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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.
“Scathingly funny….Moran makes us think about femininity and feminism, and whether you agree or not, she’s fascinating.”
How funny is Caitlin Moran's neo-feminist manifesto and memoir, How to Be a Woman? Don't read it with a full bladder — and not just because in Moran's opinion, "100,000 years of male superiority has its origins in the simple basis that men don't get cystitis." Never mind discussion: you could spend a whole book group session flagging favorite lines. And, although it's decidedly female-centric, open-minded men should enjoy the ribald humor and privileged view. Here she is, for example, excoriating high heels, which she thinks are suitable for "only ten people in the world, tops?. And six of those are drag queens": "Women wear heels because they think they make their legs look thinner, end of. They think that by effectively walking on tiptoes, they're slimming their legs down from a size 14 to a size 10. But they aren't, of course. There is a precedent for a big fat leg dwindling away into a point — and it's on a pig."
Moran, a wildly entertaining, award-winning, profane, and prolific London Times columnist born in 1975, takes up where one of her heroes, Germaine Greer, left off in The Female Eunuch. While she acknowledges the importance of traditional feminist issues like pay inequality and domestic abuse, her focus is on smaller indignities, including such painful trappings of nouvelle womanhood as skimpy underpants and torturous bikini waxes. Just as New York's Mayor Giuliani once adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward graffiti and broken windows, she argues, we must do the same for these sexist "broken windows." Why? Because "if we live in a climate where female pubic hair is considered distasteful, or famous and powerful women are constantly pilloried for being too fat or too thin, or badly dressed, then, eventually people start breaking into women, and lighting fires in them." Moran's brand of consciousness-raising stresses the importance not just of equality but of politeness and respect.
Like Tina Fey's memoir, Bossypants, which also takes on sexism with humor, Moran's book opens with the onset of her period, a rude awakening for which she was woefully ill prepared. Both writers prove that, contrary to bad images of yore, even strident feminists can be funny. But unlike Fey, who had a comfortable American childhood, Moran, the oldest of eight children, grew up poor in a three-bedroom council house in Wolverhampton, England. Her father, barely mentioned except when he shows up at her wedding smelling of whisky in a shoplifted suit and shoes, was a rock musician. Her mother — well, her mother was busy. When thirteen-year-old Moran follows her into the bathroom to ask whether menstruation will hurt, "Even though she is doing a wee and holding a sleeping baby [and is eight months pregnant!], she is also sorting out a white wash from the washing basket." Her mother has time for just one bewildering answer before they're interrupted by the crying baby: "Yeah?. But it's okay."
Dry towels, new undies, and privacy were all in equally short supply in the Moran household. The whole family was seriously overweight, which Moran attributes in part to their snack of choice, cheese lollipops — chunks of cheddar on a fork. Her sisters made it clear how much they were looking forward to her moving out and ceding her space to them. Her formal education stopped at eleven. Still, she not only survived but thrived, with her "boundlessly positive?ebullience" intact. She read vociferously, changing her name from Catherine to Caitlin after becoming obsessed by a Jilly Cooper novel when she was thirteen. She left home permanently at sixteen, writing her way into early jobs covering pop culture at Melody Maker and, not much later, The Times. By twenty-four, she was happily married to a fellow critic at The Times, and by twenty-seven she had two daughters.
In two dialectic chapters, "Why You Should Have Children" and "Why You Shouldn't Have Children," Moran discusses some of the pros and cons of procreating. Interestingly, even in a later chapter about her decision to terminate a pregnancy that would have resulted in a third child, she doesn't explicitly cite her mother's overly fecund example as a cautionary deterrent. But she does make a strong case for a woman's right to choose, and the paramount importance of a baby being "wanted, desired, and cared for by a reasonably sane, stable mother." She doesn't mince words when describing the pain of childbirth but notes that the joys of motherhood are "like being mugged by Cupid."
There's some comfort in Moran's book coming out so soon after Nora Ephron's death. How to Be a Woman is a welcome successor to such witty classics of female frankness as Ephron's "A Few Words About Breasts," "I Feel Bad About My Neck," and "On Maintenance." Like Ephron's, Moran's default mode is barbed humor and self-deprecation. She's near-maniacally exuberant — her text is exclamation point-happy — though less susceptible to the enchantments of fashion and the trappings of femininity than Ephron was.
Not for her the skimpy undies she calls "arse-trinkets," symptomatic of what she calls "pantorexia": "These tight, elasticated partitions across the mid- derrière are, in terms of both comfort and aesthetics, as cruel as the partition between India and Pakistan." And further, because the personal is after all political: "It cannot have gone unnoticed that, as a country, our power has waned in synchronicity with the waning of our undies?. Now that the average British woman could pack a week's worth of underpants into a matchbox, we have little more than dominion over the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Isle of Man."
The temptation is to just keep quoting. She's got riffs on names for her various body parts and rants on the preponderance of sleeveless dresses, going all-caps to emphasize her vexation: "IF EVERY WOMAN IN THIS COUNTRY WERE ALLOWED TO COVER HER UPPER ARMS, AS GOD INTENDED, PRESCRIPTIONS OF XANAX WOULD HALVE IN A FORTNIGHT." She comments trenchantly that "normal women buy clothes to make them look good; whereas the fashion industry buys models to make the clothes look good."
Moran is at her most brilliant on Brazilian bikini waxes, an unwelcome result of boys learning about sex from watching Internet porn, where hairlessness rules. These boys grow up to be "as panicked by pubic hair as Victorian art critic John Ruskin apparently was in 1848." Proclaiming herself "vagina retro," she exclaims, "I can't believe we've got to the point where it's basically costing us money to have a vagina. They're making us pay for maintenance and upkeep of our lulus, like they're a communal garden. It's a stealth tax."
But the jokes aside, How to Be a Woman offers plenty to discuss. Sexism, Moran warns, can be hard to scope out these days, "a bit like Meryl Streep in a new film: sometimes you don't recognize it straightaway." Are facelifts and stilettos really signs of deeper societal prejudices or just silly fashions? Is the pressure for women (but not men) to have children external or internal? How restrictive is the so-called glass ceiling? Moran claims that it's hard to see precisely because it's made of glass: "What we need is for more birds to fly above it and shit all over it, so we can see it properly." A clarion call to soar unimpeded in feminist skies.
Further reading: If you're up for more feminist-inflected humor, Tina Fey's aforementioned Bossypants includes plenty of sparkling discussion of balancing children and work and making it in the formerly predominantly male world of stand-up comics and television. Nora Ephron's Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women, published in 1975, the year Moran was born, and I Feel Bad About My Neck (2006) are joyously snappy reads. Crazy Salad includes not just Ephron's classic essay about breasts but "Dealing with the, uh, Problem" — in which she took on feminine hygiene sprays, an earlier attempt to make women self-conscious about their vaginas. In a more academic vein, Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch (1970) will take you back to Moran's inspirational source. Like Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949), reading it now underscores how far we've come. But, as Moran comes to realize, the goal isn't to learn how to be a woman but something much more important: how to be human.
Heller McAlpin is a New York–based critic who reviews books for NPR.org, The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications.
Reviewer: Heller McAlpin
Prologue: The Worst Birthday Ever 1
Chapter 1 I Start Bleeding! 15
Chapter 2 I Become Furry! 41
Chapter 3 I Don't Know What To Call My Breasts! 57
Chapter 4 I Am A Feminist! 71
Chapter 5 I Need A Bra! 89
Chapter 6 I Am Fat! 103
Chapter 7 I Encounter Some Sexism! 119
Chapter 8 I Am In Love! 143
Chapter 9 I Go Lap-dancing! 165
Chapter 10 I Get Married! 177
Chapter 11 I Get Into Fashion! 195
Chapter 12 Why You Should Have Children 217
Chapter 13 Why You Shouldn't Have Children 235
Chapter 14 Role Models And What We Do With Them 247
Chapter 15 Abortion 269
Chapter 16 Intervention 285
Postscript 297
Acknowledgements 311
Jenny Lawson: In the first chapter of your book you use the words “irascible,” “subjugated,” “portentously,” and “nil desperandum.” Do you think you're smarter than me?
Caitlin Moran: There's no WAY I'm smarter than you, because you have never smoked so much marijuana you tried to get a stoned wasp and a worm to fight by putting them in a jar together.
Lawson: Up until two days ago I thought that Germaine Greer and Greer Garson were the same people. Am I going to have my feminist card revoked?
Moran: It's okay! NO AMERICANS KNOW WHO GERMAINE GREER IS! NEITHER DO EUROPEANS! She appears to be a "Britain only" femnomenon (I hope you've seen what I've done there. Made a very ugly portmanteau word.) I've found out that in Europe, you have to translate "Germaine Greer" as "Simone de Beauvoir." They get it then. And THEN you tell them about how Greer appeared on the cover of Oz magazine with her marmoset on full display, and their minds get blown all over again.
Lawson: Is there anything you've written that you wish you could go back and change?
Moran: I honestly wish I'd put more shagging in. I REALLY want to write pornography. Beautiful filthy hot porn in which chicks get their rocks off in beautifully decorated rooms and/or a hayrick during the Harvest.
Lawson: If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?
Moran: I would be THE PERSON IN A BAR BUYING YOU A JUG OF MARGARITAS, JENNY LAWSON. Stop living in another country! I want to take you to a certain club in East London where they have a pool on the roof, and we jump in, pissed. When it's only 6pm.
Lawson: What part of your book are you most proud of?
CM: LITERALLY all of it - I tried to write it with such good heart, as a love-letter to all the ladies in the world wondering if it's just THEM thinking this is all bullshit. IT NEVER IS! WE'RE ALL THINKING IT! But, aside from that, remembering that my sister called my dog "a lesbian vampire" when it ate my sanitary pad. The whole thing was just WRONG.
Caitlin Moran, author of How To Be a Woman,
interviews
Jenny Lawson, author of Let's Pretend This Never Happened
Caitlin Moran: Do you feel you've ever actually gone too far? Is there something you wouldn't write about?
Jenny Lawson: Surprisingly, I do have a lot of boundaries, even considering how filter-less I am about myself. I don't write other people's stories and I don't write things that I think will hurt anyone in the long run.
Caitlin Moran: Would you actually like it if the world changed so much you were considered normal?
Jenny Lawson: If the world changed enough that I would be considered normal then that would mean that everyone else in the world was dysfunctionally weird and vaguely dangerous. Even my gynecologist. Um…no. I don't think I'd like that at all.
Caitlin Moran: Which writers did you read and go "I could steal/use/love what they're doing there"?
Jenny Lawson: Dorothy Parker. I want to go back in time and kidnap her and feed her martinis while I take credit for all of her work. That's not crazy. Probably.
Caitlin Moran: If you could have a stuffed animal doing anything, what would it be? Would you be freaked out if someone made you a Jenny Lawson Squirrel, or Raccoon?
Jenny Lawson: I want a tiny (died of old age) mouse with curlers in her hair and a blowdryer in her hand. Or maybe a small raccoon in jams just to remind me of my childhood.
Caitlin Moran: If the internet didn't exist, what would you do with your time?
Jenny Lawson: I'd probably invent the internet. Starting with twitter.
Anonymous
Posted July 21, 2012
This is a terrific, provocative and thought provoking book on feminisim and all things, "woman," in general; however, it is not for everyone's tastes.
***If you are easily offended by four letter words on a broad, or body-specific basis--you'll probably want to stay away. Moran is an intelligent, articulate writer, but she gleefully embraces her vulgarities, even defending her use of one particularly offensive word. While the language can be blunt, it simply comes across as being HER, her personality and her view of womanhood; for me, it did not come across as a blatant attempt to be shocking--it's just who she is, her experience. I found it alternately appropriate, funny and question-raising; I had no problem with it--but some readers might.
***As Moran is English, based in London and the book was originally published there--there are many references to British personalities, pop culture and every day life that some readers will not be familiar with. If it's bothersome, be prepared to do some Googling.
***A feminist-treatise, this is also a memoir; Moran is "no holds barred" on her personal revelations. At times, this reads as "TMI" with raw, humiliating, cringe-worthy recounts of her coming of age: as one of 8 kids she relates, with brutal honesty, the traumas of being welfare-poor to the point her hand-me-downs included her mother's old underpants and the stifling lack of privacy.
***Her sister, Caz, emerges as a prize scene-stealing supporting character--some of the best lines are from her
***Moran is a wickedly funny, highly intelligent writer and thinker; don't assume because this book is funny, it's not serious. It tackles everything from body image/hair/functions, to sex, marriage, kids and abortion. It is a perfect read for discussion with your closest friends as Moran talks about these subjects in intimate ways that many of us wish we could emmulate.
I find her views refreshing and bold--and comforting: it reminds us that being a woman--struggling to come into our womanhood--is traumatic, often gross, humilating and heartbreaking. Yet Moran reminds us we are not alone in our "female" struggles and ultimately, to find joy, in who and what we are.
Not for everyone's taste, but for those who jump in--I think you will enjoy the ride--this is a worthwhile read that absolutely needs to be discussed, laughed over, and debated.
26 out of 27 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.SC_Paula
Posted July 20, 2012
Caitlin Moran's How To Be a Woman is wildly funny and at the same time a great introduction to a modern idea of what it means to be a feminist. To quote the author, "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." Moran tackles everything from menstruation to masturbation, hair removal, underwear size, and abortion in a very honest and hilarious fashion. As a side note, I learned about this book when Caitlin and Jenny Lawson aka The Blogess (who is also ridiculously funny and the author of Let's Pretend This Never Happened) interviewed each other.
10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted September 5, 2012
This book is an unapologetic feminist rant, wrapped in an entertaining autobiography. It treats some very important issues with thought-provoking comments, but also is peppered with a good deal of humor. There are some really important take-away messages that nicely summarize the situation for women and our place in society. I really liked how she suggested that asking simple questions could help assess important problems like harassment and oppression/inequality: "is that polite?" and "are the men doing this?"
There is a lot of strong language that may be off-putting to some readers, and as the author is from the U.K. there is some usage that may be unfamiliar to US readers. In addition, there is quite a bit of slang that may be unfamiliar to readers who are not as steeped in popular culture, but it does not interfere with the reading of the book (and can be entertaining to look up). This is the sort of book that our daughters should read and consider, but it might be better (depending on the daughter's age) if we didn't know they were reading it!
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 19, 2012
For me, this book was a revelation. It didn't move anyone out of my
"top ten" list, but I hope my daughters read it when they are
18ish. they are strident feminists at age 6 and 9. ya know....because
that's how all kids are born.....as strident feminists. which is the
exact thing about this book that causes me to call it a revelation.
feminism isn't something you aspire too, or want. being a feminist isn't
something you become. it's the opposite of feminism that's unnatural and
enforced on us by people that don't have our best interests at heart. we
are all born with the tools. they get taken away. this book helped me
realize that I don't want those tools taken away from my kids. for that
reason, I think *you* should read it.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 6, 2012
Everyone, male or female, should read this book. Funny, fierce, and relevant as hell. The cover says it's a British Bossypants, but its much funnier, and more important, than that. Mixes memoir, humor, and polemic in a wonderfully readable way. Yeah, if you're squeamish and too precious for profanity it probably won't be your cup of tea. But women's bodies and lives are messy and real, and the way women's bodies and lives are cheapened and commodified, especially by the pronography industry, deserves to be called the bull**** that it is. Caitlin Moran comes across as someone you'd love to have a pint or two with down at the pub.
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.No, it's not Jenny Lawson - she's a different kind of funny. This has some similar moments BUT is more of memoir/polemic. Happy to see feminism is alive and well in the world. Definitely worth reading!
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 8, 2012
Hilarious. I laughed so much while nursing my toddler that i woke her up. I would love to use excerpts of this in the feminism course i am teaching this fall.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 8, 2012
I was very excited to read this. Once I started I was disappointed almost immediately. I gave it a chance and kept plugging away at it hoping it would get funny. It never did. Had to stop reading it. It is very rare for me to not finish a book. Yes, it was that bad.
2 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted July 29, 2012
I bought this book because it was described as the British version of Jenny Lawson's book, which I loved. After reading 80 pages of How To Be A Woman, I am not planning on finishing it. Its humor is sub par compared to Let's Pretend This Never Happened. I hope my mother doesn't pick this book up off our bookshelf and be horrified to read that 13 year olds are masturbating, and getting bikini waxes and fingered. It wasn't true for me 7 years ago when I was that age, and I really don't think that much has changed since then. It's just a really weird book so far, but I suppose that is Britain for ya?
Anyway, if you're interested in the subject of feminism, this book should suit your fancy; otherwise, don't pick it up expecting a similar book to Jenny Lawson's!
2 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.DoubleDekker
Posted March 20, 2013
This is a hilariously vulgar and accurate book about what some women experience with life. Only a snobbish bore wouldn't be able to find a good laugh in this book! Caitlin shares a very intimate part of what most women endure in their lives. Her profanity and honesty may bother some. But as a fellow user of profanity in a male dominated world where women are encouraged to be more ladylike with the way we speak, it is a breath of fresh air.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 29, 2012
Not good, do not buy!
1 out of 15 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Nothing funny about it and I was disappointed. I was laughing like a maniac while reading Jenny Lawrence's book, I love Chelsea Handler and Jen Lancaster, I anticipated this book to be in that genre. Repulsive, nothing funny about it offensive, never cracked a smile.
1 out of 14 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 31, 2013
I like this story
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 20, 2013
Hilarious, she hits the nail on the head with her witty and somtimes sobering insights!!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 28, 2013
Good insights into contemporary life.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 16, 2013
I am sure others will like it, but I just couldn't finish this. They say "chatty" but her rambling on the subjects bored me.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 15, 2013
Moran is hilarious and accurate about the journey to being a woman. I find myself giggling at her childhood stories as i think back to my own experiences when growing up. Love love love!
pearl86
Posted February 10, 2013
Good
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.enigmaticblue
Posted January 18, 2013
I very much enjoyed this book. It was funny and smart, and I wish I'd read it when I was 18, and still wondering what it meant to be a woman. This isn't a how-to guide; it's an honest memoir and a hard look at what society tells us being a woman is all about.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Charlize_Manson
Posted January 10, 2013
As a young woman who is just starting to make her way in the world and figure out what it really MEANS to be a woman, this book made a perfect gift for me. While it is definitely not for everyone,and not an feminist manifesto like most people had hopes for, it';s a very honest, anecdotal memoir that taught me a lot about things no woman in my life ever really bothered to teach me. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
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Overview
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 ...