Caitlin Moran in the Guardian today

[RoyalCorgi]

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

That is erasure. And shows a staggering lack of awareness of women's history, writing and sexuality.

What about the very long history of esteemed female writers from Sappho onwards who covered these topics, did she forget them?

Did she never hear of Anais Nin, ffs? The 60s? Susie Bright? I mean, we could go on for just about ever.

I can't believe she actually thinks she was responsible for the sexual revolution in 2011 - it was practically bloody over by then, Caitlin! But you're going to ride in and pretend you started it? That's just silly.

CM has never struck me as anything other than a lightweight fun libfem who wants to be liked/cool while claiming she doesn't care if she is - fine, she can have at it but I continue to be mystified as to why so many women are fascinated by her.

A while back somebody posted a link to a send-up of her writing which pretty much had the measure of her, I wish I could find it again but can't seem to..

Germaine Greer, Andrea Dworkin, Sheila Rowbotham, Sheila Jeffries, Kate Millet, Maya Angelou, Shulamith Firestone were all publishing in the 70s and 80s, to name a few feminist writers.

Nancy Friday, Sheila Kitzinger and Lonnie Garfield Barbach, were all writing about female sexuality, including masturbation, in the 70s and 80s.

Is it the fault of the way media is constructed, that we seem to live in the eternal now? Everything is reinvented, including, apparently, personal significance.

God, that was painful to read. I see she's promoting her new book which will doubtless bring about the second great feminist revolution (the first inspired by her first book, natch). Not sure how women managed to achieve the vote before Caitlin Moron was born - surely a mistake.

Did I just imagine Barbara Castle then?

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.

And the Greenham Common women. Just a figment of my imagination?

Caitlin seems to have got 2011 mixed up with 1952.

That particular paragraph is rage-inducing, isn't it? As PPs have mentioned, all those topics were written about at length by other feminists in the 60s, 70s and 80s. I think Caitlin doesn't read other feminist writers. That's the best explanation I have for this nonsense. Someone should send her a first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves, at the very least.

I’ve just finished Difficult Women by Helen Lewis & it was a huge revelation. Why is nobody talking about Maureen Colquhoun, the first lesbian MP? Sophia Jex Blake & the rest of the Edinburgh Seven, who led the fight for women to be able to become doctors?

I don't think it's necessarily that so many women are fascinated by her, just that she styles herself as the go-to modern media feminist.

Great - she ticks the media boxes - she's whacky, colourful, gender-conforming (in terms of make-up and fashion, but without being intimidatingly beautiful/polished/stylish so she can plausibly be seen to grapple with issues around beauty standards etc) she writes fluently (if irritatingly) and she has a high embarrassment threshold. All of these things make her great for the clickbait age. She's a soundbite feminist.

She hasn't read Dworkin or Greer or Jeffries so she assumes no one else has either. Lengthy tomes about sexual politics? Nah. Women need a quick, funny instruction manual with empowering slogans on smashing the patriarchy and handy tips on perfecting that flicky eyeliner look. Oh - and Caitlin just happens to have one coming out, you say..?

Very odd that she thinks even sexism in the workplace wasn't discussed until she wrote about it. Also:

You enter a profound stage of mourning

Not my experience. Is she just projecting her own feelings? She seems very self centred.

Germaine Greer, Andrea Dworkin, Sheila Rowbotham, Sheila Jeffries, Kate Millet, Maya Angelou, Shulamith Firestone were all publishing in the 70s and 80s, to name a few feminist writers.

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 don't think it's erasure to point out that mainstream feminist role models were a bit thin on the ground probably because feminism wasn't main stream.

she's a lightweight, it's a populist version of feminism that's why she's popular... its easy you don't have to think too hard, people like that

@AbsintheFriends

I don't think it's necessarily that so many women are fascinated by her, just that she styles herself as the go-to modern media feminist.

Great - she ticks the media boxes - she's whacky, colourful, gender-conforming (in terms of make-up and fashion, but without being intimidatingly beautiful/polished/stylish so she can plausibly be seen to grapple with issues around beauty standards etc) she writes fluently (if irritatingly) and she has a high embarrassment threshold. All of these things make her great for the clickbait age. She's a soundbite feminist.

She hasn't read Dworkin or Greer or Jeffries so she assumes no one else has either. Lengthy tomes about sexual politics? Nah. Women need a quick, funny instruction manual with empowering slogans on smashing the patriarchy and handy tips on perfecting that flicky eyeliner look. Oh - and Caitlin just happens to have one coming out, you say..?

That sums it up beautifully Absinthe

Very self centred
Completely up herself more like

Apparently in the 1980s there were no female role models for girls apart from Mrs Thatcher and Miss Piggy.

Challenge accepted!

Culturally:

Annie Lennox, Alison Moyet, Muriel Gray, Sandi Toksvig (presented the ITV Saturday morning TV show number 73 back in the 80s)

Politically Barbara Castle (more 70's than 80's, but still), Shirley Williams. (I'm sure there are more, but these were just people I was aware of as a child in a not very political family)

Feminism was SO mainstream in the 80s. But really, what do you expect from someone so superficial and self-centred.

I'm of an age with Moran and I was aware of feminism, Germaine Greer, Greenham Common and more in the 80s. They were pretty mainstream. There were also lots of artists and musicians who were gender nonconforming and lots of questioning of stereotypes. And we did talk about masturbation and sex and beauty standards and all the rest of it too. Women's Lib was a fairly common topic of discussion, even if a lot of it was joking at women's expense.

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?

I think that is fair, and I also think Moran is making a joke rather than a serious point. However, even as child/teenager who wasn't aware of much outside the mainstream, I had noticed that Harriet Harman existed.

3/4 channels and one TV meant that we all watched the same TV, whether it was Top of the Pops or the News.

I love this individual re stating of a personal reality with a serene disregard for facts/ history/ anyone else on the planet.

Until I got dressed this morning women had never before worn trousers you know. Yay me. Ground breaking in my own breakfast time. I may launch my own range.

She's writing as if 2011 were the dark ages - it was only nine years ago.

I'm about the same age as Caitlin - as pps have said, Greenham Common was all over the news in the 80s, you couldn't miss it.

Even if you assume that a woman growing up in the 80s/90s had only the most mainstream sources of information, things such as masturbation were openly written about ('More' magazine, anyone?) and then there was huge publicity surrounding Madonna's 'Sex' book in the 1990s.

But Caitlin isn't even talking about the 80s and 90s. She's not even talking about the 00s. She's talking about 2011.

I think, with great satisfaction, how this is the the best era for joyous, mainstream feminist role models young women have ever had.

This really, really isn't true. I think Moran is churning out a column and for these purposes has forgotten that she has been a journalist since about 1990. I don't for one minute believe she thinks this is true.

Has she never heard of Madonna ?

I was going to say if she thinks she was the first to write about female masturbation she'd faint if she read any Nancy Friday!

Could she, Moran, be any more the silly little rich girl stereotype? Can we do anything to help her gain a wider appreciation of the real world, the one that does not circle around her?

Also Susie Orbach, Fat is a Feminist Issue, her first book, published in 1978.