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

I actually think that there have been always been a fair few savvy working class girls in the cities who, at a young age, figured out the thread of media and learned how to play it as CM did. The difference is, we realise that if we go into that space at such a young age there is always going to be a limit on how one can brand one self. If you come through as a bright, young thing you need to have a solid foundation to get you beyond that shortlived and very competitive stage. It's a bit of a one trick pony and very one dimensional - not something you would want to build your professional identity on as it will define you, which I think is where CM is.

@serenada

Kate Adie

Selina Scott

Moira Stewart

Fuzzbox

Muriel from The Tube

Camille Paglia

So, so many and yes CAGNEY & LACEY - have been watching reruns

We could take it back to The Bionic Woman if we want (non sexualised woman as opposed to Wonder Woman)

I am so glad this conversation is happening. I truly am lost at what is going on but for me, it is not just in the media - it is in many areas.

I worked in a school where the Learning mentor (a woman with little formal education who believes in angels) was allowed to order in books and ordered them from Disney. The Deputy Head ordered a load od of inappropriate books (age/level/ability) for mainstream and the Head insisted we threw out all the existing ones. They want nice, pretty, clean covers and it is all superficial - design/media centred rather than based on something substantial.

I am also working in tech with lots of people who seem to have zero knowledge of history. Zero. No knowledge of social history and movements, no knowledge of literature and the ideas covered.

In the past, whether you had studied formally or not, this knowledge was in the air - we had it and somehow, we have now got a situation where by if it wasn't born digital, it doesn't exist Only it did. And instead of continuing a legacy and building the next layer up, we are letting spaces and resources be pulled to build literally, cut-price ivory towers.

Ohhhh what channel is Cagney and Lacey on?

And also why does she always make a stupid face in her photographs?

Because she’s one of those slightly annoying people who think they’re a bit zany/wacky? But actually they’re a bit tedious?

Thanks- 1975 to be exact.

Sorry I meant she was born in 1975.

I read CM's columns in my early 20s and was so in awe of what she had achieved at such a young age and the confiden

Sorry, toddler shenanigans means I posted too soon. ...The confidence of her voice, but as PP have expressed I'm just so disappointed at her lack of knowledge of feminism/hinterland as time goes on. It feels like her own story has been of sufficient interest to her.

@Hardbackwriter That would make sense. I could see them wanting selfies with her, as she's a celebrity, but group wanking clubs - no. No more so than adult women would compare notes in a friendship group about their masturbatory habits.

What I love about CM: she can be hilariously spot-on in her observations of people and life; I’ve always enjoyed the way she seems to speak to me and my class/cultural background. I saw the feature in the G today and thought ‘great, something that’ll make me laugh and think.’ Sadly, there was too much evidence of what I like a bit less: her sweeping generalisations being a case in point (plenty of which already pointed out on this thread). Also, she’s too young to claim the crone title. Way too young....

@JacobReesMogadishu

* And also why does she always make a stupid face in her photographs?

Because she’s one of those slightly annoying people who think they’re a bit zany/wacky? But actually they’re a bit tedious?

Hahaha yeah probably! I felt a bit mean after posting that but it seems like every time I see her photo she is being 'zany'. It would be nice to see her at ease with herself and not putting on a show. But I guess that sums up her whole deal - her feminism is superficial, her career is all about her zany personality, so she can never let herself relax and be actually honest with herself and the world.

I grew up in.the 90s. It was a strange time. My mates and me were wc, 1st generation a level rock/indie kids and felt equal. We drank pints, had no lids on our aspirations and thought anything a boy could do, we could do.
But.
It was still considered a compliment to be as good as a boy and we definitely tried to emukate male behaviour, whilst channelling Courtney love. I still used my tits for tips as a barmaid.

It was my early 20s that I really embraced feminism- while working with women who'd been feminists since the 70s.

I think Julie Burchill (original enfant terrible of pop journalism?) has a lot to say about her.

@TowandaForever

Cagney and Lacey. So, so good. Mary beth & Harvey. Harvey jnr. Christine's alcoholic father. Top cops in NYC at its dirtiest. And a great intro tune.

On Amazon prime www.amazon.com/Cagney-Lacey/dp/B07KNBT82K?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Also, Hil St Blues had a woman cop who was pretty ballsy if I remember correctly. You had to be in NYC in those days.

I don't believe the wanking thing with the teenage girls and their gratitude to her for informing them about it for one fucking second. I actually feel furious that she's insulting our intelligence by expecting us to believe such shit.

@queenofknives

Hahaha yeah probably! I felt a bit mean after posting that but it seems like every time I see her photo she is being 'zany'. It would be nice to see her at ease with herself and not putting on a show. But I guess that sums up her whole deal - her feminism is superficial, her career is all about her zany personality, so she can never let herself relax and be actually honest with herself and the world.

That what I mean - she is stuck in a persona that a teenage girl can carry off but an adult woman can't, but as she came through on that one dimensional shtick she hasn't built in any space to grow and is stuck in that persona. She has shown that if you are not in control of your grasp on the media than it is in control of you and she focused on being the immortalisation of a zeitgeist rather than letting the writing do that for her. It's an easy thing to do as a young teen but you don't want to get stuck there.

serenada, one sometimes get stuck in a persona when one is strenuously trying to deny something staring one straight in one's face. I think.

The more I look at it the more I think the TRA trend of performing womanhood got such a tight hold because we didn't bother so much with feminism in the noughties. There's a whole generation of dolts that don't realise how important it is.
I used to yawn about endless "women in rock" articles in the 80s covering Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde [write about the music, ffs]. Those tedious articles seem to be on repeat even now and we are all supposed to think it's cutting edge when a woman demonstrates sexuality by performing the way men think we all do.

She irritates me. But if you look at her life (even just reading Wikipedia) it is very obvious why she comes across as so blinkered.

No formal education. In work, in an industry famous at the time for being very male-dominated and aggressively anti-intellectual (90s music journalism). Married to another music journalist with kids by her mid 20s. Columnist working from home since then.

Where exactly would she ever be exposed to different ideas, have discussions about books, or meet people with different life experiences? She wouldn’t even have had the chance to pass around J17 or Mizz, because she didn’t have friends her own age. She seems to have led an extraordinarily sheltered life, and that is reflected in the fact she things “you look older at 45 than at 25” is a shocking revelation.

Doesn’t make me want to read her crappy books, but the culpability lies with the editors/publishers for printing such derivative shit, and not with her.

@ArabellaScott

Yes, very true.

Christmas yes, was there not one person in that chain of publishing professionals who thought, hmm, I didn't think CM was the very first feminist? I'm only 8 years older than her and I read Ms and Spare Rib and went to the Silver Moon bookshop, had women's studies classes at uni etc etc.
I'm not quite sure how to articulate this but there has been a shift from thinking of feminism as good for women to using the word feminism for virtue signalling and making yourself look better and cleverer than other women.

I haven't read the full thread as this is 12 pages long! I'm her age and can remember reading Cosmo and More! Judy Blume, Jackie Collins, Shirley Conran, Jilly Cooper and Judith Krantz to name but a few.
Plus we were the generation of ladettes, Sex in the City and the Rampant Rabbit! Oh and Chippendales were not rodents in the 80s either .

If she only discovered masturbation in 2011 she must have been sleeping for 35 years.

I do think we had lots of messages about how sex wasn't just for men and that women should get off on.it too. I read all jean m auel's sex sagas, sorry, prehistoric novels, so I knew exactly how it was supposed to go.

I'm not sure girls now get that sex should be good for them too. I do worry about Dd growing up in a world where porn is the norm.for boys.

She really irritates me- she was never a feminist, She was concerned mainly with writing about her favourite indy bands ( which in her usual myopic way were absolutely the only ones worth listening to). Also she fucked me off with her I'm cool because I wear Dr Martens and listen to this sad indy band but of course I'm absolutely working class, whilst simultaneously mocking white working class women who perhaps happened to like pop music but were out there heroically doing there bit in a man's world. She judges people on the music they listened to, that is the measure of the woman. Feminist my arse

Has anyone said Sue Townsend yet?
If they have I'll say it again.
She was a single mum with no money and she started writing plays, and of course, the Adrian Mole series among other things.
One of the funniest, smartest women ever (RIP)

@pawpawpawpaw

I'm not quite sure how to articulate this but there has been a shift from thinking of feminism as good for women to using the word feminism for virtue signalling and making yourself look better and cleverer than other women.

Knowledge as power (without the responsibilty bit). It's alongside a lot of stuff now where it plays to many crowds (or is meant to). Like a lot of this stuff it is self limiting and works only with an audience who have already bought into the narrative and can't see beyond it. It is not about knowledge sharing any more - rather competitiveness in a world where we are all equal therefore all fair game, supposedly.

And I would have been back sooner only earlier on today I decided to make homemade soup. I wandered downstairs about an hour ago to see a kitchen covered in soup splatters. the whole thing exploded in the pan - all over the walls, floor, fridge, tiles the lot.

It's minestrone in a tin from now on.