Caitlin Moran - a bit more interesting than usual today

[ErrolTheDragon]

Usually her Saturday times columns are quite fluffy, but ... well, I guess judging by what she's written the real Caitlin is emerging.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/caitlin-moran-me-drugs-and-the-perimenopause-mpzn2cdh2?shareToken=733c91e33db6941fbd7927e96de18904

HatMancock also a SAHM and loved that paragraph... If not slightly worried now!

This column has made me look forward to menopause I've told DH to read it... he looked petrified...

I read that too and made a crazy Caitlin-Moran-one-eyebrow-raised face. I mean she knows. So come the fuck on.

I would not have the nerve to keep writing from a feminist perspective and never once stick my head above the parapet on the biggest single issue that’s faced women in my lifetime. And I just know when she does broach it it will be annoyingly ‘let women be kind, after all that’s what we are here for’ and will bear no relation to what she’s written here.

HatMancock I picked out the same paragraph.

I am back at square one with work while people are starting to talk about retirement.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding hormones definitely made me more agreeable. That's what oxytocin does, its the bonding hormone.

As I go through peri, that agreeableness has increasingly disappeared.

We are mammals; of course we have responses to our. biology, including our hormone levels.

Most notably for me was the link between estrogen and libido. That felt like an almost entirely hormonally mediated response to me.

The female body is complex.

I've just turned 45 and read her column in the bath today, it was brilliant, summed everything up for me as a SAHM. This is my favourite paragraph from the article

Sorry but the paragraph you quoted is just piffle. Moran has had a lifetime career of being paid to write unthreatening, feminist lite tosh. Comparing herself to someone who gave up a real career and then discovered it was too late to claw back time just shows what an empty headed narcissist she is.

I enjoyed her column today too. I can't be bothered to run a house anymore either
Last weeks was even better though. Lots of using the word sex instead of gender. "I am the sex that..."
Have a read if you can...

I've been pleasantly surprise by meno - apart from the insomnia. It feels like climbing off the hormonal rollercoaster I've been on since age 15 and getting myself back. Caitlin is right, you definitely have less f*cks to give.

^^Moran has had a lifetime career of being paid to write unthreatening, feminist lite tosh. @DidoLamenting

Actually - this is correct. This was why I always disliked her. Its shocking how far this debate has gone that I immediately felt her account of the female experience was in any way radical.

That point about women having to find a totally different third act while men can just repeat the first or second one was VG.

I feel quite lost on this thread. I thought feminists were generally in agreement that being 'nice' and enjoying home making weren't a result of female biology. It's not menopause that makes us stop being 'nice' (I'm nowhere near it myself) it's realising we don't give a fuck any more. I have never been more angry than when I was breastfeeding and on maternity leave. The unutterable shitness of being a woman was inescapable.

@DidoLamenting

I've just turned 45 and read her column in the bath today, it was brilliant, summed everything up for me as a SAHM. This is my favourite paragraph from the article

Sorry but the paragraph you quoted is just piffle. Moran has had a lifetime career of being paid to write unthreatening, feminist lite tosh. Comparing herself to someone who gave up a real career and then discovered it was too late to claw back time just shows what an empty headed narcissist she is.

Fair enough, I agree that it may not be relevant to her but it certainly touched a nerve with me. It didn’t pass me by that she has had a well paid and successful writing career and hasn’t found herself at 45 at the bottom of the food chain career wise. She just articulated what I have been thinking and feeling. My youngest started school last year and I had just retrained in a complementary therapy (yep, living the cliche). I was beginning to think I could be something other than a SAHM and the relief and freedom was palpable. Then lockdown hit, I now have a 5 and 8 year old back at home while my husband gets to still carry on leaving the house every day (has done from the start of lockdown) and I am back to being a stay at home mum. I have also been expected to be a teacher but that’s another rant. And I’m 45, my perimenopausal patience is wafer thin and I’m tired .

Hm.

Could anyone recommend an evidence based book on menopause/hormones/ageing, for women?

If there isn't one, could someone write one?

TIA.

I've always been an angry bitch. I was hoping that menopause would make me nicer.

Jane Garvey, while interviewing Sally Hines on Womems Hour referred to her female listeners as spending years of their lives 'facilitating the lives of others' and it was a light bulb going off in the brain of 45 year old me. My whole bloody life at the moment - lockdown making it 10x worse - is facilitating the lives of everyone else in this house. It makes me rage even though theoretically I consented to it.

Maybe it's just the age of the children rather than menopause. Looking after a 2 year old all day long is legit but picking up after a rude and entitled 14 year old something else entirely.

I'm 40, not perimenopausal yet, and found this a really interesting read. No idea though where shes coming from with this idea that anger is an older woman's game. I've always been furious, about loads of stuff, but with age I'm getting more confident about expressing it

I don't think it's the menopause that causes the anger, it's due to being female for a long time.

My perimenopause isn't making me angry, but sad and lonely. I give all day (to work and the dc) but get no support, companionship or love. I am angry, but only with xh who swanned off and is living the life of a carefree teenager, with no repercussions at all.

Actually it's not just him, I'm also angry with all the people who call me "lucky" because he has them for a couple of sleepovers a week. Yeah. Feel the luck

It's been really hard to differentiate between perimenopausal mood changes, knackered single mum mood changes, and broken heart mood changes. I just roll with it as best I can.

@ValancyRedfern

I feel quite lost on this thread. I thought feminists were generally in agreement that being 'nice' and enjoying home making weren't a result of female biology. It's not menopause that makes us stop being 'nice' (I'm nowhere near it myself) it's realising we don't give a fuck any more. I have never been more angry than when I was breastfeeding and on maternity leave. The unutterable shitness of being a woman was inescapable.

I had similar thoughts. I've not been through menopause though so can't compare 'normal' me to it. I'm not sure how scientifically sound CM's characterisation of it is, but it was a good read.

Fair enough, I agree that it may not be relevant to her but it certainly touched a nerve with me. It didn’t pass me by that she has had a well paid and successful writing career and hasn’t found herself at 45 at the bottom of the food chain career wise. She just articulated what I have been thinking and feeling

I found her use of you're still trying to be proud of your decision etc , etc completely tone deaf. It resonates with you as I assume it's describing your situation but to apply it to her career seems to me show a lack of self- awareness.

New book coming out in the autumn. I reserve my judgement til then. I really liked this article - though I’m not sure the anger is all hormones rather than just female social conditioning getting stripped away as you age - but I’ve been disappointed in her silence on gender wars and so it’s hard to like this as much as I might. Still somewhat hopeful but I don’t think she’ll ever dare to be unpopular.

The Times would stand by her if she went GC which does make it annoying that she doesn’t. But I guess the books and films bit of her career would be trickier.

I have found many of her columns amusing, but I must be missing something here, as I didn't find that particularly insightful. In fact it seems very old fashioned and misogynistic. All this women at the mercy of their hormones, bless, they can't help it. And boy does she go on. Never say something once if you can say it in 5 slightly different oh-so-clever ways. Look at me. Have I mentioned drugs enough?
I feel angry cos I'm old and tired and old age means you've seen it all before and you care less what people think. Not sure hormones have much to do with it. But then I'm post-menopausal so have probably forgotten.

All this women at the mercy of their hormones, bless, they can't help it.

Right? And the idea that we're just nicer and self sacrificing because nature. It's actually the opposite of feminism.

If we are discussing this woman’s hormonal goings-on (a bit personal but she brought it up) it would be helpful to know whether she has used hormonal contraception and for how much of her life.

I doubt the experience of women who have natural cycles (with ovulation and proper periods) is the same as that of women who take the combined pill (no ovulation and a withdrawal-bleed ‘period’) and I’m not convinced everyone realises there’s a massive difference, because ‘period’.

It wouldn’t be the least bit surprising to learn that synthetic hormones take the edge off a person. And how fucking convenient that would be for the menfolk.