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

She’s rapidly disappearing up her own arse.

I’m the same age as her and I’d totally disagree with what she says about no female role models. Plus there were all the Nancy Friday books for a start which were very focused on female masturbation, etc.

I'm really no fan of Moran, but I don't think her comments are meant to be taken literally.

Comedy writers/peformers:

Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Victoria Wood, Emma Thompson.

'Silly little rich girl' - come off it

I was 16 when I read The Female Eunuch. I read the others when I went to university when I was 18. All of them are mainstream writers for anyone interested in feminism - even in 2011. Germaine Greer published The Whole Woman 1n 1999. (As an aside, a quote: “Real women are being phased out; the first step, persuading them to deny their own existence, is almost complete.")

But Naomi Wolf; Dale Spender; Deborah Tannen; Susan Faludi; Catharine McKinnon, bell hooks; Robin Morgan and Angela Davis, amongst many others, were writing in the 2000s.

I suppose authors have to promote themselves, but the airy dismissal of generations of other women writers is a bit rich.

Could she, Moran, be any more the silly little rich girl stereotype

I don’t think she can be accused of being a silly, little rich girl.....she came from a background of being quite poor according to her biography.

But I think she’s out of touch with reality now and has rapidly morphed into the upper middle class Londoner stereotype. At least that’s how she comes across.

She's writing for a disposable market. All she has to do is think up a catchy line about 'relevance' - meaning it feels fresh and zeitgeisty and 'now' enough for magazines and newspapers to give her column inches or whip up a mini-story from it, and propel her book to the Top 10 for a few weeks. In 5 years time she'll write another book about how funny the flimsy ideas in it seem then.

It's feminism for the fast-fashion generation.

Re: sex, periods etc.

drum roll:

JUDY BLOOM!!!!!!!!

Flat shoes are now so widespread and stylish that the chapter on heels seems unnecessary

I think we may have Lady Diana to thanks for that. I recall that after she first appeared on the scene in 1981 in her Sloaney outfits with flat shoes that pretty flat shoes (as opposed to female traffic warden flat shoes) were everywhere and have been ever since.

JUDY BLOOM!!!!!!!!

Yes, Judy had millions of us 80s teenagers exploring our 'special place' after reading 'Deenie'.

But I think she’s out of touch with reality now and has rapidly morphed into the upper middle class Londoner stereotype. At least that’s how she comes across.

She is writing copy for money to pay the mortgage. She has a new book out and has been asked to write X 000 words to promote it. Sometimes she writes well sometimes she doesn't. That is the nature of being a columnist.

However, that doesn't mean we can't disagree with her and list all the inspiring roll models who were around in the 80s, 90s and 00s.

Cagney. Lacey.

For you, Caitlin.

@DidoLamenting

Flat shoes are now so widespread and stylish that the chapter on heels seems unnecessary

I think we may have Lady Diana to thanks for that. I recall that after she first appeared on the scene in 1981 in her Sloaney outfits with flat shoes that pretty flat shoes (as opposed to female traffic warden flat shoes) were everywhere and have been ever since.

Flat shoes have come and gone and come back again like everything else. In the early 90s everyone was wearing DMs and Converse baseball boots. In the 00s ballet flats were hugely in vogue.

I haven't seen much evidence that heels have disappeared from fashion in 2020. The first result on Google for 2020 shoe trends includes 'sky high platforms'.

Can't stand her.

CM was a journalist smashhits writer at 16.

Did she really manage to miss Anne Lennox, Madonna, Alison Moyet? Even if she eschewed feminism Shirley Conran, Jackie Collins & Rita Mae Brown could have taught her a thing or two.

Politically MT, Shirley Williams - herself the daughter of Vera Brittain, Barbara Castle, Jenny Lee, Joan Ryan of CND, the Greenham Common Women, Glenys Kinnock, journalists Jenny Murray, Sue McGregor, Anna Ford.

Actual feminists named already upthread?

But thanks ever so for inventing women's rights for us.

If we’re talking masturbation, Chrissie Amphlett recorded, “I touch myself” in 1990.

In the early 90s everyone was wearing DMs and Converse baseball boots. In the 00s ballet flats were hugely in vogue.

Exactly! Also Timberlands.

High heels got a big boost from sex and the city, but most women were not rushing out to buy Louboutins or even knock off Louboutins.

Did she really manage to miss Anne Lennox, Madonna, Alison Moyet?

Of course not - but that would be a different column for a different audience.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/madonna-kate-bush-and-the-beatles-its-caitlin-morans-desert-island-discs-npbsqdxps

I love the idea that we may have Diana and the fact that the heir to the throne is a bit vertically challenged to thank for our comfy flat shoes. Except that I, for one, was already a Spare Rib-reading, dungaree-wearing comfy flat shoe-sporting second wave feminist wearing a "Don't do it, Di!" badge in 1981.

Moran is a mildly entertaining lightweight who will never rock any actual boats and we don't need to take her too seriously. Greenham and Greer et al still happened. Nothing can change that, even if a journalist chooses to ignore it.

Oh do read what I actually typed! I didn't say she is/ was but that she cleaves to the stereotype!!!

Words... they have meaning!

What troubles me is the thought of younger generations believing this rubbish. It all adds to the marginalisation of the middle-aged woman, the 'Karen' stereotype.

Those poor prudish 40+ housewives - stuck in their man-pleasing high heels and too scared to mention masturbation or pubic hair, with only Miss Piggy to look to for inspiration - until brave, radical Caitlin made it all acceptable in 2011.

That's hilarious Merry and mea culpa for not listing Kate Bush.

@DancelikeEmmaGoldman

If we’re talking masturbation, Chrissie Amphlett recorded, “I touch myself” in 1990.

Sex and the City started more than a decade earlier as well and was very mainstream.

Shops like Ann Summers were really popular on the high street in the 2000s.

@JacobReesMogadishu

Could she, Moran, be any more the silly little rich girl stereotype

I don’t think she can be accused of being a silly, little rich girl.....she came from a background of being quite poor according to her biography.

But I think she’s out of touch with reality now and has rapidly morphed into the upper middle class Londoner stereotype. At least that’s how she comes across.

Did she? She’s never mentioned it.