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 so up herself it’s unreal

Fear of Flying was written in 1973. Also Lisa Alther's Kinflicks in 1976 which was also pretty explicit.

I recall both books making a big impact, despite only being 14 in 1973.

@justasking111

60`s novels

The feminine mystique 1963 Betty Friedan
Valley of the dolls
Who`s afraid of virginia wolf

No daft woke millenial will convince me that they invented feminism, I was there back in the sixties. We fought hard.

To be honest, as a thirtysomething - I don't know if I'm a millennial - my mum's generation were role models to me when it came to feminism. When I turned 18, she gave me my own copy of Our Bodies Ourselves with 'from one feminist to another' written inside. She was the one who got me interested in it. That's why I get fed up at younger feminists sneering at the older ones. We might not agree with them on everything but they paved the way for us and they fought a lot of battles, in times when inequality was greater. And ageism is shit.

How embarrassing for her! You should tweet her op.

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.

Same here. I don't get the attraction.

What strikes me is that she's someone who learns through direct, first-hand experience, not through knowledge, empathy and insight. So basically the opposite of most writers.

She's the person who backpacks to India / has children / loses a parent and says 'OMG it changed my life! I had no idea this sea of experience was out there, what I could learn from it, or how it could make me feel!

Whereas writers, generally, are people with powerful observational skills, insight and imagination, who can write about other countries, times, people of different ages, sex and social class, convincingly.

Admittedly that's fiction writers. The academic and journalistic sort might not need so much imagination but their ability to apply knowledge, extrapolate and understand wider implications is pretty strong. They don't generally rely upon first-hand experience, as the 'all about my life' opinion-piece writers can get away with doing.

Well, I am very concerned that feminists like Germaine Greer and well,now, JKR are being denied a voice because they are giving alternative opinions.

And then women trying to talk about women only spaces are labelled "TERFs". So discussion isn't possible.

We should value our votes and our voice and our space.

When I was younger I didn't want to be seen as "just " a woman, but now we are being told we are supposed to accept the label of being "cis", which as a term really doesn't appeal. Women often have not had very much equality or financial autonomy, but this feels Orwellian.

I do think she has done well in writing for a living as a woman from a background that isn't comfortably middle class, not that many people doing that.

Jill Gascoigne The Gentle Touch.

Stephanie Turner Anna Carteret Juliet Bravo.

Yes Philswagielka if no one else many of us had our mums, grandmas, big sisters, aunties and teachers as role models even if we ignored everyone else around us.

And Jan Leeming, Kate Adie, Moria Stuart, Angela Rippon, Floella Benjamin...

I could do this all day and maybe we should.

In fact I want to put KATE ADIE in capitals ffs.

'When I turned 18, she gave me my own copy of Our Bodies Ourselves with 'from one feminist to another' written inside'

That's just so lovely

Another one coming on to say Nancy Friday

Black Lace erotica books ('by women for women') came out, to much fanfare, in the early 90s

My idols, as a girl growing up in the 80s, were the Bronte sisters, Virginia Woolf, Kiri Te Kanawa, Kate Bush - Maggie T and Miss Piggy were nowhere on my list

I read books by Germaine Greer, Susie Orbach, Kate Millett and checked out the school library's copy of Spare Rib whenever I had a free period

But I guess I must have dreamed all of this

I don't take her seriously and find her mildly entertaining as a columnist when she used to do the celebrity watch column. I was however very put off by her writing last week in the Times (an extract from her new book) about her daughter's very serious mental health/eating issues. I am pretty sure having my mother make copy out of my difficulties would not help me if I were her daughter.

@lovelymm I posted before i saw your post. Completely agree. I think The Gentle Touch has aged really well.

ITV4 recently did a repeat showing of Dempsey and Makepeace too In a few episodes she kicks back at sexism too including a long rant about victim blaming.

I wasn't sure about starting this thread as I don't really like attacking other women, but I'm really glad I did, as I'm so enjoying reading about all those brilliant women and books from the 70s that I'd forgotten about.

The Women's Room and Fear of Flying were both HUGE in the 70s, and both dealt very explicitly with sex from a woman's point of view. I read them both as a teenager.

And I'm excited to discover that Dido remembers Lisa Alther's Kinflicks, which was one of my favourite novels for a long time, but I don't think I know anyone else who remembers it. I know this is going to be hard to credit, but it contains descriptions of lesbian sex, even though it was published in 1976, when Caitlin Moran was only a baby and hadn't yet invented feminism.

@EmpressJKRowlingSpartacus

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 read that too! I was excited that someone else had read it. No other reason for quoting/replying to you. I have "One Dimensional Woman" next and then I might order "The Gendered Brain".

A fabulous now dead rad fem I know said this was the way the patriarchy worked we have to spend so much time each generation rediscovering our history it keeps us occuped and unable to change things becase we are continually reinventing the wheel.

I wonder which rock she was hiding under that she had never read any Lynne Reid Banks books?

80’s women? There was this singer called Madonna who was quite influential in the 1980’s. And Annie Lennox. And Alyson Moyet.

I'm glad you started this thread too OP, it's such a great reminder of feminist women and literature (and TV!)

"What troubles me is the thought of younger generations believing this rubbish. "

I agree. Women's History, or should I say Herstory, is being rewritten and cancelled, and people like the self-obsessed, fake feminist, Caitlin Moran is complicit in this.
Bring back Germaine Greer!!!!!!

I wonder which rock she was hiding under that she had never read any Lynne Reid Banks books?

And don't forget Margaret Drabble - both she and Reid Banks wrote novels in the 60s about young women having babies outside marriage, which was a huge deal in those days. Drabble's book, The Millstone, also touches on the difficulties in procuring an abortion at a time when it was illegal.

Marge, Lisa and Maggie Simpson

@merrymouse I was just thinking, I'm sure I read about masturbation in Deenie...!

I thought it was just me that was irritated at her assumptions that she invented feminism, and also that she is a big brave lady for wearing DMs and not dyeing her hair. (I think I have similar dress sense, I don't think she shouldn't dress a certain way, just that it's not groundbreaking to do so.)

@RoyalCorgi

I wonder which rock she was hiding under that she had never read any Lynne Reid Banks books?

And don't forget Margaret Drabble - both she and Reid Banks wrote novels in the 60s about young women having babies outside marriage, which was a huge deal in those days. Drabble's book, The Millstone, also touches on the difficulties in procuring an abortion at a time when it was illegal.

I had forgotten Margaret Drabble, no idea how as I loved her books. I also used to read quite a few Virago books as a teen.

This, from The Guardian article, is ridiculous.

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,