Linda Skeers’ dream job—journalist—was not among her parents’ approved careers for girls circa 1977.
“My parents said, ‘We’ll pay for college only if you become a nurse or a teacher,’” says Skeers, who chose nursing and spent many years in a profession that wasn’t her passion. “I was so easily swayed because they said, ‘You won’t find a job as a writer, that’s ridiculous!Here are your choices.’ ”
On her own time, Skeers began to research the achievements of little-known historical women. She pitched some magazine articles; before long, she had a book deal. Today, she is the author of several acclaimed books for young readers, including Women Who Dared: 52 Stories of Fearless Daredevils, Adventurers, and Rebels. On July 1, Sourcebooks will publish her fourth book, Dinosaur Lady: The Daring Discoveries of Mary Anning, the First Paleontologist, illustrated by Maria Álvarez Miguéns.
The career choices for Mary Anning of Lyme Regis, England (1799-1847),were nonexistent. Girls of her era were expected to become mothers and wives. Anning eschewed those roles, turned her passion for fossil collecting into a business, and made a series of discoveries that rocked the scientific world.
“She had so little education,” Skeers says of the woman who essentially founded paleontology. “She couldn’t take classes, and she couldn’t attend lectures; she only left this little village once in her lifetime. She had to teach herself French so she could read scientific articles and textbooks that she borrowed from other people; and she became one of the most world-renowned and most knowledgeable people at that time. She didn’t let anything stop her.”
Stories like Dinosaur Lady, featuring women and girls who follow their inclinations despite societal pressures, have found a welcome home at Sourcebooks, the largest woman-owned publisher in North America. Founded by Dominique Raccah in 1987, Sourcebooks prioritizes publishing women in all genres, from the New York Times bestselling historical novels of Marie Benedict to hot new YA debuts like The Burning by U.K.–based author Laura Bates.
Benedict was hard at work on 2019’s The Only Woman in the Room, a novelization of Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr’s hidden history (as the inventor of a “frequency hopping” radio technology that stymied German code-crackers in WWII), when she began to wonder about Clementine Churchill’s absence from published photographs of her husband, Winston. There were countless images of the prime minister alone—occasionally, with other world leaders—but rarely with his wife, who was anything but a silent partner.
“[Zoom out] and you’re going to see her, whether it’s figuratively, as kind of a handprint she may have had on an event, or literally—she’s standing right there, she’s just been cropped out of the photo,” Benedict says. “That’s what got me wondering about her. Once I started the research, as usual, she proved more incredible than I ever could have imagined.” The novel that resulted is Lady Clementine.
Clementine Ogilvy Spencer-Churchill (1885-1977) took every opportunity to guide her husband’s political career, from pushing his advocacy for women’s suffrage to rehabilitating his reputation after the WWI Dardanelles disaster. She was a compelling speaker, powerful administrator, chairman of the Red Cross Aid to Russia fund in WWII, and a dear friend to first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
“We think of Eleanor Roosevelt as one of the few presidential spouses of that era that really had some power,” Benedict says, “but what’s interesting to me is she was kind of closed out [of the war room at a certain point]. Clementine had free rein. She was Winston’s political partner in every realm. In some ways, she was more powerful than Eleanor.”
Like Mary Anning, Churchill faced condemnation for the unwomanly nature of her work— the same criticism some women in the workplace face today, Benedict notes.
“Across the board, women are dealing with the same issues, from a work perspective, and the same work-life balance issues,” she says. “Motherhood, guilt, shame, societal pressure: They’re things we still deal with today, every single day.”
Author and activist Laura Bates’ work centers on the everyday pressures young women face today. The founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, an online forum where girls can share their stories of harassment, coercion, and abuse, she has spent the last decade visiting schools across the U.K. and abroad, working with students to help comprehend and combat issues of gender inequality and violence.
“I have been profoundly affected by the experiences of the students I’ve met and worked with,” Bates says. “Particularly, it struck me that young women today are faced with an absolute onslaught of harassment, slut shaming, sexual pressure, online abuse and sexism, all while the world tells them they are equal now and girls have never had it so good.”
Her poignant, unflinching YA debut, The Burning, begins with a fresh start for high schooler Anna Clark, who moves to Scotland with her mother following a traumatizing episode of sexualized cyberbullying at her old school in England. When whispers and rumors begin to circulate at her new school, Anna must decide whether and how to fight back against sexist behavioral standards and bogus ideas of how a “good” girl “should” act.
“Telling our own stories is revolutionary and powerful and a vital way to change the ending for the next generation,” Bates says.
“While the book is fiction, it might shock readers to learn there is almost nothing that happens to Anna in the book that hasn’t happened in real life to a girl I’ve heard from or worked with,” she says. “So many parents contact me asking how to support their girls because they don’t know what the reality of girls’ online lives is like. I hope the book provides a window into that world and might be useful for parents as well as young people.”
Editor at large Megan Labrise hosts the Fully Booked podcast.