What do you think?
Rate this book
Un autre regard #3-4
The Emotional Load: And Other Invisible Stuff
The author of The Mental Load returns with more "visual essays which are transformative agents of change."
After the success of The Mental Load, Emma continues in her new book to tangle with issues pertinent to women's experiences, from consent to the "power of love," from the care and attentiveness that women place on others' wellbeing and social cohesion, and how it constitutes another burden on women, to contraception, to sex, from the culture of rape to diets, from safety in public spaces to retirement, along with social issues such as police violence, women's rights, and green capitalism. And, once more, she hits the mark.
After the success of The Mental Load, Emma continues in her new book to tangle with issues pertinent to women's experiences, from consent to the "power of love," from the care and attentiveness that women place on others' wellbeing and social cohesion, and how it constitutes another burden on women, to contraception, to sex, from the culture of rape to diets, from safety in public spaces to retirement, along with social issues such as police violence, women's rights, and green capitalism. And, once more, she hits the mark.
216 pages, Paperback
First published September 20, 2018
33 people are currently reading
1258 people want to read
About the author
Emma
206 books153 followersDessinatrice de trucs moches mais qui veulent dire des choses. Féministe inclusive, antiraciste, anticapitaliste.
Emma is a computer technician who lives in Paris but who says she learns "all over the place." She podcasts programs for the radio station France Culture, and her comics run in The Guardian.
Emma's strips have a history of going viral. "You Should've Asked" was viewed on mommy blogs around the world, and an article about her in thew French magazine L'Express drew 1.8 million viewers -- a record since the site was created.
A former member of the collective Stop harcèlement de rue (Stop Street Harassment), she is confident that her feminist beliefs have now made it onto the "information superhighway" for good.
Emma is a computer technician who lives in Paris but who says she learns "all over the place." She podcasts programs for the radio station France Culture, and her comics run in The Guardian.
Emma's strips have a history of going viral. "You Should've Asked" was viewed on mommy blogs around the world, and an article about her in thew French magazine L'Express drew 1.8 million viewers -- a record since the site was created.
A former member of the collective Stop harcèlement de rue (Stop Street Harassment), she is confident that her feminist beliefs have now made it onto the "information superhighway" for good.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 119 reviews
October 18, 2025
In a Nutshell: A graphic novel highlighting certain feminist and social issues in modern society. This volume collects books 3 and 4 of the author’s feminist comics series. The tone is much more aggressive this time and the content is also too text-intensive. While this raises some good points, I didn’t like it as much as the first volume.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author Emma runs a podcast as well as creates comic strips aiming to generate insightful queries and discussions on contemporary societal culture. She has published four books in her “Un autre regard” series, the latter two of which are combined in this English edition.
I don’t really have much to add on this as most of my review for the first volume, "The Mental Load", is applicable to this volume as well.
The main content is divided into nine topic-wise chapters, with a much greater focus on feminism this time, even though the author makes it clear that she isn't trying to sound like a radical feminist.
The topics are as varied as earlier, including some topics I never expected to see in a feminist book, such as police corruption. Of course, a majority of the chapters are woman-oriented, highlighting common avenues where discrimination is still rampant such as in the corporate world.
Once again, a couple of chapters come in the form of true-life narrative stories, which are just as disturbing as those in the first volume. I try my best to be optimistic about humanity, and then I read such books and I return to cynicism.
The title not only establishes a semantic link between the two volumes, but it also continues the argument from the titular chapter of the first volume. I found this chapter the best one. It justifies the ‘mental load’ faced by woman, and also demonstrates convincingly why male ‘mental load’ isn't the same. I also loved the chapters focussing on “consent” and “gallantry” – brilliantly written.
The translator is the same as before, but this time, I didn’t find any issues with the translation.
However, the text is a lot more dominant this time around. There are illustrations also, of course. But the accompanying text boxes are much larger on most pages and have big chunks of text and stats. As the tone of the book also feel more aggressive and strident in this volume, I felt like the book was yelling out the points at a greater volume, even thought the arguments themselves were not problematic.
Overall, this is a good book that advances discussion on some more relevant topics of modern society. It was more hostile in tone, which affected my appreciation of it. But there’s no doubt that the content is still important.
3.25 stars.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || Facebook ||
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author Emma runs a podcast as well as creates comic strips aiming to generate insightful queries and discussions on contemporary societal culture. She has published four books in her “Un autre regard” series, the latter two of which are combined in this English edition.
I don’t really have much to add on this as most of my review for the first volume, "The Mental Load", is applicable to this volume as well.
The main content is divided into nine topic-wise chapters, with a much greater focus on feminism this time, even though the author makes it clear that she isn't trying to sound like a radical feminist.
The topics are as varied as earlier, including some topics I never expected to see in a feminist book, such as police corruption. Of course, a majority of the chapters are woman-oriented, highlighting common avenues where discrimination is still rampant such as in the corporate world.
Once again, a couple of chapters come in the form of true-life narrative stories, which are just as disturbing as those in the first volume. I try my best to be optimistic about humanity, and then I read such books and I return to cynicism.
The title not only establishes a semantic link between the two volumes, but it also continues the argument from the titular chapter of the first volume. I found this chapter the best one. It justifies the ‘mental load’ faced by woman, and also demonstrates convincingly why male ‘mental load’ isn't the same. I also loved the chapters focussing on “consent” and “gallantry” – brilliantly written.
The translator is the same as before, but this time, I didn’t find any issues with the translation.
However, the text is a lot more dominant this time around. There are illustrations also, of course. But the accompanying text boxes are much larger on most pages and have big chunks of text and stats. As the tone of the book also feel more aggressive and strident in this volume, I felt like the book was yelling out the points at a greater volume, even thought the arguments themselves were not problematic.
Overall, this is a good book that advances discussion on some more relevant topics of modern society. It was more hostile in tone, which affected my appreciation of it. But there’s no doubt that the content is still important.
3.25 stars.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || Facebook ||
August 25, 2024
I haven’t read a graphic novel in so long and the first couple of pages caught my eye. Every topic is explored throughly which gave me a different perspective on life and the interactions we have with men.
August 12, 2020
Not as strong as The Mental Load: A Feminist Comic, but this collection has some nice short cartoon essays about feminism loaded with lots of good points. Actually, the second story was about police corruption and didn't really fit in with the rest of the book, so that bored me and threw me off for a bit.
November 21, 2020
It's almost a shame this book is publicized as being about women's issues and women's experiences as it's about so much more. Emma might be using France as an example, but the corruption found at the root of the police system, the Bourgeoisie class, and the lie of chivalry is universal. This is a must read for everyone.
September 25, 2018
Encore une superbe bande dessinée d'Emma.
Celle-là m'a un peu plus touchée que les autres, car elle y parle de sujets qui sont juste sous mon nez pour le coup. Des choses que nous remarquons, que nous reproduisons nous-mêmes et dont nous ne nous rendons même pas compte.
Cette BD permet vraiment de nous interroger, d'interroger les personnes autour de nous. Ce sont des faits qui arrive réellement et quand on s'aperçoit que certain ne prenne même pas le temps de la lire correctement, on réalise que vraiment il y a des choses qui ne vont pas du tout dans cette société. Et j'adore le fait Emma mette tout en oeuvre pour le montrer et le dénoncer.
Celle-là m'a un peu plus touchée que les autres, car elle y parle de sujets qui sont juste sous mon nez pour le coup. Des choses que nous remarquons, que nous reproduisons nous-mêmes et dont nous ne nous rendons même pas compte.
Cette BD permet vraiment de nous interroger, d'interroger les personnes autour de nous. Ce sont des faits qui arrive réellement et quand on s'aperçoit que certain ne prenne même pas le temps de la lire correctement, on réalise que vraiment il y a des choses qui ne vont pas du tout dans cette société. Et j'adore le fait Emma mette tout en oeuvre pour le montrer et le dénoncer.
May 30, 2020
A worthwhile follow up to The Mental Load, pushing its focus into the things that underpin the sexism in our society—including neoliberalism, privatisation and more. A really great read with a lot to teach readers.
November 2, 2020
The Emotional Load is the follow-up or companion to The Mental Load. It is good in unpicking the historical background to a capitalist / neo-Liberal economy and how the patriarchal state restricts women as well as presenting some European feminist ideas (and a really good bibliography to take these ideas further). I thought it wasn't quite as strong and focused as the Mental Load. However, it is a "proper" feminist comic, which is a rare and great thing these days.
May 18, 2025
This book says so many important things! I felt so validated reading it. I have long believed in how disempowering being a mother and a partner is; I think it is impossible for women who work outside the home (and possibly for those that work inside the home, I’ve never been in that position) to be their own person because caregiving takes so much of who you are away from you. Working and caring for others makes me feel subhuman. I have always been a creative and thoughtful person, but the only time I feel stirrings of those traits now are when I am on vacation without obligations to attend to. This book explores many of the reasons why women disproportionately experience that, and how others benefit from all of our free labor.
Read
January 5, 2024I came into this fresh off of Emma's other book The Mental Load, and while there were more essays I found directly relevant to me in that book this one tackles just as wide a variety of issues. I feel the marketing pushing this as a feminist comic shortchanges it. One of the longer chapters is about police corruption which is far from a concern only for feminists.
This book covers labor practices, corruption, consent, emotional responsibility, anger, and perspectives on what is considered women's 'mental health' in traditional cis-het relationships.
This book covers labor practices, corruption, consent, emotional responsibility, anger, and perspectives on what is considered women's 'mental health' in traditional cis-het relationships.
June 3, 2021
The author, Emma, is a staunch feminist (and communist!) with a lot of smart, important things to say about women's roles in the household and workplace. Unfortunately, she says them in big blocks of text surrounded by bland illustrations. The Emotional Load is probably a better read in its original blog format. As it stood, my eyes kept glazing over as paragraph after paragraph of numbing, repetitive statistics barreled past.
May 10, 2021
I gasped out loud while reading some of these comics, and even pulled my partner aside to share some with him. It inspired good discussions for us on several topics, and it helped pinpoint and express issues I've had in past, but didn't have the words to describe.
June 8, 2021
I had enjoyed her first book in this series, The Mental Load, and was looking forward to reading this one. It continues where The Mental Load left off, talking about the emotional load that women deal with on a daily basis. The book talks about sexual consent and what is/isn't rape, sexual harassment vs seduction, and the belief that "the role of women is above all to be desirable to men" from pg 25. The emotional responsibility of all of that alone is overwhelming, let along all the rest of the stuff discussed in the book.
There is a chapter on a police officer named Erik who worked throughout France and his experiences with racism and corruption within the police. I found the chapter called "Michelle" to be very fascinating as it talked about how women feel compelled to feel responsible for not only their emotional well-being, but that of everyone around them, and this manifests at work through emotional labor - the way we express our emotions depending on the expectations of others like providing a plant for the office or baking a cake for everyone or being in charge of birthday or retirement cards at the office or even providing care for an ill partner even though they can take care of themselves and may not return the favor if it was the female that was ill. The last bit got me especially as that relationship eventually morphs into the role of mothering, which is exactly what happened with my ex.
In the chapter called "It's all in your head", on page 152 Emma talks about "turning a feminist topic into a psychiatric issue is nothing new, like women who denounced rapists in the early twentieth century were accused of being hysterical by the medical profession. Or even today the mocking of women who express their anger is aimed at keeping them in their place, by saying things like 'Aww, what's the matter, having your period?'". In Chapter 9, entitled "Just Being Nice", I was introduced to a term I had never heard before. "Benevolent sexism is all about treating women like fragile little creatures that must be protected," from page 207. As it explains on the following page, this means "putting women on pedestal and lauded for their supposed feminine qualities while they're being thought of as incompetent in other areas." Her example was welcoming a new female employee to the firm and asking for her help decorating, while assuming she can't read blueprints, even though she drew them herself. It is meant to be well-meaning, and often expressed as gallantry, but the men that do it get nasty if the woman decides she doesn't want it. Overall, it was a very informative book, even if it did drag on a bit about the bourgeoisie and labor practices in the middle. 3-1/2 stars.
There is a chapter on a police officer named Erik who worked throughout France and his experiences with racism and corruption within the police. I found the chapter called "Michelle" to be very fascinating as it talked about how women feel compelled to feel responsible for not only their emotional well-being, but that of everyone around them, and this manifests at work through emotional labor - the way we express our emotions depending on the expectations of others like providing a plant for the office or baking a cake for everyone or being in charge of birthday or retirement cards at the office or even providing care for an ill partner even though they can take care of themselves and may not return the favor if it was the female that was ill. The last bit got me especially as that relationship eventually morphs into the role of mothering, which is exactly what happened with my ex.
In the chapter called "It's all in your head", on page 152 Emma talks about "turning a feminist topic into a psychiatric issue is nothing new, like women who denounced rapists in the early twentieth century were accused of being hysterical by the medical profession. Or even today the mocking of women who express their anger is aimed at keeping them in their place, by saying things like 'Aww, what's the matter, having your period?'". In Chapter 9, entitled "Just Being Nice", I was introduced to a term I had never heard before. "Benevolent sexism is all about treating women like fragile little creatures that must be protected," from page 207. As it explains on the following page, this means "putting women on pedestal and lauded for their supposed feminine qualities while they're being thought of as incompetent in other areas." Her example was welcoming a new female employee to the firm and asking for her help decorating, while assuming she can't read blueprints, even though she drew them herself. It is meant to be well-meaning, and often expressed as gallantry, but the men that do it get nasty if the woman decides she doesn't want it. Overall, it was a very informative book, even if it did drag on a bit about the bourgeoisie and labor practices in the middle. 3-1/2 stars.
April 12, 2022
I read The Mental Load almost three weeks ago. Once I became aware of The Emotional Load, it was a swift decision to read it. I feel this is a sturdy follow-up.
The feeling of desirability proves incredible. I have felt it in fleeting moments. Yet, when targeted ominously by men, many women declare horror. I don't dismiss their testimonies. Yet, I wonder about the complaints about gallantry. On page 210: "Because we women are incapable of opening doors ourselves... as opposed to politeness, which is indifferent to gender, gallantry is defined as 'courteous attention to women'."
This is where I diverge from Emma. If a man is genuine about showing me courtesy, then I don't object. But then, that's the stem of the complaint: the disingenuousness.
The feeling of desirability proves incredible. I have felt it in fleeting moments. Yet, when targeted ominously by men, many women declare horror. I don't dismiss their testimonies. Yet, I wonder about the complaints about gallantry. On page 210: "Because we women are incapable of opening doors ourselves... as opposed to politeness, which is indifferent to gender, gallantry is defined as 'courteous attention to women'."
This is where I diverge from Emma. If a man is genuine about showing me courtesy, then I don't object. But then, that's the stem of the complaint: the disingenuousness.
October 15, 2022
I didn't like this one quite as much as The Mental Load: A Feminist Comic, but it's still good, and reminds you to think about all the extra stuff you're taking on without even realizing it (and how other people benefit from you not realizing it).
August 4, 2022
i think this is a really important book, i'm excited to read the mental load (a bit out of order). definitely a cis-het normative book that lacks a dive into the nuance of the emotional load/ mental load in queer relationships, but the research and authority comes through well and i appreciate the author's drive for collective action
March 7, 2023
I didn't like this as much as her first collection, mental load, as it felt less applicable to me in some ways. Some of her ideas were more radical and diverged from my own thinking and/or felt a little "preachy" and idealistic. However, I do appreciate their value and the case she makes for them.
Again, I really liked the illustrations, font and overall style and layout.
Again, I really liked the illustrations, font and overall style and layout.
April 30, 2022
Interesting on the whole when discussing gender and the importance of readdressing it's imbalance. I'm not exactly sure what the advantage of it being a graphic novel was though as a lot of it is just text and the images on the whole seem unneeded.
April 12, 2022
A series of feminist comics covering a range of topics.
I personally would have preferred a different order to the comics (the first one is quite intense).
I personally would have preferred a different order to the comics (the first one is quite intense).
June 27, 2019
Comme toujours avec Emma, une excellente observation des travers de notre société patriarcale, illustrée d'exemples du quotidien dans lesquels on se reconnait malheureusement beaucoup trop.
Emma n'en reste pas à un triste constat, elle propose aussi des pistes de solution et après la lecture de La charge émotionnelle et autres trucs invisibles, on se sent reboostée pour continuer ses combats de chaque jour.
Je mets 4 étoiles et non 5 car j'ai trouvé que cet album manquait un peu de cohésion et aurait apprécié un peu plus de liant entre les différents chapitres, mais c'est un détail.
Emma n'en reste pas à un triste constat, elle propose aussi des pistes de solution et après la lecture de La charge émotionnelle et autres trucs invisibles, on se sent reboostée pour continuer ses combats de chaque jour.
Je mets 4 étoiles et non 5 car j'ai trouvé que cet album manquait un peu de cohésion et aurait apprécié un peu plus de liant entre les différents chapitres, mais c'est un détail.
February 13, 2021
This is Emma's second graphic novel, and she tackles many important feminist issues, including benevolent sexism, emotional load, and the Me Too movement. Each chapter is essentially an essay, illustrated but with plenty of text. It's easy to read but also contains a lot of important information that is pertinent to much of Western culture.
There were two stories that seemed a little out of place - one about the police force and the other about how our capitalist economies should switch to communism.
There were two stories that seemed a little out of place - one about the police force and the other about how our capitalist economies should switch to communism.
November 7, 2020
I just happened to pick up this book from the library when I was browsing the New Arrivals section and I'm so glad I did! I would love for others to read this book so I can hear their thoughts (as I tend to totally agree with people when I read something..oops) on this feminist work. I thought it was very interesting. My first intro into the mental and emotional load that women carry but definitely not the last.
December 6, 2021
Read this if you want to see someone else put into words something you've always felt, but could never express. And if you want to be horrified at the unfinished fight for women's rights and equality!
February 6, 2022
Another thought provoking look into (French) feminism.
"It's not right, but ...", "A role to play", "The power of love", and "Just being nice" would all give the girls in my school something to think about.
"It's not right, but ...", "A role to play", "The power of love", and "Just being nice" would all give the girls in my school something to think about.
June 3, 2023
très bien écrit et j’ai apprécié les petites touches d’intersectionalité!
ce livre s’ajoute à ma liste invisible « je le recommande à tout le monde », mais je le recommanderais surtout aux hommes haha. (ami, frère, amoureux, collègue, peu importe!!)
ce livre s’ajoute à ma liste invisible « je le recommande à tout le monde », mais je le recommanderais surtout aux hommes haha. (ami, frère, amoureux, collègue, peu importe!!)
November 30, 2019
Excellent et très pédagogique comme d'habitude.. Preach it sister! ✊🏼
September 27, 2020
Hey. Read this. Make everyone around you read this. Change only happens when we’re all on board.
December 28, 2020
Very thought provoking, and so much "yes". I love the points this woman makes.
March 20, 2021
Loved this. Cannot recommend it highly enough. Read it
May 24, 2021
En tout cas ça a l'air chiant la vie de couple hétéro hahah
Displaying 1 - 30 of 119 reviews