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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:
PhilSwagielka · 29/08/2020 13:29

@MaggieAndHopey

I did raise my eyebrows at the bit where she claims there aren't any stories about the experiences of women aged over 40. How about Anne Tyler, Carol Shields, Joanna Trollope, Beryl Bainbridge, Ann Patchett, Iris Murdoch, Joan Didion, Edith Wharton, Maeve Binchy, Elizabeth Strout, Virginia Woolf? Chopped liver?
I adore Anne Tyler. There are very few writers whose characters seem like real people and just jump off the page. She is one of them.
MaggieAndHopey · 29/08/2020 13:27

(not an exclusive list, clearly, but hopefully my point is made)

Abhannmor · 29/08/2020 13:27

Absolutely. Couldn't believe that article. She is a brand really. Acts like she invented feminism. Eat yer heart out Mary Wollstonecraft.

MaggieAndHopey · 29/08/2020 13:27

I did raise my eyebrows at the bit where she claims there aren't any stories about the experiences of women aged over 40. How about Anne Tyler, Carol Shields, Joanna Trollope, Beryl Bainbridge, Ann Patchett, Iris Murdoch, Joan Didion, Edith Wharton, Maeve Binchy, Elizabeth Strout, Virginia Woolf? Chopped liver?

Brefugee · 29/08/2020 13:26

Err, in the mid 80s Caitlyn would have been 10 - I was a little older. How many of these women would your average 10-15 year old girl be aware of? Heck, feminists were still women libbers back then. As a slightly younger child Miss Piggy was my only "kick ass, take no shit" female role model.

I'm only a few years older than Moran. I had read the Vindicaton of the Rights of Woman which was written 200 years-ish before i was born. She's a complete fraud and deserves all the shit she gets thrown at her for claiming to have invented feminism

Beamur · 29/08/2020 13:25

It's about time Caitlin Moran stopped calling herself a feminist really.
She's a sporadically funny writer and I have enjoyed some of her books, but she really doesn't speak for anyone other than herself.

AbsintheFriends · 29/08/2020 13:21

Oh YES - Katherine Hamnett!!

RoyalCorgi · 29/08/2020 13:21

Didn't Shere Hite write about it too?

Yes. I was just going to mention Shere Hite - she seems to have been forgotten by most people, but she did some pioneering work on female sexuality. The Hite Report was published in 1976.

For those not familiar with her work, there's a short piece here:

www.bustle.com/p/5-ways-the-hite-report-a-study-on-female-sexuality-is-still-relevant-to-our-sex-lives-today-9688538

OP posts:
lovelymm · 29/08/2020 13:21

She's tedious. She's never said anything 'new' but seems to think she's soooo revolutionary. She always looks like she needs a good wash.

merrymouse · 29/08/2020 13:20

Katherine Hamnett!

Caitlin Moran in the Guardian today
PatriciaPerch · 29/08/2020 13:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

justasking111 · 29/08/2020 13:19

I was given the Joy of sex as a wedding present in the 70`s. My mothers cosmopolitan long before that was pretty graphic.

Al1Langdownthecleghole · 29/08/2020 13:19

I think Diana was more a fashion follower than starter, though she helped popularise some looks.

I started secondary in 1981 and my flat pumps were from Clark's. That's how mainstream they were.

2bazookas · 29/08/2020 13:18

" Of course I know more about being a woman than women do".

No surgery  can ever cut off that male mindset.
PhilSwagielka · 29/08/2020 13:18

@JonHammIsMyJamm

She’s a woke embarrassment of a human being
Which is funny considering she got accused of racism for saying she didn't give a shit about the lack of women of colour in Girls. Woke she is not.
DianasLasso · 29/08/2020 13:16

Julie Burchill wrote an excoriating review of the film version of "How to build a girl" - apparently Moran admitted a propos of the book version that her early journal years hadn't been nearly hell-raising enough to make for a good narrative, so she'd borrowed huge chunks of Burchill's early career (both near contemporaries).

Burchill ended with the fabulous put down: "I am honoured to be grist to Moran's millions."

But he'll, as a teen/young student mid to late 80s, there was so much going on. I remember reading Jong on the zipless fuck in my teens. And yes, there was Thatcher, but also Castle, and a very young Diane Abbott turning thing upside down!

(And Cagney and Lacey - fabulous. And a show that wouldn't get the green light today.)

merrymouse · 29/08/2020 13:16

Anita Roddick was someone I remember greatly admiring in the 80s.

Yes!!!

merrymouse · 29/08/2020 13:14

Susie Quatro! Chrissie Hynde!

PhilSwagielka · 29/08/2020 13:13

I'm younger than Moran and a lot of the books I read as a baby feminist in the '90s were '80s books. Our Bodies Ourselves, some feminist textbooks in the school library and Out of the Doll's House (which is a must-read when it comes to women's history, and radfems will be interested to know that Sheila Jeffreys was one of the many women interviewed for it). Our Bodies Ourselves was a godsend when I was questioning my sexuality. And in the '90s I had Shirley Manson, Courtney Love and Cerys Matthews as my role models, and later the girls from Kittie too.

DidoLamenting · 29/08/2020 13:12

and the “feminism is for everyone” trope mean that young women have no reason not to believe Ms Moran when she tells then feminism was invented in 2011

You forgot to add "by Caitlin Moran"

Could she be any more irritating? (On the off-chance she sees this - that is a rhetorical question, not a request)

DidoLamenting · 29/08/2020 13:08

The Guardian doesn't allow comments. Times does and goodness are Times readers fed up of Caitlin Moran.

midlifecrash · 29/08/2020 13:05

just wanted to mention other women I remember seeing on telly when i was 9 or 10 and older- Lena Lovic, Toyah Wilcox, Arabella Lwin, Siouxsie Sioux, Debbie Harry, Grace Jones, Joan Armatrading

merrymouse · 29/08/2020 13:05

Diana also popularised dungarees! Grin

Caitlin Moran in the Guardian today
PhilSwagielka · 29/08/2020 13:05

@Pelleas

Masturbation, pornography, pubic hair, abusive relationships, wonky tits, menstruation, eating disorders, abortion, the madness of expensive weddings, sexism in the workplace, the pressure to have children, binge-drinking, the pain of childbirth, the joy of life as a modern woman: when I wrote How To Be A Woman in 2011, these were pretty novel subjects

Caitlin seems to have got 2011 mixed up with 1952.

All of these were in The Whole Woman, and that came out in the '90s.
PhilSwagielka · 29/08/2020 13:04

What is The Female Eunuch, we just don't know.

Didn't Shere Hite write about it too?