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Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven't been burned as witches since 1727, life isn't exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get Brazilians? Why do bras hurt? Why the incessant talk about babies? And do men secretly hate them? Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women's lives with laugh-out-loud funny scenes from her own, from the riot of adolescence to her development as a writer, wife, and mother. With rapier wit, Moran slices right to the truth-whether it's about the workplace, strip clubs, love, fat, abortion, popular entertainment, or children-to jump-start a new conversation about feminism. With humor, insight, and verve, How To Be a Woman lays bare the reasons why female rights and empowerment are essential issues not only for women today but also for society itself.… (more)
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Second, I love that this book makes me feel that I am normal. That I might just be a woman and not have known it for a while. I don't have it all together; I'm only beginning to figure out how to look at myself in a mirror without seeing a list of problems to fix. But, I have done things, and fixed things, and learned things, and have tried to take some of my share back from the patriarchy, dammit. I AM A STRIDENT FEMINIST. Regardless of whether I like handbags and shoes and the occasional frilly accessory. And that's what I love about this book. What I devoured it within a span of 20 hours. My problem with those one star reviews is that they are taking this thing way too seriously. Why can't feminism be fun? Why can't feminism be full of inappropriate language and some flat-out bitching, and revelation of our inner lives?
One of the seemingly most contentious parts of this book, according to reviews, is not the frank discussion of the positive consequences of an abortion, or the chapter about the subtle sexism that just happens without people immediately realizing it's happened until, suddenly, you're faced with the thought that, hey, maybe that was sexism. No, instead, the most controversial part of the book seems to be the discussion about women's need to have something to call their lady bits. Which, quite frankly, is a discussion I feel like I've been having since 8th grade. But I love that this is what is causing 1 star reviews. This says, to me, that the other, arguably more 'feminist' parts of the book are regarded not as controversial, but as discussions we should already be having.
This book is not going to be for everyone. Moran's writing is in your face, often includes curse words, frank discussions of sexuality, body hair, and employs a great deal of all-caps, exclamation-pointed fragments. But I do hope it is something every woman would be willing to read, if for no other reason than to hate it and disagree with everything Moran says. Because that is where feminism truly is, isn't it? In the formation, discussion, and ownership of one's opinions and the belief that these opinions matter.
I'm not entirely sure what I thought about this book. A funny, observant but possibly slightly over-exaggerated memoir of poverty in Wolverhampton, rock writing in London and marriage; the parts on childbirth and abortion were excellently, very powerfully and affectingly done. The
It was very rude in places - I slightly blushed to read it on the bus - but I could see the background in Woman Words Mary Daly type stuff, in wishging to reclaim and celebrate certain words, Simone de Beauvoir made it de rigueur to talk about our Biology as Destiny - and, after all, I partly chose Germaine Greer's "Female Eunuch" as my Sixth Form prize for being Library Prefect because I had already read it and knew it was quite saucy about certain things, but I just wonder how people without a grounding in previous feminist writings will take this (which sounds pretentious, I know) and the research done on Twitter did make me giggle - surely some people just made that stuff up!
I'm glad someone's out there engaging with feminism, and it was a brave book (but amidst all the personal details I don't think we ever lost our virginity, even though we went through pretty well everything else with the author), but I would have liked that acknowledgement of Moran's near-contemporaries (like me!) and I do wonder if it's actually converted anyone to the Cause yet. But some great read-out-loud moments, too.
So, I still don't know what I thought about it, but I'm glad I read it.
The memoir bits are good, she is funny but also
Still though sometimes I just got bored, its a bit too periodic in nature (each chapter dealing with a topic) and some topics were just alien to me, I feel no need to conform through clothes or work, I have no desire to go for a Brazilian and celebratory gossip passes me by.
So to be honest I usually wished she would get back to the memoir and therefore I cannot wholly recommend it, it’s often an interesting and fun book but your mileage might vary.
Caitlin manages to write a book that is 100% confident. She is funny, readable, likeable, and honest, I broadly greatly agree with her, and even in the bits where I'm finding myself going 'well, it's all a bit more complicated than that, isn't it?' I admire her clear sightedness and her commitment to her own opinion and her cause. She manages to talk about her own love for her children as the most wonderful thing that has happened to her, and still demand women can live colourful and meaningful lives without children.
I thought I was pretty educated on feminism 101, and I enjoyed the book but didn't find many things in it I hadn't encountered before (except for a rant about Katie Price that was more than I wanted to know about her, and is definitely one of the more dated bits of the book). But Caitlin talking honestly about her own abortion, in a 'I have two kids, I'm happily married, I didn't want a third kid, it didn't leave me guilty for years, I made the right decision' way felt very personal and honest, and an area that doesn't get spoken about enough.
This is not your book for intersectionality - Caitlin knows a lot about the world, and the patriarchy, but mostly the bits of the world you get running around London in the 1990s music scene, where if you feel pressured to buy a £500 handbag you can do it and regret it, and where you genuinely do meet lots of women with plastic surgery - but it is a good part of the tapestry of 'things some women do' and 'things some women feel' and 'what might be wrong with the world that this happens'
But I agree with all the other people who have pointed out the discrepancies or disappointments after reading the entire book. Possibly better to read her columns or articles on
As with most women writers of a suffragette nature, I don't agree with all she has to say(Greer as some interesting points to make, but she does tend to go the extreme), but Moran's chapters on bras and shoes are hilarious, so I forgive her more superfluous ideas(like tasting menstrual blood).
How To Be a Woman is not just feminist jottings though. It begins with Moran's childhood, packed with biographical memories and life-forming experiences that take her from a frumpy 13 year old to a confident, but not necessarily driven professional. As with all good feminists, she makes no apologies for any of her deci
sions or acts of lunacy. Thankfully! What she does do is entertain with a comically honest approach to life on the female side. If you don't take your liberation views too seriously, you'll certainly enjoy this book.
1913 – Suffragette throws herself under the King’s horse.
1969 – Feminists storm Miss World.
NOW – Caitlin Moran rewrites The Female Eunuch from a bar stool and demands to know why pants are getting smaller. There’s never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the
Why are we supposed to get Brazilians?
Should you get Botox?
Do men secretly hate us?
What should you call your vagina?
Why does your bra hurt?
And why does everyone ask you when you’re going to have a baby?
Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers these questions and more in How To Be A Woman – following her from her terrible 13th birthday (‘I am 13 stone, have no friends, and boys throw gravel at me when they see me’) through adolescence, the workplace, strip-clubs, love, fat, abortion, TopShop, motherhood and beyond.
SCREAM! I loved this book, it is like spending an evening with your new, very funny/very clever,best friend.
This is a gloriously funny, witty memoir that will have you snorting with laughter within 5 mins. Let's be honest it is not going to become a academic tome of feminist philosophy but underneath all the jokes is a 'short, sharp feminist agenda'. Be happy in yourself and women stop falling for the lies the world tells us about what it is to be a woman - and as a result, start having a good time. ENDOV!!
"Because if all of the stories in this book add up to one single revelation, it is this: to just...not really give a shit about all that stuff. To not care about all those supposed 'problems' of being a woman. To refuse to see them as problems at all. Yes - when I had my massive feminist awakening, the action it provoked in me was...a big shrug," says Moran
I have no idea if this was due to fatigue or writer's block or rushing to deadline, but it felt to me like Moran had some great material to begin the book but then struggled to maintain that standard. I think that it would have benefited from Moran having really argued through the later material with people before commiting it to paper.
Perhaps another reason is that the first part corresponded to the earlier part of her life, which was generally more interesting than the later parts, dealing with a more settled and successful Moran. She was also perhaps rather too pleased that she hit it off with Lady Gaga.
All that said, the first half or so was very good. Her life has been interesting and unconventional and her descriptions of her family are particularly vivid. It's brave, honest (I think) and at times very funny. And she's a good writer - on occasion she has a cracking turn of phrase. (I don't like her use of upper case for emphasis - particularly later in the book where it seems to stand in for well-honed argument. To paraphrase: "this is my point of view that should be reasoned through carefully BUT INSTEAD SARKY HUMOUR IN ALL-CAPS FTW!")
So while I think it fails as a true manifesto of "strident feminism", as too many of the arguments are insufficiently supported, taken as a whole it still seems to me a valid and worthwhile approach to how to live one's life as a modern-day strident feminist.
And all that said - I've written more about this book than most, so that indicates that I feel it's worthy of some attention.
Newsflash: feminism that doesn't advocate for ALL women is no better than patriarchy.
Of course, I didn't know I wanted to read it until I started reading it and I kept wanting to discuss EVERYTHING I read with someone else. It's the first time I was truly
There were a few occasions where I had to Google something very British - Sindy, Katie Price, The Wombles - but I like to learn about other cultures, so that was fun. And the Olympics are in London and happening now so I felt like I was more involved in the whole Anglophile thing, you know?
Great read. Now I must find out more about Caitlin Moran.
This was reaffirmed when I heard an NPR interview with Caitlin Moran. She spoke intelligently about a variety of topics facing women and was very humorous in doing so. She sounded like someone I would like: funny, self-deprecating, and smart.
So did the book live up to my expectations? Not so much. The main reason is that instead of a funny feminist manifesto, the book is basically a memoir that should have been titled How to Be Caitlin Moran. Not that that is a bad thing as I still find Moran likable, but I generally do not like memoirs. I was expecting a book of ideas. And there are wide swaths of Moran's life that I simply can't relate to. Other than the chapter I Am a Feminist!, there's surprisingly little feminism in the book other than sprinkling the term "strident feminist" in some seemingly incongruous places (such as "But what am I wearing, now? As a strident feminist, how am I dressed?" [202] in the chapter I Get Into Fashion!). As though there's some sort of feminist dress code? It may be simpler to split this up into what I did and did not like about the book, so without further ado:
What I Did Like About the Book
1. From the chapter on feminism, Moran presents a simple test for discovering whether or not you're a feminist: "So here is the quick way of working out if you're a feminist. Put your hand in your underpants. a. Do you have a vagina? and b. Do you want to be in charge of it? If you said 'yes' to both, then congratulations! You're a feminist" (75). She makes the point that almost every woman in the Western world is a feminist, whether they like being associated with that "dirty word" or not. Even women who say they're not feminists are enjoying the fruits of feminism as there was a time when a woman wasn't allowed to have an opinion, let alone express it. Being in charge of one's reproductive rights is a much larger issue than that of abortion. Deciding for yourself if you want to have one child, fifteen children, or none at all, thank you very much, is a right women haven't traditionally had before. Being able to say "enough already" is certainly a right women should be thankful for as so many women who came before us dropped a kid yearly, preferably sometime between clearing away the breakfast dishes and making supper.
2. Moran's funny, unapologetically irreverent take on everything. I didn't always agree with her views, but admired that she had the daring to say them. If there's one thing you can't claim, it's that she's inauthentic.
3. Her chapter on marriages. Weddings have become a ridiculously high-priced event that generally makes everyone involved miserable.
4. The extremely honest chapter about her own experience with abortion. Agree or disagree with abortion, so many make up their mind without having lived through it or, you know, asking the women of a society what they think. Reading about it from a personal level brings up some interesting points for thought and reflection.
5. Moments like this: "This is the first time I've really been out in the world and met adults. Previously, all my socializing took place on the dance floor and in the bathroom of the Raglan, a tiny dark pit populated by fringed, boot-wearing teenagers: essentially a playpen with a bar. Our innocence was obvious--it shone in our faces the same way our teeth glowed white under the UV light. Yes, people were having sex, and fighting, and spreading rumors, and taking drugs--but it was essentially like tiger cubs knocking each other around, claws velveted. We were all equal. There was no calculation or recrimination. Everything was forgotten after a nap" (117). I just like that.
What I Did Not Like About the Book
1. Dear GOD!!!!! I did not like all of the FREAKING UNNECESSARY CAPITALIZATION that made me feel like I was reading an unhinged TEENAGER'S DIARY!!! And for the love of all that is punctuation, would someone please remove the exclamation mark from Moran's keyboard? Early in the book, I thought this was just an affectation meant to show how the teenage Moran thought and felt; however, it continued, unrelentingly throughout the entire book. Every single chapter title ended with an exclamation.
2. There were some squirm worthy moments: I did not enjoy reading about Moran's early experiences with menstruation. I did not enjoy the suggestion that one should taste one's menstrual blood. I did not enjoy the suggestion that one should name one's vagina and one's breasts. Granted, I'm the type of person who perpetually lives in fear of TMI--Caitlin Moran clearly does not.
3. The suggestion that Lady GaGa is a feminist and should be placed upon a pedestal. To me, a feminist icon should be one who presents ideas. GaGa strikes me more as someone who is reaping the benefits of feminism, but not adding much new to the conversation. She is definitely a polarizing lightning rod, but more in the realm of image and sexuality. She definitely confronts and shatters stereotypes, but beyond that adds little to the conversation.
4. The fact that there's so little feminism in a book supposedly about feminism.
The title nearly stopped me reading this. It sounds prescriptive. How Caitlin became a Woman would be possibly better, or a variation thereof. This isn't about being a woman but about Caitlin's philosophy on life, at least some of which I agree with.
"As I have said, in the same way that you can tell if some sexism is happening to you by asking the question 'Is this polite, or not?', you can tell whether some misogynisstic societal pressure is being exerted on women by calmly enquiring, 'And are the men doing this, as well?'
If they aren't, chances re you're dealing with what we strident feminists refer to as 'some total fucking bullshit'"
and there's a lot of it around. This book is excellent at looking at some of the bullshit and calling it just that, but she makes the error of assuming that if it's like this for her, then that's how it should be for everyone.
However, I loved her opinion on shoes, bags and clothes (Word!) and it was refreshing to see someone else who has some of the same opinions as me about a lot of this stuff.
Her milestones aren't my milestones, I'm me, this is not a prescription for everyone but it is a refreshing change to some of the everywoman loves pink, shoes and cute because of biology rubbish that's out there.
The beginning made me...well, just uncomfortable. All those bad words, and that intimate stuff about teenage discoveries and the attendant angst. Then there was the bit about those bad words, and one word in particular, that we
And then I started laughing. This book is really hilarious. Laugh out loud funny, as cliched as that is. Even the generous use of capitalization and exclamation marks, something that normally drives me batty, were funny, very tongue-in-cheek. Funny enough to keep me completely entertained while the author segued to the serious stuff with hardly a notice by me. The chapter on abortion was not funny but was so soul-baringly honest that I found it very touching.
The message is especially important too. I am probably not mainstream audience for this book, being older (and not British) so I didn't get some of the references. And I've heard most of this feminism stuff before and am old enough to not take the accomplishments of early feminists lightly. Nothing terribly enlightening in this book. What is wonderful is that all of this, all the feminist stances and those that seem almost the opposite of feminism, were strung together in such a smart, funny, and, against all odds, respectful way.
I don't always have the same opinions as the author, but most of them are spot-on from my point of view. I recommend this book for anyone able to deal with bad language, explicit descriptions, and a great deal of honesty.
I was given a copy of this book by the publisher.