
• How to find journal articles
• Library Catalogue search guide
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?
• What is plagiarism?  Guide to common forms of plagiarism and how to avoid them

Writing help

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.