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

@SummerSummerSummertime

She has a hugely over inflated sense of her own importance doesn't she?!

I don't think that's relevant and it's often something that's used at prominent women - how very dare she! Who does that madam think she is eh?

There is a myriad of writers that your accusation could apply to, including authors who think the world needs to read or listen to their thoughts. She is no different from any other opinion piece writer that's prominent in the public sphere.

@Mrstraveller

Isn't it fantastic? I love it

@PhilSwagielka

Are any of you in the grunge thread? There's some interesting discussions about women in that scene and female musicians. I did wonder if Britpop/lad culture was a backlash against that, but then you had Sleeper, Echobelly, Elastica, and later Catatonia and Kenickie as well (and Skunk Anansie, who aren't Britpop but were around at the same time).

Where's the grunge thread? I was obsessed with Elastica & Sleeper. We used to sing 'you said I was cheap, you were the sale of the century' at the tops of our voices. I feel like things have gone downhill since.

Grunge thread, you say, Phil? I just searched and found one from 2010 that was entertaining but probably not the one you meant..

Found it
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3994004-to-ask-for-your-90s-grunge-music-stories

Also in the 1980s we had Wonder Woman and Princess Leah, Bananarama, Annie Lennox, Salt and Peppa, Madonna, Alison Moyet to name a few I can remember.

She is a creation of the media. They publicised her to begin with as a put down / erasure of actual living feminism.

And they are doing this again now.

The Guardian only ever gives space to one of their own.

Media feminism is a deliberate tactic to misdirect women away from what is actually going on.

If it is in the Guardian its a ploy.

The worry is that there are always women who are so desparate to be noticed by men that there will always be one willing to fulfil this role.

(Not forgetting that this is how Germaine Greer became famous. Not for doing anything original but compiling for her publishers a quick scamper through other women's actual politics. And obviously negate the positivity of what was than a sucessful mass movement by presenting feminism as individualist achievement.)

So anytime anything is in the Guardian, dont bother with the content. Think why are they publicising it. What is it they dont want women to know?!!

@stumbledin

What do you think of Zoe Williams? Hadley Freeman? Marina Hyde? Out of interest?

(You're not one of them, are you? Because if you are Marina Hyde your columns are great!)

Oooh - no one has ever thought I was actually someone known.

Every now and again Hadley Freeman is spot on. Cant remember every reading anything by Marina Hyde. And Zoe Williams was certainly a persistent denigrator of grass routes feminism, but now seems to be an all purpose commentator (having paid her dues stitching up other women for the patriarchy).

hasn't Hadley Freeman been "let go".

Hadley Freeman is sooooo good on some stuff. I would like to read her book (about her grandparents) She does 80s popular film well.

I think she has been let go - not 100% sure.

Did you like Deborah Orr ? Suzanne Moore?

Hadley Freeman has a piece in today’s Guardian.

I bought Scarlet magazine when i was in my early thirties (it ran from 2004 to 2010) I find it hard to believe CM didnt know about this. Im two years older than her. One of its taglines was no diets. They never printed a diet in Scarlet. There was some good writing in there. And an erotic short story section....Cliterature.

I remember the Black Lace books too Our local John Menzies had them on a top shelf tucked away in a corner at the back of the shop back in the 90s. (i found out about these when i got one free with a copy of New Woman) Another mag i loved. I still remember which BL book it was. The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Cheryl Mildenhall.

Scarlet had a BL book free with the mag a couple of times too.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/20/scarlet-magazine-closed-women-smart

Thank you, I had totally forgotten about catatonia et al! I friggin loved Road Rage, haven't heard that forever. 💜

Oh my word that Stevie Nicks video has done something to me

😍

Love Catatonia, my Spotify WFH playlist is full of them.

Cerys Matthews show on 6 Music is just brilliant. She goes so deep into the roots of the music.

@LunaNorth

Oh my word that Stevie Nicks video has done something to me

😍

@LunaNorth - to your beef curtains? Sorry I recognise you from another thread.. 😂😘

Hadley Freeman has a column in Guardian Weekend, which they've announced they're ditching. But she writes for the daily Guardian too - most of her interviews for example. So her future might be uncertain but she has a foot in both parts of the paper and she's def still writing for them at the moment.

Sorry I've missed a load of posts - that was to an exchange made hours ago

Great picture

These are the women I was looking at as a teenager. It's a fucking shame that younger women didn't have this.

Not the topic of the the thread, but if the Guardian were in a position where it couldn't find a permanent home for a journalist like Hadley Freeman, given her CV, its the end of the Guardian and a really bad sign for journalism.

Feminism is at its best when it looks like freedom. When it remembers that you must never underestimate the importance of progress looking like it could, among other things, be fun.

I sympathise with any woman who has a public profile - I'm just an anonymous commentator on a forum. I can understand why its easier to be vague. However, this makes no sense if you can't explain who needs the freedom and why. Otherwise feminism is just a vacuous slogan on a notebook in Paperchase.