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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Caitlin Moran in the Guardian today

434 replies

RoyalCorgi · 29/08/2020 11:17

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

OP posts:
YetAnotherSpartacus · 29/08/2020 14:52

I'm quite sad that no one really remembers UK feminist history. Please don't forget Shiela Rowbotham, Juliet Mitchell, Ann Oakley and Susie Orbach.

Also - www.historyrevealed.com/eras/20th-century/womens-lib-the-second-wave-of-feminism/

ArabellaScott · 29/08/2020 14:53

'You're getting old", that's what they'll say
But don't give a damn I'm listening anyway...

...So many rules and so much opinion
So much shit to give in, give in to
So many rules and so much opinion
So much bullshit but we won't give in'

genius.com/Le-tigre-hot-topic-lyrics

The lyrics are annotated! With wee bios of some of the women mentioned.

RubyViolet · 29/08/2020 14:54

Pressgang the kids tv show. I loved that, and Julia Sawalha as the female editor of the paper. Grange Hill was good on issues for girls growing up then.

CharlottesComplicatedWeb · 29/08/2020 14:55

CM ... not a heavyweight in terms of role models for women. A bit like The Spice Girls banging on about “Girl Power” 🙄

Gailhugger · 29/08/2020 14:56

So many people are searching for a guru. If it brings a few more people along for the ride via Libfem, I don’t give a damn. I don’t do women down. Too many men already in that game. The more sunlight, the more sunlight.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 29/08/2020 14:57

Please remember the contributions of Sheila Rowbotham.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Rowbotham

CuriousaboutSamphire · 29/08/2020 14:59

It's a bit like being told we never saw black kids on telly in the ... And when you sing the Double-deckers theme tune you get blank looks!!!

It's not like Brinsley Ford was a nobody!

The past is, as ever, a foreign country!

YetAnotherSpartacus · 29/08/2020 14:59

And Juliet Mitchell

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliet_Mitchell

fatblackcatspaw · 29/08/2020 15:00

Mary Daly ! she came up after the Speakers Corner in Edinburgh... must see if I can order some of her books

YetAnotherSpartacus · 29/08/2020 15:01

Also, Olive Banks, who wrote one of the best books about the first wave.

www.theguardian.com/news/2006/dec/12/guardianobituaries.obituaries1

YetAnotherSpartacus · 29/08/2020 15:02

Also, Beatrix Campbell - I love her 'Iron ladies'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrix_Campbell

Butterer · 29/08/2020 15:04

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MeridianB · 29/08/2020 15:05

I blame the editors. They shouldn’t be commissioning dross and the idea that so-called ‘star writers’ can submit nonsense like this and it is not stopped in the editing process is really sloppy.

RoyalCorgi · 29/08/2020 15:07

I've just remembered that Doris Lessing wrote about the pain of childbirth in A Proper Marriage, which is the second in her Martha Quest series of books. A Proper Marriage was published in, wait for it...1954.

Pretty sure she's not the only one. Fairly sure that The Women's Room, among others, talks about the pain of childbirth. (I don't have a copy to hand to check, unfortunately.) Mary McCarthy's The Group, published in 1963, talked about the difficulties of breastfeeding at a time when on-demand feeding was discouraged and babies were taken away from mothers for hours between feeds.

OP posts:
Benjispruce2 · 29/08/2020 15:07

Amelia Earhart?
Valentina Tereshkova?

TapertandEdkins · 29/08/2020 15:08

What about Virago Press publishing house? Set up by women in the early 70's to address gender imbalance in publishing? Caitlin Moran is always so self-absorbed!

Butterer · 29/08/2020 15:09

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Melroses · 29/08/2020 15:10

@AbsintheFriends

Anita Roddick was someone I remember greatly admiring in the 80s.
Absolutely. There were a lot of ground breaking women around.

The trouble is the internet does not go back that far.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 29/08/2020 15:11

Also Virginia Woolf and Radclyffe Hall. We knew about them then.

TossACoinToYerWitcher · 29/08/2020 15:11

Carla Lane
Lynda La Plante

sexism in the workplace

Seem to remember Prime Suspect was quite big in the 90s...

Butterer · 29/08/2020 15:13

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Pelleas · 29/08/2020 15:13

My school library actually had a really good collection of Virago Press books back in the 80s. Quite a few of the teachers were openly feminist, and this was a comprehensive in a working class area, not some elite middle class place.

NearlyGranny · 29/08/2020 15:14

And of course most second wave feminists needed to look no further than our mothers for inspiration. Mine left school at 14 (no grammar school for her because the family couldn't afford the uniform) to work stuffing kapok into chair seats in a factory. 17 when war broke out, by 19 she was making airframes for Mosquito aircraft and had her own stamp for inspecting and approving other people's work.

Melroses · 29/08/2020 15:14

@Deliriumoftheendless

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.

Floella is still working away in the HoL.

She was on Women Talking about Cars recently.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001b9c#:~:text=Victoria%20Coren%20Mitchell%20returns%20with%20a%20new%20series,week%20Victoria%20talks%20to%20the%20actress%2C%20singer%20

Butterer · 29/08/2020 15:15

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