‘Throughout the world confidence in progress has shattered,” notes Natasha Walter. “The certainty – even the hope – that human rights equality might be within everyone’s reach has disintegrated … Everywhere in the world, from west to east, south to north, women are struggling to win and to protect their rights, and to live in safety. They keep coming up against misogynistic violence that never disappears.”

In Feminism for a World on Fire, Walter, an activist and academic, paints a dire picture of 21st-century womanhood. Where the last century saw women making strides towards equality, today much of that progress has been halted or gone into reverse. Social media, previously a place where women were able to come together and organise, now bubbles with hatred and misogyny. The impact of environmental catastrophe on the female population is stark: women are more likely to die from extreme weather events than men because they are more likely to be caring for children and elderly relatives. Meanwhile, male violence against women is rising and divisions in society, particularly over lightning-rod topics such as migration, are deepening.

But in the face of all this terribleness, Walter – who is the book’s warm yet authoritative narrator – finds women coming together in local communities and combating hardship and inequality through grassroots action and community initiatives. The author proposes shifting focus from individual female empowerment to collective action to bring about change. While Walter isn’t so glib as to suggest all will be well, her writing contains a galvanising energy: “If more and more people recognise the urgency of current challenges and step into action, the bigger changes may well occur.”

• Available via Little, Brown 9hr 58min

Further listening

Hooked
Asako Yuzuki, 4th Estate, 13hr 35min
Ami Okumura Jones narrates the Butter author’s latest psychological thriller. Hooked features a young woman, Eriko, whose seemingly perfect life masks a loneliness which leads her to develop a fixation on a chaotic food blogger named Shoko.

Wants and Needs
Roxy Dunn, Fig Tree, 7hr 3min
Misty, a woman in her 30s, seems to have her life together until she finds herself single and living in her childhood bedroom. Then she meets a man through a dating app who proposes an unorthodox setup for a relationship. Read by the author.