Gender Studies

March 4, 2024
Mance (What Do Brothas Do All Day?) interrogates gender identity in an insightful graphic memoir grounded in nuanced and amusing explorations of her gender expression as a Black, “woman-identified gentleman scholar.” Revisiting her college dating life in the mid-1980s, when boyfriends saw her as a “guy friend who’s also a girl friend,” Mance describes how she admired her partners’ clothes and hairy knuckles before discovering the “difference between being interested in masculinity and being attracted to men.” The brief yet effective chapters dig into the intersection of Blackness and gender through anecdotal stories on such topics as how Black women perform femininity through hairstyles and how young kids perceive gender. Mance’s trademark stylistic flair is subdued here, but her vivid coloring and sharp linework strike a contrast between dense text and characters drawn in titanium white. Her witty personality comes through particularly in the final entry, “Check All That Apply,” which relates several “Black nerd stories” and an Octavia Butler–inspired speculative timeline that transports her to a “1983 meeting of the East Bay Black Lesbian Collective” in Oakland. Newcomers to the artist’s oeuvre will feel welcomed by this endearing work, which affirms how far the understanding of gender identities and experiences has come since Mance’s coming-of-age in the 1970s. It’s a celebration of queerness that will resonate with fans of Lawrence Lindell’s Blackward.