"The character Sula was the first protagonist who made me feel okay with my own non-conformity, with the gray areas, with coloring outside the lines as a multiracial trans kid. Plus, Morrison’s writing about womanhood, convention and the fierce attachment of female friendship is astounding."

"An extraordinary book by an extraordinarily powerful poet. Clifton writes about the body and the state of womanhood like no other. Like the other poets I've mentioned on this list, Clifton doesn't suffer any fools in her writing and always goes straight for the jugular when talking about race, feminism, love and anger."

"Everything about this novel is poetic. From the ripe symbolism and haunting telling of true love, to witnessing the true liberation of a woman who has led a life dictated by societal pressures. The story of Janie is both insanely specific to her life and also a statement on the universal transformative stages of womanhood."

"One woman's struggle to write a notebook that contains all the compartmentalized facets of her life -- her childhood, her politics and her lovers. Unlike the popular books of the 1960s, which featured 'mad housewives' jumping out of windows, what Lessing tried to do was to bring together a woman's brain and a woman's body, to show the delight in physicality. Womanhood is exuberant -- and wonderful."

"Whimsical, original, hilarious, brave and addicting. At any moment, I can pick up the book, turn to any chapter (even ones I’ve already read) and be transported by the funny, fun, feminist, filmmaker/writer. I reread her adventures and re-experience them. Delightful and surprising, she bares her soul as freely as she bares her body and I’m transported back to my wild and woolly childhood, teenhood and womanhood aches and thrills."

"I have a few north stars that I point my children toward—shining examples of confident living. Alicia Keys is one of them. For decades I have been lit up, beckoned, awakened by the way she shows up in every part of her life: her womanhood, her artistry, her activism, her motherhood. Alicia’s freeing memoir More Myself is right on time, as more and more of us decide once and for all that we are ready to live our one fleeting life on our own terms."

"I adore Robert Altman, and in some ways this feels like the least-Altman Altman, but it’s like no other movie I’ve ever seen. Putatively the story of two women who became roommates in a resort town, it’s about so much more: female identity and the slipperiness of the self. I first saw it, cut up by commercials, when I was ten or eleven, and I felt like it was whispering secrets about the nature of womanhood into my ear and I’d better listen close. I still think that."

"It’s almost like these three sisters are a part of my family... I grew up in Sweden (New York, too, and by the time I read this book, was making my own life in London in my late teens). The world around me was not exactly celebrating cultural diversity... this book, and books like “The Color Purple,” “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” and “Beloved,” took me by the hand, held me, beckoned me into womanhood, aroused a love of my heritage, and love for myself. I ate this book in one serving. It was passed down my by mother... again, I’ve given it to my daughters and waited, impatiently, to talk to them about it as they’ve read."

"As a school girl this book had an enormous impact on me. It’s not just one of the great works of English fiction, but many describe how it morphs its meaning to suit all seasons of the reader’s life. I read it as a schoolgirl, and the story of the evolving emotions and thoughts of a young girl who reaches womanhood and falls in love with an older man evokes a great romantic love. But on the other hand, the story of his wife, hidden away — descending into madness — caused me frissons of deep fear at the mental illness which was very much the unspoken unknown then, and in my own childhood. At the end of the day it’s an important work for all boys and girls to read, because of its highly developed, complicated and wonderful female heroine."