Today is International Women’s Day. And that’s not all that’s happening this week. Parents, carers, and educators around the world have also been pulling together creative (and not so creative) costumes for the school event of the year – World Book Day. (Disclaimer: I am in the not-creative camp. My child went to school in a store-bought unicorn onesie.)

Tying in with this week’s important themes of 1) celebrating books, creativity, and learning, and 2) recognising and honouring women and highlighting the gender inequalities that still exist, I wanted to share an excellent book, Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez, which kickstarted the idea for this blog.

Invisible Women uses data to demonstrate how this world is built by men for men, and highlights the unseen daily bias that impacts the professional and personal lives of women. From the use of dummies with male proportions to test car safety to the urban planning of cities being developed for men who don’t have to do the school run, this was an incredibly eye-opening read. I was amazed by how many things I had just accepted as ‘the way things were’, and it made me question these and start to push for better. It’s a great read to help you become more aware of how these invisible biases may show up in your own communities and workplaces, and to prompt discussions about how you can begin to level the playing field.

And it got me thinking, what other incredible books by women are out there that we should know about and that could change our ways of thinking and working?

So, in celebration of International Women’s Day and World Book Day, some of the Aspire team have shared their top book recommendations by women authors.

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I want to tell you about the time a legend of the silver screen and theatre showed me how you deal with an awkward audience interaction effectively. It taught me so much about where I think my focus ought to be as a presenter or public speaker and added a valuable tool to my toolkit.

A while back, I attended a Q&A with celebrated Norwegian actress, Liv Ullmann, at London’s BFI, following a screening of one of her films with Ingmar Bergman, Autumn Sonata.

Full disclosure: I generally don’t enjoy attending Q&As, because I get worried that members of the audience, instead of taking the opportunity to ask the speaker an insightful question, will opt to make a long, drawn-out observation or boast about a previous encounter with that speaker. Then I feel uncomfortable.

On this occasion, however, I couldn’t miss out on the chance to hear one of the world’s greatest living performers in conversation. And, as I expected, the post-screening chat with her interviewer was illuminating.

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Every so often two of my old school friends and I get together for drinks and dinner. We eat unhealthy food and drink overpriced whiskey. We catch up on each other’s families and complain about being middle-aged. We raise a glass to our wives and reminisce about how everything was better in the 90s (apart from bucket hats, they’ve always been wrong). 

We also make each other laugh. A lot. I laugh most when I’m with those two guys. Often the laughter comes from in-jokes that have carried on through the decades. Often, we can’t remember what started the joke or even what it refers to now – but they have become the catchphrases of our relationship. 

One of these friends works in the advertising industry. He has to marshal the needs of a client, the talent of his creative team, and the logistics of production. He told me about how sometimes an advert can often start with a clear concept, but as it’s bounced around layers of ideas get layered on top of it and slowly the concept becomes less clear. Everyone involved, as they were there at inception knows what they mean, but to the external observer the response is

“Eh?”

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