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

@merrymouse

Moran's apparent lack of knowledge is either due to stupidity, laziness or arrogance.

Again, she knows all this stuff and has written about many of the people mentioned in this thread at length.

The Miss Piggy/Thatcher line is for the purposes of that particular column.

The point of the column is not to deliver any kind of definitive message about feminism, it is to amuse and sell a book. Fundamentally Caitlin Moran is a columnist and, however irritating, that is what columnists do.

I like you very much, merrymouse!

@Pelleas

In your view it’s nonsense.

Well, there's been an abundance of evidence on this thread to show that CM was not the first or even one of the first to write about masturbation etc. in her 2011 book, so I don't think it's just a 'view'.

Even if it was just my view, though, would that matter? I don't think journalists should write without doing some research first.

I'd have no problem with CM saying that her 2011 book had brought those topics to a new audience, because it might well be the case that her book happened to be the first one that people who were teenagers in 2011 picked up.

But saying that those subjects were taboo and rarely written about before 2011 is sheer, unadulterated nonsense.

It’s hyperbole but I don’t think she expects anyone to think she’s writing the gospel truth. Most columnists don’t.

It’s hyperbole but I don’t think she expects anyone to think she’s writing the gospel truth. Most columnists don’t.

Well, unless it is clearly presented as fiction or satire, I have no time for journalism that doesn't have truth at the heart of it. Fair enough, some people are happy with an 'anything goes in the name of entertainment' approach, but personally, I'm tired of fake news.

Call me old fashioned but I do expect a columnist to, at the very least, do a bit of basic research before submitting their work, and to think it should be perfectly possible for a good journalist to be both entertaining and truthful.

Or in other words,what Pelleas said.

it should be perfectly possible for a good journalist to be both entertaining and truthful

Excellently put.

[quote ChattyLion]Found it
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3994004-to-ask-for-your-90s-grunge-music-stories[/quote]
That's the one!

This does not read as hyperbole.

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

Julie Burchill, Rod Liddle, Giles Coren for example use hyperbole very effectively. What CM wrote here is not hyperbole.

Didnt every girl read Judy Blume in the 70s & 80s, and she most definitely covered the subjects Moron is laying claim to.

@Pelleas

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.

The fascinating bit about the current self-absorption and self-promotion, coming as it does in the Age of the Internet, is we can all BLOODY CHECK whether people's claims are true or not!

CM was thriving prior to Y2K, she should know this.

Or is she just an incredible narcissist?

@WellIWasInTheNeighbourhoo

Didnt every girl read Judy Blume in the 70s & 80s, and she most definitely covered the subjects Moron is laying claim to.

Exactly. Judy was there, speaking for us, nudging us along in a path of self-reflection and awareness, all in a hugely elegant and humble way.

I only read Are You There, G-d? It's Me, Margaret. "I must! I must! I must increase my bust!"

I didn't have her down as a narcissist but that quote is quite something. Had she never read Margaret Forster, Lynn Reid Banks, Marilyn French, Nell Dunn, Nancy Friday? Let alone Judy Blume. Had she never seen Alfie ? The Color Purple? Even mainstream films like Working Girl and Nine to Five and Shirley Valentine covered many of the topics she mentioned.

None of these are feminist texts. I haven't really read any academic feminism either. But I know writing about women didn't start with Caitlin Bloody Moran.

I just cannot believe the teenage girl wank club part isn’t a self-deprecating joke.

I really want to like her, we’re the same age and I thought she was so cool/fun on Naked City.

The part in the article about the pressure on middle aged women was very good I thought. I think she hadn’t reached her peak yet and I look forward to when she does.

I also want to like her. She had an unusual upbringing but I'm a similar age and amazed that all of these women passed her by.

And of course most second wave feminists needed to look no further than our mothers for inspiration

Yes! As I constantly tell the DC, both my mum and MIL lost their jobs when Dh and I were born. My grandmothers were born when women didn't even have the vote.

It's a good point actually, how little life experience she's had. She had this odd hermetically sealed childhood with her boho dropout parents and siblings and doesn't seem to have mixed with anyone else. It's why it grates on me to hear her describe herself as working class when (a) her parents didn't work and (b) they weren't working class to begin with and she had minimal exposure to kids who actually were working class. She became part of the London media world in her teens, another insular bubble. And she married what appears to have been her second boyfriend who she started going out with as a teenager. None of this would matter if she had any real curiosity about other people but she doesn't and the decade since HTBAW has only entrenched that I think.

So true, irishfeminist. Shes had SUCH a sheltered, unusual life. I'm not saying that doesn't make her interesting or that she has nothing of value to contribute, but portraying herself as some kind of everywoman who can relate to a wide selection of other women is a bit of a stretch. I would imagine that shes aware of this, and very insecure about her lack of experience in so many areas of life, hence the laboured wackiness

@irishfeminist

It's a good point actually, how little life experience she's had. She had this odd hermetically sealed childhood with her boho dropout parents and siblings and doesn't seem to have mixed with anyone else. It's why it grates on me to hear her describe herself as working class when (a) her parents didn't work and (b) they weren't working class to begin with and she had minimal exposure to kids who actually were working class. She became part of the London media world in her teens, another insular bubble. And she married what appears to have been her second boyfriend who she started going out with as a teenager. None of this would matter if she had any real curiosity about other people but she doesn't and the decade since HTBAW has only entrenched that I think.

I remember thinking that this really came through in the chapter of How to be a Woman about relationships - she makes such a meal about that first boyfriend (which she is very vague about the timing of but seems to have been a teenage relationship of a few months) because she wants to be able to write about heartbreak and abusive relationships and being single but it becomes a bit laboured and a bit ridiculous because she has very little actual life experience of relationships other than her marriage - which is absolutely fine and normal but just doesn't make her well-placed to write a first person essay about those things. But I thought that was a central flaw of designing it as a memoir-cum-feminist-manifesto, it means that she writes compellingly about things she personally experienced (I thought the chapter about her abortion was very well written, and she also writes well on weight) but it leaves it really thin when, inevitably, there are topics that need covering for a feminist manifesto but that she hasn't actually had much experience of; that's where a more outward looking focus, including the experiences of other women, would have served her much better.

I totally agree, and though I don’t wish this on her for a second, I think if she got divorced and became a single mum she’d write really well about that too. It would selfishly help me because it feels so reassuring when someone articulates how you feel.

Also it’s when my own feminism shifted from the abstract to everyday tangible obstacles (and as a result I became angrier at the patriarchy as a formidable enemy)

Has Susie Orbach been mentioned yet? She is the authority on body image and anorexia. Fat is a Feminist Issue came out in 1978.

Caitlin Moran should be embarrassed.

I felt bad for commenting without actually reading the article so now I've read the article - what an absolute load of bilge.

But there are no blockbuster movies about women with bad backs trying to remain in love with the same person for decades

There is literally a blockbuster movie about this starring Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann and Megan Fox called This Is 40.

In 1985, I had the choice of Margaret Thatcher or Miss Piggy. Back then, young women really had to make do.

The actual fuck. What about MADONNA?!

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.

Yes the only reason feminists tied themselves to railings, threw themselves in front of horses and went on hunger strikes was because it was fun right girls? Now who's got the glitter lol eye wink.

FML.

I’m conflicted on whether I really want her to read this thread or I really don’t want her to!

Tracey Emin also worth a mention her. Masturbation, the joy of sex, the impact of sexual abuse etc all laid bare throughout the noughties. Just realised that her retrospective at the Hayward was in 2011! theartsdesk.com/visual-arts/tracey-emin-love-what-you-want-hayward-gallery

It’s all a bit self-congratulatory. I’m the same age. I walked around Greenham Common with my mum and many other women when I was 8 or 9. Even then I knew it was something special and historic and it was in the news constantly. There’s a whole feminist history she is standing on. And then the surprise that life changes in middle age.

I know it’s The Guardian, but this is a really goid letter.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/31/dont-forget-so-many-brilliant-women?CMP=share_btn_fb