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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Caitlin Moran in the Guardian today

434 replies

RoyalCorgi · 29/08/2020 11:17

I promise I'm not trying to start another argument about Caitlin Moran. It's just that I want to record my annoyance and despair at her rewriting of history. Apparently in the 1980s there were no female role models for girls apart from Mrs Thatcher and Miss Piggy. And no one ever wrote about female masturbation until Caitlin wrote about it in her 2011 book. Plus more in that vein.

I remember back in the 80s reading Dale Spender's marvellous book "Women of ideas and what men have done to them" where she painstakingly writes in detail at the lives of amazing historical women - scientists, philosophers, writers, campaigners - and looks at how they were simply forgotten about and written out of history. Thanks in part to Spender's work, female historians went about the business of researching more forgotten women and writing their biographies.

Now it seems as if all the work of feminists in the 70s and 80s on, for example, female sexuality or in political campaigning has just been forgotten about. Feminists hadn't achieved anything of note until Caitlin Moran wrote How to be a Woman.

Once again, women's achievements are being written out of history.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/29/caitlin-moran-reread-how-to-be-a-woman-marvel-what-i-got-wrong

OP posts:
lookatallthosechickens · 29/08/2020 15:55

Sorry if someone else mentioned it already but the story in the article about being recognised on the tube by teenagers who she inspired to start a ‘wank club’- that’s the most cringeworthy and obviously untrue thing I’ve read in a very long time. Like, I physically winced.

I will say however that the film version of ‘how to build a girl’ (on Amazon prime I think) is really great and the lead actress, Beanie Feldstein, is amazing. Whatever Caitlin Moran has become today, she was something else in the 90s- a weird teenage girl who managed to live her dreams in a way that few others were. I’m sure there’s lots of self-mythology in her “origin story” but the gist of it (working class dorky girl from poor family makes it as a rock critic/media personality from a startlingly young age) is true. It’s like she never really grew past that and became an adult, though.

Benjispruce2 · 29/08/2020 15:52

JSP?

Butterer · 29/08/2020 15:50

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Deliriumoftheendless · 29/08/2020 15:49

Annie Nightingale 🥰

DarkDarkNight · 29/08/2020 15:48

@Gingerkittykat

Oh and reading Miz magazine in the late 80s was my sex education which taught me about masturbation, orgasms and other aspects of sexuality. More magazine had the position of the fortnight which I found really distasteful but still proof girls sexuality was talked about back then.
I can remember the man who ran the local shop refusing to sell me Mizz magazine when I was young because it was ‘unsuitable’.

It’s just like Caitlin Moran to assume she came along and enlightened us all. She’s insufferably smug and believes she exists on a different plane to us normal folk.

Butterer · 29/08/2020 15:48

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Deliriumoftheendless · 29/08/2020 15:47

Melroses she also voiced a character in Chuggington allowing me to show her to my daughter and fan girl a bit. She was my absolute hero as a child. She’s also in a trashy Joan Collins horror movie from the 70s called I Don’t Want To Be Born. I love her. She’s fantastic.

serenada · 29/08/2020 15:47

Siousie Sioux. You wouldn't mess with her. Fantastic.

serenada · 29/08/2020 15:46

Kate Adie

Selina Scott

Moira Stewart

Fuzzbox

Muriel from The Tube

Camille Paglia

So, so many and yes CAGNEY & LACEY - have been watching reruns

We could take it back to The Bionic Woman if we want (non sexualised woman as opposed to Wonder Woman)

I am so glad this conversation is happening. I truly am lost at what is going on but for me, it is not just in the media - it is in many areas.

I worked in a school where the Learning mentor (a woman with little formal education who believes in angels) was allowed to order in books and ordered them from Disney. The Deputy Head ordered a load od of inappropriate books (age/level/ability) for mainstream and the Head insisted we threw out all the existing ones. They want nice, pretty, clean covers and it is all superficial - design/media centred rather than based on something substantial.

I am also working in tech with lots of people who seem to have zero knowledge of history. Zero. No knowledge of social history and movements, no knowledge of literature and the ideas covered.

In the past, whether you had studied formally or not, this knowledge was in the air - we had it and somehow, we have now got a situation where by if it wasn't born digital, it doesn't exist Only it did. And instead of continuing a legacy and building the next layer up, we are letting spaces and resources be pulled to build literally, cut-price ivory towers.

WendyHoused · 29/08/2020 15:45

@Saucery

Siouxsie Sioux Joolz Denby
I l,oved Joolz - saw her perform twice and she was bloody fabulous.
Pelleas · 29/08/2020 15:45

It may be that some present-day teenagers first encountered writing about female masturbation in Moran's 2011 book, and that's great, but that isn't at all the same thing as saying female masturbation was rarely written about before that date.

Deliriumoftheendless · 29/08/2020 15:42

@Saucery

Siouxsie Sioux Joolz Denby
Joolz came to my uni and did a very interesting poetry reading and chat with the women’s society.
YetAnotherSpartacus · 29/08/2020 15:42

Ludus was light porn for women. I had the whole set. Threw them a couple of house moves ago. I think they are quite rare so I'm regretting that now.

CivilCervix · 29/08/2020 15:42

@Pelleas

JUDY BLOOM!!!!!!!!

Grin Yes, Judy had millions of us 80s teenagers exploring our 'special place' after reading 'Deenie'.

Yes! Dropped in to make precisely that point. Glad others have. My friends and I devoured Deenie & Forever and discussed in detail!
Falleninwiththewrongcrowd · 29/08/2020 15:41

Does anyone remember Ludus Magazine?
Don't know that one, but Spare Rib was published right through the 70s and 80s.

whataboutbob · 29/08/2020 15:40

Haven’t read the whole thread but I read the Hite Report in the 80s which was all the education I needed to understand how to achieve satisfying sex. That put paid to the myth of orgasming through penetration .

PatriciaPerch · 29/08/2020 15:39

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Gingerkittykat · 29/08/2020 15:37

Oh and reading Miz magazine in the late 80s was my sex education which taught me about masturbation, orgasms and other aspects of sexuality. More magazine had the position of the fortnight which I found really distasteful but still proof girls sexuality was talked about back then.

Gingerkittykat · 29/08/2020 15:35

I'm sure the incident of the 14 year old members of the wank club running up to her on a train to tell her about their multiple daily masturbation sessions really happened and is not a work of bizarre fiction!

I remember the sex and masturbation part of the story in The Colour Purple which was written in 1982. She seems to think black women standing up for their rights and exploring their bodies was only possible when white feminists decided intersectionality was a thing.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 29/08/2020 15:34

Does anyone remember Ludus Magazine?

DCIRozHuntley · 29/08/2020 15:32

@Mashingthecompost me too! Deenie was one of the only times I've seen female sexuality covered in a realistic way from a female's perspective - no ounce of male gaze there. Judy Blume FTW!

cdtaylornats · 29/08/2020 15:32

She seems to not have noticed Cosmopolitan or Playgirl.

DPotter · 29/08/2020 15:29

Cyndi Lauper sang about female masturbation in 1983 - 'She Bop' although not many people realised it at the time...............

Saucery · 29/08/2020 15:26

Siouxsie Sioux
Joolz Denby

YetAnotherSpartacus · 29/08/2020 15:26

I saw the series before I read the book - hence my confusion. :)