This week's book is Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. It's a graphic novel, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a worthwhile read.
Alison Bechdel, the writer and illustrator of "Dyke's to Watch Out For," paints the story of her childhood, more specifically the relationship between herself and her father, while using her childhood home as a frame. She writes in a liner and yet non-liner fashion. Some chapters start at the beginning of one point and then end, while other are turned inside out starting at the end, returning to the beginning and then continuing on back to the end. The result is a beautiful, honest and painful autobiography.
Alison narrates the story as an adult giving new insight into her childhood relationships. It is by no means a fun or easy story to read, as there are clear and painful scars that she carries, but it is an insightful tale of a girl growing up with a closeted and abusive father and becoming a woman who comes to terms with her own sexuality.
It is an important book because it unflinchingly looks at issues many wish childhood didn't include such as sexuality, gender restraints, masturbation, abuse and suicide. Even more importantly it examins the ways we begin to realise as we grow up that our parents are people and have lives and feelings we can not comprehend. Alison Bechdel exposes her difficult childhood and it is a potent reminder that childhood isn't anything like how we depict it. That it is a difficult and scary time, but it is also the time that helped us to become who we are.
This book is a definite read, despite all the sadness it leaves you with the positive message that you will overcome all this, and you will be better for it.
Because a little literature can go a long way I will be posting a review of an awesome book every Friday.
This week's book is "Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps And What We Can Do About It" by neuroscientist Lise Eliot.It's a non-fiction book that explores, and disproves, the science of proving gender exists naturally. The chapters are separated by childhood development, starting at birth and finishing at teenage hood.
It would have been enough for Eliot to simply disprove the studies or expose the misinformation, but she takes it a step further. At the end of every chapter is a break-down of how you as a parent or teacher can actually work to help children develop without the constraints of genderization.My favorite example of this is in the beginning chapters of the book where Eliot exposes the myth that gender can be effected through superficial means, such as toys or clothes. She gives the example of giving dolls to boys and trucks to girls. She points out that this method is doomed from the start because it doesn't address the real problem. Worst it often leads parents to believe that gender is natural.Instead of simply swapping genderized items, Eliot suggests that parents should first focus on what each sex lacks due to gender constraints. For example she points out that girls rarely get to develop their spacial abilities while boys rarely get to develop their nurturing abilities. If a parent really wanted to help their children overcome gender barriers they would instead give their girls building toys, like Lego or K'Nex, and allow their boys to care for a small animal.At times with Eliot's scientific approach to the source material the chapters can seem overwhelming. However, it is well worth giving this book a read through. I found that while I may not always understand the studies she discuses in the chapters, there is more than enough information and instruction at the end of each chapter to make up for it.If you are a parent, teacher, gender studies student, or you just care about breaking gender barriers, Lise Eliot's "Pink Brain, Blue Brain" is read worth picking up.
