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  • Published: 16 May 2016
  • ISBN: 9781910931097
  • Imprint: Square Peg
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 128
  • RRP: $39.99

The Trouble With Women




Iconic cartoonist Jacky Fleming returns with her first book in over 10 years

Can women be geniuses? Or are their arms too short?
Why did we only learn about three women at school? What were all the others doing?

'Brilliantly, mordantly funny and extremely clever… There isn’t a man, woman or child who wouldn’t benefit from spending time with this.' India Knight

The Trouble With Women does for girls what 1066 and All That did for boys: it reminds us of what we were taught about women in history lessons at school, which is to say, not a lot. A brilliantly witty book of cartoons, it reveals some of our greatest thinkers' baffling theories about women. We learn that even Charles Darwin, long celebrated for his open, objective scientific mind, believed that women would never achieve anything important, because of their smaller brains.

Get ready to laugh, wince and rescue forgotten women from the 'dustbin of history', whilst keeping a close eye out for tell-tale 'genius hair'. You will never look at history in the same way again.

  • Published: 16 May 2016
  • ISBN: 9781910931097
  • Imprint: Square Peg
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 128
  • RRP: $39.99

About the author

Jacky Fleming

Jacky Fleming is a feminist cartoonist whose work first became known through her series of pre-internet postcards which reached women around the world by snail mail. Following a foundation year at the Chelsea School of Art, she went on to study Fine Art at Leeds University, where her contemporaries formed bands like the Mekons, and the Gang of Four. Her first published work, which appeared in Spare Rib, was a university essay for feminist art historian Griselda Pollock which Fleming handed in as a cartoon strip. Since then her work has featured in many publications including the Guardian, the Independent, New Statesman, New Internationalist, Red Pepper, Observer, Diva, You magazine and the Big Issue. She has published six books of cartoons, The Trouble with Women is her seventh.

Praise for The Trouble With Women

There’s plenty more to pique your interest here, such as Jacky Fleming’s ferociously funny The Trouble With Women.

Paul Gravett

Jacky Fleming…is brilliantly, mordantly funny and extremely clever, and these are her finest drawings yet… The book is savagely funny and wonderfully constructed, so that you start off giggling uncontrollably but then grow quieter at each successive misogynistic shocker… There isn’t a man, woman or child who wouldn’t benefit from spending time with this.

India Knight, The Sunday Times

Fleming has taken historic theories about women’s limited abilities and created a wry look at how sexism has affected what history has recorded.

Stylist

This book is an utter delight – it does something I always admire, making very serious points but doing so through the medium of humour and satire. And oh my god, it does it so very well, text and cartoons working perfectly together here – I had to pause my reading frequently because I was laughing too much to continue to the next page.

Joe Gordon, Fordbidden Planet

A collection of withering, laugh-out-loud commentaries and illustrations regarding women’s lot… The perfect gift for a burgeoning feminist daughter.

Jane Graham, The Big Issue

Jacky Fleming is at her funniest yet… Beautiful, funny and important piece of feminist art.

Jane Czyzselska, Diva

Crackling with her sparky humour and wry sense of the ridiculous.

The Pool

Fleming ably skewers the Great Men of History, not to diminish their own works but to highlight those women who were trodden underfoot… A perfect gift for all genders, ages and political persuasions but is sadly confined to the humour section rather than the place it really belongs – the school curriculum.

Laura Sneddon, Independent on Sunday

The genius is in how it takes its world for granted, which is normalizing and unsettling at once… Runs with zany, deadpan exuberance through the story of women in history.

Tessa Hadley, Guardian

Fleming lays out the unwritten rules that have dominated the stories we tell ourselves… Fleming’s anger is wielded with a wit sharp enough to draw blood… With pocket sized print and wicked satire, Fleming avoids becoming too angry in her manifesto – heaven forbid! – by focusing on humour while planting the seeds of broader issues behind the jokes.

Laura Sneddon, Independent

Feminist satirical cartoonist, Jacky Fleming, perfectly encapsulates this sexism in her hilarious book, The Trouble with Women.

Harriet Hall, Stylist

A brilliantly witty book of cartoons, it reveals some of our greatest thinkers’ baffling theories about women… Get ready to laugh, wince and rescue forgotten women from the ‘dustbin of history’, whilst keeping a close eye out for tell-tale ‘genius hair’. You will never look at history in the same way again.

Blacknet

The Trouble With Women is a wonderful, wonderful book. Jacky Fleming’s biting wit leaps off the… I can’t recall the last time I literally laughed out loud so many times whilst reading.

Quietus

This is a thoroughly recommended collection and a diverting gift for a friend.

A Little Bird

Mixing brilliant images with witty captions… Clever, funny and shocking work.

FlyBe Uncovered

I laughed so hard, I sank to the floor

Emma Thompson, The Week

Fleming is a gifted illustrator with a sharp sense of humour... I read it any time I have a bad day

Mariella Frostrup, Sunday Times

Characteristically witty and well-observed

Yorkshire Post

Jacky Fleming nails it with her razor-sharp observational writing and drawing in this very funny and fresh take on women in history. Fleming is a genius but with normal hair

Simone Lia, author of FLUFFY

Highly original and very funny. Takes history and turns it upside down, adding generous dollops of wit and charm

Isy Suttie

Ferociously funny

Paul Gravett

Jacky Fleming…is brilliantly, mordantly funny and extremely clever, and these are her finest drawings yet… The book is savagely funny and wonderfully constructed, so that you start off giggling uncontrollably but then grow quieter at each successive misogynistic shocker… There isn’t a man, woman or child who wouldn’t benefit from spending time with this.

India Knight, Sunday Times