{"id":3846,"date":"2011-08-01T22:27:13","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T22:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/?p=3846"},"modified":"2011-08-01T22:27:13","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T22:27:13","slug":"the-must-read-feminist-book-of-the-summer-it-lives-up-to-the-hype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/?p=3846","title":{"rendered":"The must-read feminist book of the summer – it lives up to the hype"},"content":{"rendered":"

A shorter version was published on Blogcritics<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

If you move in feminist circles, there\u2019s really no choice this summer \u2013 you have to read Caitlin Moran\u2019s How To Be A Woman<\/i>: otherwise, you won\u2019t be able to keep up with the conversations. And it\u2019s not hard to see why it has made a splash \u2013 it covers all of the usual issues: body image, harassment, and the general difficulties of being a female teenager in an in-your-face, often laugh-out-loud funny, manner \u2013 how an all-women friendship group is likely to talk down the pub just before closing time.<\/p>\n

And broadly I\u2019d agree with the hype \u2013 if you\u2019ve got a 15-year-old daughter, or know one, I\u2019d want to make sure she read it. Given the nature of 15-year-olds, you probably can\u2019t just give it to her \u2013 hide it on the back row of the top shelf of books beside The Joy of Sex<\/i>; she\u2019s sure to find it. Although if she\u2019s already read Puberty Blues<\/i> she\u2019s going to recognise the genre.<\/p>\n

There were bits of the book that really left me thinking yes, you\u2019ve nailed it \u2013 really exposed something not much recognised. Particularly on eating disorders. \u201cOvereating, or comfort eating, is the cheap, meek option for self-satisfaction, and self-obliteration. You get all the temporary release of drinking, fucking or taking drugs, but without \u2013 and I think this is the important bit \u2013 ever being left in a state where you can\u2019t remain responsible and cogent. In a nutshell, then, by choosing food as your drug \u2013 sugar highs, or the deep, soporific calm of carbs, the Valium of the working classes \u2013 you can still make the packed lunches, do the school run, look after the baby, pop in on your mum and then stay up all night with an ill five-year-old \u2013 something that isn\u2019t an option if you\u2019re caning off a gigantic bag of skunk , or regularly climbing into the cupboard under the stairs and knocking back quarts of Scotch. Over-eating is the addiction of choice of carers, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s come to be regarded as the lowest-ranking of all the addictions.\u201d (p. 117)<\/p>\n

She’s also very solid and sensible on plastic surgery – even “good” plastic surgery, that makes the operee look just amazingly well-preserved for their age (“women living in fear of aging, and pulling painful and expensive tricks to hide it from the wold”) is still not defensible (p. 294); and abortion and the need for honestness and openness (she’s had an abortion, and a miscarriage, and says there’s a similarity in both – her body or her mind “had decided this baby was not to be” – p. 277) and the fact that women still find it hard to say they don’t want to have children (because of social reactions), even though many don’t want to, and those who have had will, when honest, admit that they regret it. And on the ludicrousness of the continuing existence of high heels.
\n
\nAnd Moran also exactly catches that moment in the mid-90s when it seemed feminism was victorious, that the fight had been won, at least to women of a certain age and class. (And although I wasn\u2019t in the UK then, it was much the same in Australia.) \u201cI don\u2019t feel like I can talk about sexism with other women\u2026 All the woman I know are strong feminists working in male environments \u2013 journalists, editors, PRs, computer programmers \u2013 but they are too busy at this point \u2013 1993 \u2013 just getting on with stuff to have big debates about it Besides, it is the beginning of Britpop, the dawn of the Ladette. As young women essentially at play \u2013 with no children, no childcare worries, no sudden stalling of their careers in their thirties, as the men inexplicably start to sail past the \u2013 things still feel hopeful. In this era of Doc Martens and beer and minimal make-up, sexism seems to be dying so fast it would be counter-productive to draw attention to it.\u201d (p. 139)<\/p>\n

And who could argue with this? \u201cI realised that it\u2019s technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism. Without feminism, you wouldn\u2019t be allowed to have a debate on a woman\u2019s place in society. You\u2019d be too busy giving birth on the kitchen floor \u2013 biting down on a wooden spoon, so as not to disturb the men\u2019s card game \u2013 before going back to quick-liming the dunny\u2026. The more women argue, loudly, against feminism, the more they both prove it exists and that they enjoy its hard-won privileges.\u201d (p. 80)<\/p>\n

Many women will recognise experiences and feelings that Moran describes. At the age of 15 she first sees Germaine Greer on television: \u201cGreer uses the words \u2018liberation\u2019 and \u2018feminism\u2019 and I realise \u2026 that she is the first person I\u2019ve seen who doesn\u2019t say them sarcastically, or tempered with invisible quote marks. She doesn\u2019t say them like they are words that are slightly distasteful, and slightly dangerous, and should be handled only at the end of tongs, like night soil.\u201d (p. 76) It reminds me when I first read The Women\u2019s Room<\/i> at about that age, and had much the same feeling.<\/p>\n

In some cases my personal sense of recognition might have something to do with the fact that Moran is a columnist for The Times, for which I used to work \u2013 and I still live in that London media world. She reports on trying to get The Times<\/em> to cover the American Riot Grrl music movement, because \u201cthe kind of girls who really need a hardcore feminist movement \u2013 in council blocks, listening to Radio 1, fantasising about New Kids On The Block \u2013 are unlikely to come across a photocopied Riot Grrrl fanzine being handed out outside a Sebadoh gig.\u201d A male editor shouts her down, concluding with \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to be a fat teenage girl, being shouted at in the streets by arseholes.\u201d \u2026 \u201cI am rendered silent with astonishment that I am being lectured on a radical feminist youth movement by a middle-aged straight white man.\u201d (p. 141.) I know of an almost identical event that happened at The Independent<\/i>.<\/p>\n

But in a way this whole passage sums up the strengths and weakness of How To Be A Woman<\/i> – Moran is very good on the description, but entirely self-centred in the analysis \u2013 the girls \u201cwho really need a hardcore feminist movement\u201d are also highly unlikely to come across a copy of The Times<\/i>.<\/p>\n

And she assumes that every girl or woman thinks and is concerned about the same things as those of her set. One section that made me wince was the part about fantasising about a relationship with a famous comedian, so intensely that she makes herself hysterical and \u201cin many ways, it\u2019s still one of the most memorable relationship of my life\u201d. And she says \u201cnearly every other woman I know\u201d has dozens of such stories. Well I have to say no woman I know has a similar tale \u2013 at least not past the age of 12 or so, and her statement that when she \u201crationalises this insanity to myself\u201d this is a necessary byproduct of being a woman is ridiculous, and not in a good way. (p. 150)<\/p>\n

She’s open to lots of possibilities – but seems unable to imagine a lot of other possible women’s lives.<\/p>\n

If you’re a reasonably read feminist already, then you won’t find much here that’s new, and it will sometimes annoy you. But it’s an accessible, quick, enjoyable read, and one that’s sufficiently transgressive for the young in particular to be excited by it – so all in all a good addition to the feminist library.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A shorter version was published on Blogcritics If you move in feminist circles, there\u2019s really no choice this summer \u2013 you have to read Caitlin Moran\u2019s How To Be A Woman: otherwise, you won\u2019t be able to keep up with the conversations. And it\u2019s not hard to see why it has made a splash \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-feminism","author-natalieben"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3846"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3849,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions\/3849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}