March 8 is celebrated as International Women’s Day across the globe. Rooted in political and labour movements of the West, the day is a celebration of the struggle of women workers for their rights. “Work is a personal issue for all women. There is the anxiety around paid work, the burden of unpaid housework, the guilt of care work, the soar of ambitions, and the crush of not always being able to achieve them,” says Manjima Bhattacharjya. The feminist researcher, writer, and activist has been a part of the women’s movement for over two decades and her areas of specialisation include gender and sexuality, and labour and the body.

Her two books, Mannequin: Working Women in India’s Glamour Industry (2018, Zubaan Books), and Intimate City (2022, Zubaan Books) explore the experiences of women in two of the most demanding industries – fashion, and sex work – with nuance. To further our understanding of women and their relationship to work, she curates a reading list that encapsulates the multidisciplinary and all-permeating experiences of working women, “As I was curating this list, I realised that there are still too few books that explore the world of women’s work and the possibilities it opens up for us. There are narratives of women’s family lives, experiences of violence and marginalisation, but few on the exhilarations and frustrations of a working life. Why must Dalit women write only of violence, or trans women and men of marginalisation? What about the experiences of persons with disabilities, of single mothers, of tribal youth? Why do we know so little about one another’s working lives? If we did, perhaps we would understand one another better.”