We are witnessing the patriarchy’s last gasp, and it’s not going down without a fight. Using legislation, language, and women’s own silence, it seeks to return us to a time when choice and self-determination were not options.

In this collection, twenty-one fearless writers examine reproductive rights, access to health care, violence against women, and the rise of rape apologists in the twenty-first-century United States. Illuminating intersections of gender, class, and race, these stories speak to the challenges women routinely face, the attempts to undermine their rights, and the deliberate, systemic erosion of their agency and existence as equals.

It’s time to revisit what’s at stake, what could still be lost, and why we must continually fight for equality and freedom for all.

Roxane Gay • The Alienable Rights of Women

Betty MacDonald • Before Roe v. Wade

Katha Pollitt Remember • Savita Halappanavar

Dolores P. • Ask an Abortion Provider

Sari Botton • Confessions of a Good Girl

Addy Robinson McCulloch • Three Heresies

Tara Murtha • Ripple Effect

Sarah Mirk • Lucky Breaks and Little Miracles

Kari O’Driscoll • A Mile in Their Shoes

Martha Bayne • Knocked Over: On Biology, Magical Thinking, and Choice

Janet Frishberg • Endo

Mira Ptacin • Un-Bearing

J. Victoria Sanders • Grown-Woman Swagger

s.e. smith • Justice for All

Camille Hayes • The Great Leap Backward

Rebecca K. O’Connor • Birdsong and Gunshot

Lidia Yuknavitch • Explicit Violence

Elissa Bassist • Caffeine-Free Rape

Kevin Sampsell • I Know Who You Raped Last Summer

Kate Sheppard • Don’t Know Much About Biology

Rebecca Cohen • Binders Full of Women: Episode 1, The Story of Mary & Bill

Followers of the bookshelf “Great Women Writers” by Bookmate