Caitlin Moran's new book - feminism is for women and men.

This!
*
"My objection to Caitlin Moran is she's annoying and not as funny as she thinks she is."*

[quote Haworthia]@SheeshSheesh She goes by Eaves Wilder. Not many 16 year olds manage to get NME coverage, airplay on 6Music (Lauren Laverne is mum’s bestie after all) and get their song produced by Stephen Street.

www.nme.com/blogs/nme-radar/whats-your-band-called-mate-get-to-know-eaves-wilder-radar-2710316

www.thelineofbestfit.com/new-music/song-of-the-day/eaves-wilder-wont-you-be-happy-euphoric-post-lockdown-guitar-anthem

I’m sure she’s a great girl and talented (I haven’t heard her music) but the fucking nepotism...[/quote]
The song is very good. Yes she’s had a leg up in terms of having it produced properly but if you have contacts then it’s silly not to use them.

I’m not sure CM has pretensions to being an academic feminist. Nevertheless she’s entertaining and makes interesting points mainstream.

Her writing about her daughters eating disorder and suicide attempts was heartbreaking.

JoysofString - you are probably right (a bit grumpy today) and I suppose I am thinking more of being proactive. ie boycott what men tell us we should do / be interested in.

And discuss what we want to do.

Dont even waste energy and thought in arguing against, clogging your brain up with what is just published for that reason. ie to be a red herring and distract us!

stumbledin but discussing that seems like a good idea - the fact that lite/men-centred/"guilty" feminism is what gets promoted, and the role that plays?

Just followed those links haworthia You can’t take away the fact that she’s got a very good, catchy song there. Maybe elevated from your average home bedroom production by Stephen Street producing it (if you’ve the contacts why not)

Unsurprisingly no mention of the family connections but the house she’s cavorting outside and on the roof of screams “minted parents!!’ Some good feminist principles quoted in her interview - she’s her mother’s daughter for sure. Cites Justin Frischman and Chrissie Hynde as her idols.) If I was her mother I’d be very proud.

Sorry have completely diverted the thread there

I think we should all resolve never ever to respond to, acknowledge, discuss, given any additional publicity to the women that men choose.

Media feminism is about controlling who can have a voice.

Dont let them win by responding to it.

CM has never been and is not a feminist. She is a convenient tool of the patriarchy.

Please ignore.

@SheeshSheesh She goes by Eaves Wilder. Not many 16 year olds manage to get NME coverage, airplay on 6Music (Lauren Laverne is mum’s bestie after all) and get their song produced by Stephen Street.

www.nme.com/blogs/nme-radar/whats-your-band-called-mate-get-to-know-eaves-wilder-radar-2710316

www.thelineofbestfit.com/new-music/song-of-the-day/eaves-wilder-wont-you-be-happy-euphoric-post-lockdown-guitar-anthem

I’m sure she’s a great girl and talented (I haven’t heard her music) but the fucking nepotism...

Hawarthia I had not heard of her daughter’s musical intentions - what’s her name?

Anyone who argues feminism is about men has lost sight of the point and actual meaning of feminism. Arguing for equality is fine and a legitimate position. Why, then, dress dress it up in a label which doesn't fit it?

As for toxic masculinity and suicide being the main killer of UK males under 45, these are serious issues which rightly should be of concern to men and women alike. They urgently need addressing. But not within the parameters of feminism, which relates to a different demographic and might not even be in the interests of those primarily affected (men). If it's a case of redressing a social ill or the neglect of funding and resources for supporting those in distress, then why not do so under the banner of mental health (which God knows, needs all the support it can get)?

'Feminism' would be pretty much meaningless in this context, unless, yet again, it's assumed that everyone else's problems are laid at the door of women alone to resolve. It's internalized misogyny driving that sort of assumption, certainly not 'feminism'.

Oh well, at least Caitlin and husband are using their extensive meeja connections to launch their 16yo’s music career. Except she’s being marketed as a unknown ingenue and not “daughter of Caitlin Moran and Pete Paphides”.

Agree, makes her no better than the mummy bloggers pimping their kid's lives out.

I agree. Bad enough having a famous mum, but then one who uses your struggles in her books! I don’t know.... seems very wrong.

I thought the extract about her daughter's eating disorder and suicide attempts was very honest, moving and well-written.
But... it also felt like such an invasion of her daughter's privacy. A famous parent using their vulnerable, psychologically-unwell teenager's crisis as copy, just seems misguided and unwise.
I'm sure it will be defended or justified as raising awareness, and/or that she sought her daughter's permission, but any mental health professional would find this so worrying. I really can't see how this is in her daughter's best interests.

Yeah, I take your point, but this kind of „humour“ is part of the drip, drip, drip undermining of women’s self esteem and self confidence. I just don’t see the need for it.

My objection to Caitlin Moran is she's annoying and not as funny as she thinks she is.

Totally agree with you there fascinated

Caring about how you look - pretty normal

Slagging off how you look, obsessing about it or making a massive deal of it - not great to model that for young women, whether your own DDs or young fans.

It's a matter of degree to an extent, but maybe one way to look at it is whether it's a positive or negative thing. If you just love clothes and make-up and enjoy them, I don't see a problem but if it's about bemoaning your lack of perfection and beating yourself up, that's more of a dodgy message.

Ok, I’m coming back to defend my original comment about caring about looks.

I care about my looks. To a proportionate degree, though. I watch my figure. I wear a little bit of makeup, am happy I have naturally good hair. Hell, I’ve paid a stylist to choose outfits for me.

BUT. I would never in a million years call my ageing face, with its softening jowls , thread veins, emerging wrinkles and sprinkles of grey “war-ravaged”. Really? It’s a bit sad, poignant maybe, but honestly, to be that cut up and hyperbolic about something entirely natural is so negative, it’s the opposite of what female empowerment should be. And I cannot help thinking that this kind of excessive focus on looks is damaging. We all want to look nice, well put together, our best. But this putting yourself down as not good enough, not pretty enough, not fun enough...not enough....who decides that? You need to have confidence, too, you need to believe that you are enough. Have standards, fine, but this self flagellation? Caring so much about your looks that you describe your perfectly lovely but slightly worn face as war ravaged, and in need of plastic surgery, is damaged, it is not normal, and I cannot believe that that attitude doesn’t damage the young girls girls that you’re a role model for.

Would you make a throwaway joke about looking like a 'sad widow surveying her war-ravaged village' in a broadsheet newspaper though MildMannered?

That smacks of a lack of awareness of non-western, non-white women's experiences to me, and media luvvie privilege

It smacks of gross insensitivity generally. There were plenty of white widows surveying war ravaged villages during WWII and the various post WWII conflicts in Eastern Europe.

I’m lost.
She says we need to think as much about men as women, then writes about her daughter with eating disorders and suicidal tendencies and squarely plonks the blame on a society that makes girls afraid and sad.

See I think the "bad feminist" or "guilty feminist" trope is part of the problem, and illustrates how society / patriarchy / internalised misogyny manages to do a number on us even we are trying to be feminist.

Why is caring about your clothes and how you look a bad thing, when it's OK for men? Because while there's a pressure on women to look feminine (as there is on men to look masculine), women are portrayed as trivial and vail when they do that, while men aren't. Men don't get stick for shaving or not shaving their facial hair, wearing a nice suit to work, spending money on clothes they like. Men are seen as natural and normal for doing that or even praised if they have fashion sense. And it's not true that men don't care how they look – take a typical man and tell him to wear a frilly shirt, make up and get a perm and he'd be likely to be horrified (of course some men break the mould but not most). This is the same patriarchy as affects how women want to dress, but men aren't blamed for tit.

So when I'm thinking about what I mean by feminism, and what I think are OK and not OK things for me to do according to my own value system, I try to compare men and women and look at what happens in society as a whole, and ask why I want to do something. Doing what I like with my body hair? If it's OK for men, it's OK for me. Changing my name if I got married? No, because I see that as reinforcing an unfair stereotype and giving out a message that don't think I'm as important as a male spouse.

Of course it can be complicated – i'd consider removing all my pubic hair not OK if I was doing it to please or to attract a porn-addled man, but OK if I genuinely liked it myself.

Re fulfilling caring roles, if you are stuck doing more of the caring and can't bring yourself not to, ask why that is. I'm the same - I do 90% of the support and nurture for the DC I share with my ex, and always have. Why? Because I was socialised to feel shame if I don't. Because he was socialised not to feel shame, and so he didn't bother. Because given those circs, now the kids look to me to be there and I don't want to let them down. I can't change all that by just refusing to care, but I can challenge the processes that led to it and try not to repeat them.

Also I think my feminism always changes and grows the more I learn and hear about and the more feminists I listen to and discuss things with. You can't be some kind of "perfect feminist", that's just another way for women to feel bad about themselves.

Would you make a throwaway joke about looking like a 'sad widow surveying her war-ravaged village' in a broadsheet newspaper though MildMannered?

I'm about the same age as CM, and work in an industry where youth and beauty hugely increase opportunity, and I grapple with the issues the raises in the column. I wouldn't lightheartedly liken my personal insecurities about the natural effects of ageing on my face with the trauma of women in conflict zones though. That smacks of a lack of awareness of non-western, non-white women's experiences to me, and media luvvie privilege. Feminism is surely having empathy for women across the globe, and not using their situation as amusing shorthand for looking shit.

I know it was a throwaway remark, but I don't think that makes it ok here. In an off-the-cuff text to a friend, maybe. Not in a book on feminism.

I was not impressed by her first book either. She wanted it to be the Female Eunuch for the latest generation but really it was just her life and a few reflections on it. It really came across that she has no real interest or experience outside her own exceptionally pleasant life. At the time there were stories about revenge rapes by gangs of young men on the girlfriends of rival gang members. In her city. Not a word about this. .

I'm not a media luvvie but I identify with a lot of what she says. I feel like she's often wrestling with the same kind of questions that I am - sort of theory vs reality. I know looks aren't important but I don't want to 'let myself go'. I don't believe that men can become women but I have a pre-teen son who is potentially gender confused. It isn't right that women take on most of caring responsibilities but in the real world I wouldn't walk away from making sure a dying parent had what they need even if it is sexist. Does that mean that i'm not a proper feminist either?
WRT the original post I feel like ending the patriarchy would support everyone who isn't a stereotypical alpha male. Maybe I need to stop calling myself a feminist and aim for something else.
(Although I also read JB, JT, JKR - I don't think it has to be one or another).