Depressed about Caitlin Moran

[shinynewusername]

I loved How to be a Woman but all her work since seems to have recycled the same ideas and it sounds as if her "new" book will be more of the same.


AIBU to feel she is ripping her public off?

[MadamCroquette]

Yes that "advice" you posted is just about being a bit wacky and "outrageous" and trying to be stylistically noticeable. As advice, it's pretentious and pointless. Not to mention unthinkingly exclusive (what if you can't walk) and likely to make girls feel like they're not doing it right if they're not sexual and political.

My hobbies as a teen were music and being in bands, reading and sewing. I also did loads of housework and looked after my siblings as my parents were useless.

The point is it's not what it's pretending to be. If you look at a book that's actually there to help teenagers, like something by Nicola Morgan for example, it will carefully consider their needs and feelings. Moran's books are about setting herself up as a comedy-girl guru. Again that's fine but I'd prefer it if it was straight up about that.

[hellswelshy]

I like her. I laughed a lot at her book and enjoy her columns - as pp said she has a memorable sometimes beautiful and honest way of describing emotions and situations. In a day and age where there are much more worrying role models and voices, she's a breath of fresh air!

[MizK]

I enjoy her writing and always have. Twitter made me like her less so I unfollowed her.

I agree that Stuart Heritage has become insufferable. His TV blogs really made me laugh but the baby shit is boooring.

And he used the word fuckpaddles on Twitter today which is just embarassing.

I think I need to delete Twitter.

[APlaceOnTheCouch]

MadamCroquette I agree with you about Nicola Morgan. She is great. I wouldn't consider Moran and Morgan in the same category at all when it comes to writing for teenagers.

[Ubik1]

I also think she is a product of get time. I'm a similar age. We never talked about the subject matter that she does in HTBAW. Guilt free abortion? That was a new one.

[limitedperiodonly]

I'm a bit older than her Ubik1. I haven't read HTBGAW but my friends and I talked about guilt-free abortion a long time ago. I agree that it should be more widely discussed but it's hardly ground breaking.

I find the rest of it a bit 'I'm mad, me.'

I was also listening this morning to Jan Ravens interviewing Germaine Greer. Apart from: 'why' I was thinking 'is there a better position for you to get your tongue any further up her arse without you getting a crick in your neck?'

But at least Greer had a more respectable background than Caitlyn 'I'm mad, me' Moran.

[Helmetbymidnight]

Respectable background?

[JolseBaby]

I think 'respectable background' sounds a bit snide. None of us have any choice about where we are born and the family we are part of. Germaine Greer's years in The Push weren't altogether 'respectable'!

CM may not have had a 'typical' MC upbringing but by the sounds of it, they were (and are) a happy family. Her parents encouraged her to be confident, to read and to express herself - all characteristics which have stood her in good stead for her career. Love, like or loathe her I think everyone would have to agree that she has been incredibly successful.

I didn't have any issue at all with the way that she wrote about her abortion in HTBAW. She'd also written a very good article in the Times about it. I don't have a problem with her saying that she didn't feel guilty about it. It was her experience and she was honest about it. To me, her point was that how you feel about it is your business, that if you don't feel guilty then you shouldn't. Society shouldn't shame you into it, that it's your body, your right and nobody's business but yours.

[JolseBaby]

Sorry, meant to add: Both DH and I are from single parent families and mine was on benefits. Does that make me less respectable?!

I thought the article she wrote on her abortion was one of her best pieces of writing. The other one that always sticks in my mind as well, was her piece on Amy Winehouse's death. It was beautifully written - almost a eulogy.

I like her as a writer. I find her personality a bit OTT but I'm sure there a people out there who think I am a sour faced old baggage! I just wish that she would stretch herself beyond the autobiographical subject-matter that she's relied on so heavily.

[Helmetbymidnight]

Must be a typo. No one is that snobby surely!?

[limitedperiodonly]

Keep your drawers on helmet. I come from the same background as Moran.

What I meant by 'respectable' was meaning Greer's more conventional approach to feminism through academia which wasn't predicated on being ker-azzey until she went into Celebrity Big Brother.

[limitedperiodonly]

Must be a typo. No one is that snobby surely!?

Some people are, but I don't think I am. By saying that, perhaps you have betrayed yourself.

[Helmetbymidnight]

Caitlyn Moran is a columnist and a writer, that's it. I don't get what respectable background (in academia or whatever) has to do with anything.

[limitedperiodonly]

Don't you?

I don't agree with everything Greer says but I respect her more than Moran because she's just put the hours in.

That's not to say that I don't find Moran fun or that I don't find Greer tedious, frivolous and spiteful sometimes. Same as Moran, though Greer is better at spite.

[Helmetbymidnight]

I do love Germaine Greer, I think she's ace.

But I like CM too. I think there's a place for her - her honest (and well written) accounts of her life/experiences do make a positive change maybe not to the discipline of feminism but in general.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

What I meant by 'respectable' was meaning Greer's more conventional approach to feminism through academia which wasn't predicated on being ker-azzey until she went into Celebrity Big Brother

It was obvious to me that's what you meant. "Credibility" "served her time" "paid her dues" as it were.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

I haven't even read any of her stuff apart from what gets quoted on MN. I just find her so irritating but from what is quoted on this thread, what a load of tosh.


That's true but it helps rich white men to hang onto power if the response to a woman expressing an opinion is a barrage of criticism from other women about her right to express that opinion (as opposed to debating the ideas expressed)

Not everything is a patriarchical conspiracy. No one here has said she should not express herself - quite a few have said what she is saying isn't half as clever or original as she thinks she is.

[Helmetbymidnight]

Blimey,newspaper columnists and writers ought to have served their time and paid their dues now?
That is a new one.

[nooka]

Seems a odd comparison to me. Germaine Greer is an academic of several decades standing. Caitlin Moran is a newspaper columnist and popular writer. Are women not supposed to call themselves feminists or write about their female experiences unless they are academics? Does this sort of rule apply to men too?

[LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett]

I think comparing CM to GG (blessed be her name) is just daft. Talk about comparing apples and pears... one is an academic, one is an ex-music journo who now has a column and writes the odd book.

[APlaceOnTheCouch]

Most newspaper columnists will have paid their dues. In their case that means writing for tiny readerships, knocking doors to get stories, chasing leads at anti-social hours and, of course, learning to write for their audience.

This criticism of CM doesn't seem to be about that. It seems to be about 'the right way to do feminism' as though you can't identify as a feminist if you don't toe a certain party line or have worked through a particular reading list. It's exclusionary and elitist.

[sergeantmajor]

I love Caitlin Moran!
Because...

• She has an insightful, funny and moving take on a range of issues and a original way with words.
  
• Her columns have moved me to tears more than once.
  
• She wrote once that she gurns in photos to avoid being looked at and judged as an object, preferring to project herself as a person. Admirable, no?
  
• I don't share her views on some political stuff but have found her explanations really illuminating and it helped me see the other side.
  
• She generates debate around feminism (e.g. ^^^)
  

I would like to be her BFF. But she once wrote that she only likes women with big hair. My hair is rather flat. So sadly it is not to be.

[stopfuckingshoutingatme]

sincerely op, to use a an over dramatic term like depressed about a fricking journalist is beyond ridiculous!!! get a life

I used to find her annoying, and then I read a few of her columns and actually liked what she had to say, I think it was the one about homework actually that converted me

so yabu

[ephemeralfairy]

It's exclusionary and elitist.

Intersectional feminism is the opposite of exclusionary!! It means including ALL women (even the unpalatable ones like trans women and sex workers); and acknowledging diff levels of privilege/experience. Acknowledging that some women have a platform that others do not. And being of the view that women who have a platform and call themselves feminists should do something to amplify the voices of women who don't have that platform. Not to speak for them, but to make space for them to speak.

Yes, that's an opinion. It's a 'form' of feminism. But for ME it's the best form.

Signed, an intersectional, trans-inclusive, sex-worker inclusive, sex-positive feminist. Who wears shorts and DMs sometimes.

[ephemeralfairy]

I am also a librarian and I love love love what CM has written about libraries.
Shades of grey in every debate innit.