Another book of cartoons, this time illustrating some of the things (famous) men have said about women. When I was reading about Ada Lovelace I found it quite appalling that in her days men thought women were too mentally fragile to cope with mathematics or science.

In this book, Jackie Fleming ridicules that kind of thinking, sometimes by repeating what people like Darwin said -- she continually refers to Darwin and others as ‘geniuses’, and it becomes quite obvious fairly quickly that she does not quite regard them as geniuses when it comes to their ‘scientific’ conclusions about women. (The constant references to ‘genius’ are similar to Marc Anthony’s speech in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, in which he keeps referring to Brutus et al as ‘honourable men’.)

At other times, the cartoons and statements are silly, but no more so than the attitudes being ridiculed. For example, studying too much made women’s hair fall out.

A good corrective to some of the daft things men have said about women (and still do). 

You can buy the book here: The trouble with women (Amazon affiliate link).

This review was first published in the Digital Education newsletter.