A review by alexauthorshay
Gender: A Graphic Guide by Meg-John Barker

informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

After some LGBT+ friends raved about this book I decided to bump it up my TBR shelf. I'm not disappointed by any means, but for all the hype, I was expecting more. I do think this book is a good starting place for cishet folks trying to understand the queer gender experience and wanting to be good allies, as well as a good starting place for learning some of the history around pride, and more in particular about trans and non-binary genders. There is inclusion of other cultures and viewpoints, and the graphics do a good job of representing queer experiences through a similar situation cishet people experience. I just found myself constantly wanting more; each little topic only gets a page, maybe two, and I was hoping for a lot more in-depth looks at things, in particular actual gender identities. That said, the discussion around masculinities and femininities as plural things, in the context of our society (patriarchy, capitalism, racism, etc), that can be used by (almost) anyone, to different effect, was very interesting. It's something I've understood for a while but not really given deep thought to until this book phrased it all the way it did.