Did anyone else get somewhat *annoyed* with how to be a woman by Caitlin Moran?

[LadyRainicorn]

I read this a few days ago and keep getting the rage annoyed with the ignorance over, for want of a better phrase, historical achievements of woman. And bemoaning the focus on appearance over ability for woman in the media versus men, then in the same breath defending her right to slag off other woman for their appearance - are these not part and parcel of the same problem?

The feel of the book just seemed confused. And I'm annoyed this is supposed to represent and promote feminism - whilst it talks rubbish?

Am I just being petty with this and should just be grateful that a book at least talking about the rights of women made a literary splash?

I didn't notice any of the things you mentioned - maybe I need to reread .

I quite enjoyed it. I found her quite witty and I liked the conversational tone of the book.

However I wouldn't hold it up as an example of high brow feminist writing. I didn't take a lot of it particularly seriously.

It was supposed to be mainly funny while mentioning feminism in a positive light. It reached a much wider audience than a more academic text would have.

The dizzy /garbled thing is her writing style.

I really enjoyed it.

I quite enjoyed it. I don't think it's meant to be 'a feminist book'. Just a book about her life by someone who is a feminist. And I do think we need more of that - not academic texts but just a chatty book by someone with feminist principles. Which probably does mean some inconsistencies, etc.

I think it's a personal memoir rather than a treatise on feminism. I think Caitlin Moran is a feminist albeit sometimes inconsistent and it's an interesting tale of how she got to the position she now takes. The stuff you mention is all part of that and if she'd retroactively fixed it it would be a different (and much duller) book. Perhaps a better title would have raised fewer expectations that the book was never going to be able to fulfil, though.

I loved it. It was my first introduction to feminism though and I think she does a great job of easing you in and making you see things differently if you have spent your whole life blinkered to the misogyny all around.
It sounds ridiculous but it changed my life. Although some days I wish I could go back to being more ignorant

I think I'm exactly the type of person she wanted to have read it.

I enjoyed it - bar the abortion bit which I thought was extremely well-written but hard to read. But I have subsequently been irritated with what Moran says for all of those reasons.

To be fair, I think it's quite personal and memoir-like, it's not a primer on feminism. In a way I'd love to see her write a second edition in about ten years to see if anything changed.

I disagree Malenky I think it definitely is a primer for feminism. Even if that was never her intention. It certainly set me up to read and educate myself more about the subject.

Oh, it certainly made me want to read and think more, too.

I just meant, it's not fair to judge her for its failings as a primer when she didn't set out to write one, if that makes sense.

Personally, I enjoyed how she did describe a lot of personal issues, like over-eating as a cheap, easy comfort mechanism, which make me understand where she's coming from much better.

um. what everyone else said.

it is just a memoir of a flawed individual /person that I felt happened to be quiet funny and have a distinctly feminist bent. I don't think it's fair to say "it's not feministy enough" because it is feminist, where as we wouldn't expect any other persons memoir to do anything for us morally

I don't think it should have been called "how to be a woman". I think the criticisms it is getting are fair, but would have seemed less fair if it had been called something like "one woman muddles through" or something

Her recent breathless op-eds in The Times Saturday magazine have turned me off even more. Especially her last weeks 'I am a royalist' one.

Her writing is becoming Nigella like in it's unintentional self parody.

And her comment about her best achievement as being personally responsible for women now being able to talk about masturbation whilst wearing eyeliner.....I do hope she was being ironic as opposed to developing a big swollen grandiose and self aggrandising head....Because I do recall having conversations like this in the 70's whilst wearing Tu eyeliner from Woolies!

Um... actually I found it quite annoying too. But I think that's because of CM overkill: I just get a bit annoyed seeing her wacky little face smirking from every broadsheet surface. Shame, really, because she's really very, very funny and likeable.
HTBAW is OK - the world's probably a better place for it, IYSWIM. It's just that it's trumped up as being something more sophisticated than it really is.

I enjoyed it, but I agree that she is now more than slightly irritating.

I didn't like the book. Her experience of life, in parts, were so different to mine

I've just watched her at this years Hay festival on the Sky Arts channel-sure you can find it elsewhere. I think it explains her perspective very well and will help you understand, though not necessarily like her.

I just laughed and laughed. Reminded me so much of growing up and my 20s, not that I was home educated or anything like that, but it rang so true.

I really liked it. It brought me to this board too. I don't think she sets out to be a text book or a primer, it's just her story, and as part of her story she considers herself a feminist.

I would apply her 'are the men worrying about this' litmus - I think she just set out to write a good book, not to develop a feminist theory iyswim.

Although I do disagree on her theory about women's acheivements through the ages too. I think that's what I really like about her writing though - you can go 'eh, nope' and not be irked too much because it's so obviously simply her pov. You can imagine having a big natter with her about it in the pub.

There was one jarring omission for me. She talks about the dreadful female images which young girls are subjected to in the media but doesn't ever explain how she has reconciled that intellectually with working for a Murdoch newspaper for all these years.

The Sun is one of the most accessible places for young people to see women objectified and partially clothed. Why does she work for a paper from the same stable? Has she ever challenged Murdoch? It was just 'and then I got a job at The Times' tum ti tum and not another word.

I've seen her write about the Murdoch issue in the past. But I can't remember what she said now .

Is she trying to bring News Corp down from within?

LovelyMarchHare Yes, one major omission is the negative effect that magazines and news sites have on young women's self-image, but she has had several columns so obviously didn't wnat to bite the hand that feeds.

I also didn't like the way that she vilifies Madonna as a role model because she personally doesn't like her, but holds Lady GaGa up as a fantastic role model - the pop singer who says she faints through hunger, and has to be half carried to her car because of wearing daft things like foot binding shoes.

I actually threw it away. I don't think I have ever done that to a book before, I was incensed, irritated and bored...